Automatic loading answered both air attack and a manning shortage

Was anti-aircraft fire the main reason for automatic loading in postwar six-inch cruiser guns?

Only partly; high-angle rapid fire mattered, but the Royal Navy also needed to reduce gun crews as its available manpower contracted.

The projected rapid-fire six-inch mounting had a rate of roughly ten to twelve rounds per minute, with ten used as the conservative figure. Its anti-aircraft ammunition could alternate proximity and time fuzes, making automatic loading useful against air attack. A viewer asks whether that threat alone drove the machinery. A second institutional pressure was the Royal Navy's expectation of a serious postwar manpower shortage and its need to produce more firepower with fewer sailors.