Royal Navy cruiser design began with a force-structure problem. The service needed cruisers in numbers rather than as superior one-on-one combatants, so each ship was necessarily a compromise. Excessive complexity or cost would reduce the number of hulls available for service. Naval architecture therefore had to account for fleet size as well as the capability of each cruiser.
Chapter · 11:09-12:20
Why the Royal Navy needed cruisers in quantity
Royal Navy cruiser design had to balance individual capability against the ability to build enough ships for fleet duties.