Light cruisers for mines and torpedo defence

The design discussion frames light cruisers as independent-action ships that can complicate an opponent's movements rather than merely add hull numbers. The proposed vessels carry mines and torpedoes, plus a mixed six- and four-inch broadside, and are intended to make an approach costly. Thirty-two ships are ordered and distributed among home, Indian Ocean, Australian, African, Caribbean, and Pacific ports. That dispersion turns the design into a wider sea-denial network: an attacker may have to reckon with a locally based flotilla wherever it appears.