The Leanders as a middle tier between Arethusas and Towns

The later Town and Arethusa classes can make the Leanders seem compromised. Arethusas packed useful power into a smaller ship for confined waters, while the larger Towns offered more capability for demanding trade and fleet missions. That verdict uses later outcomes to judge an earlier design. Interwar constructors, officers, and politicians had trained amid distinctions among protected, armoured, and scout cruisers, so they thought in terms of missions as well as treaty gun calibres. In that contemporary setting, the Leanders were useful middle-tier cruisers for peacetime presence and wartime gap-filling. The design experience also helped produce the later cruiser classes used as the comparison.