Exeter improved York without rethinking the concept

Exeter was ordered two years after York and incorporated design improvements drawn from the earlier ship. Those refinements never revisited the underlying question of whether the original concept was sound. Seen from the aft mast forward, Exeter could almost pass for a regular County-class cruiser. Her more reduced after section still advertised the basic method of cutting down an existing design rather than creating a coherent Type B cruiser from first principles.