Cruiser machinery in a much lighter hull

The class put 72,000 shaft horsepower into a ship of roughly 3,500 tons. Town-class cruisers produced similar total power at roughly three to four times the displacement. With only two shafts, each Abdiel shaft carried about 36,000 horsepower, compared with about 21,125 on the four-shaft Town-class example. Official maximum speeds of 38 to 39.75 knots explain reports of the ships decisively outrunning destroyers. The mismatch affected flotilla work: an Abdiel could overtake the destroyers it operated with, and the Tenth Destroyer Flotilla later used a Dido-class cruiser instead. The figures turn the class's reputation for speed into a specific machinery and formation problem.