The Towns combined twelve 6-inch guns, aircraft facilities, large fuel capacity, and long range in hulls nominally near 10,000 tons but often heavier in practice. In this interpretation, they approached the qualities of surface raiders even though that was not their official purpose. The Royal Navy would have preferred an even heavier sixteen-gun battery if displacement and design allowed it. A successful high-elevation autoloading 8-inch mounting might have kept British development focused on heavy cruisers. A workable prewar 6-inch autoloader would likewise have transformed the firepower available from the Town design.
Chapter · 19:14-20:40
The Town class set the Royal Navy's cruiser benchmark
Large, long-ranged Town-class cruisers with twelve 6-inch guns set the Royal Navy's benchmark before treaty limits forced a smaller successor.