he Armada could have succeeded the plan was simple and could have been effective. The Spanish had the strongest army in Europe and the English defences were not exactly good. All the Spanish had to do was get to the Low Countries pick up the armies, take them to Kent, March to London and dismiss Queen Elizabeth I of her throne. This plan was very simple, but could have been deadly if it had worked. The main reasons for it not working out were the communication problems. The messenger ships travelled the same speed, as the Armada so they were nearly useless and the communication between Parma’s army and the Armada were not good. On top of all of this the Armada had received message that Parma’s army was not ready when they were at Calais, however modern research shows that the army would have been ready in just 5 hours but the Armada didn't know this because of Parma's plan to keep it a secret that the invasion army was ready to give the English a surprise attack... unfortunately it didn't just fool the English, it fooled the Spanish as well.

Communication was not the only problem the planning was put together so quickly, King Philip hadn't thought of the area at all. The coast where Parma's army were waiting the coast was very shallow and not a very steep gradient at all. The sand was less than 20 metres deep for up to a mile out to sea and the Armada’s ships needed at least 20 metres. This meant that the ships couldn't pick up the army. That problem was soon solved when the army managed to get lightweight barges to transport the army across. A new problem arose, how did they get across to the Armada without the Dutch fleet seeing them and attacking them. If they were spotted the Dutch could kill them all and the Armada couldn't do anything about it because of the shallow water.