The Town class consisted of 10
light cruiser
A light cruiser is a type of small or medium-sized warship. The term is a shortening of the phrase "light armored cruiser", describing a small ship that carried armor in the same way as an armored cruiser: a protective belt and deck. Prior to th ...
s built for the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...
during the 1930s. The Towns were designed to the constraints imposed by the
London Naval Treaty of 1930. The ships were built in three distinct sub-classes, the ''Southampton'', ''Gloucester'' and ''Edinburgh'' classes respectively, each sub-class adding on further weaponry.
Armament
![HMS Sheffield 6 inch turret 1941 IWM A 4401](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/HMS_Sheffield_6_inch_turret_1941_IWM_A_4401.jpg)
Like their US and Japanese counterparts of that era, the Town-class cruisers were "light cruisers" in the strict terms of the London Treaty, which defined a "light cruiser" as one having a main armament no greater than 6.1 in (155 mm) calibre. All three major naval powers sought to circumvent the limitations on heavy cruiser numbers by building light cruisers that were equal in size and effective power to
heavy cruiser
The heavy cruiser was a type of cruiser, a naval warship designed for long range and high speed, armed generally with naval guns of roughly 203 mm (8 inches) in caliber, whose design parameters were dictated by the Washington Naval T ...
s. These ships made up for their smaller calibre guns by carrying larger numbers of them.
All ships of the class carried
BL 6-inch Mk XXIII guns in triple turrets, with the centre gun mounted behind the two outer guns to prevent interference between the shells in flight and to give the gunners more room to work in. The turret roofs had cutouts at the front to allow extreme elevation, originally intended to give the guns an
anti-aircraft capability. In practice the guns could not be trained or manually loaded quickly enough for continuous anti-aircraft fire, so the Royal Navy designed the
Auto Barrage Unit (ABU) which allowed the guns to be loaded with time-fuzed shells and then fired when the target aircraft reached a set range. These ships were equipped with the
HACS
High Angle Control System (HACS) was a British anti-aircraft fire-control system employed by the Royal Navy from 1931 and used widely during World War II. HACS calculated the necessary deflection required to place an explosive shell in the l ...
AA fire control system for the secondary armament and the
Admiralty Fire Control Table Admiralty Fire Control Table in the transmitting station of .The Admiralty Fire Control Table (A.F.C.T.) was an electromechanical analogue computer fire-control system that calculated the correct elevation and deflection of the main armament of a R ...
for surface fire control of the main armament.
![HMS Belfast 3 db](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/HMS_Belfast_3_db.jpg)
The secondary armament consisted of four twin Mk XIX 4-inch turrets, and two quad pom-poms.
[ Additional light anti-aircraft weapons were added during the war and the 4-inch mounts were converted to Remote Power Control (RPC).][ Postwar the ''Birmingham'' and ''Newcastle'' were partially reconstructed in 1949–51 with enclosed bridges, new lattice masts, improved surface fire control and long range radar and an improved but still unreliable version of the Glasshouse Directors with 275 lock and follow radar, with flyplane control ][Friedman 2013] for the twin 4 inch guns with elevation speed increased to 15–20 degrees per second, to engage faster jet aircraft. Similar electronic alterations were made to ''Sheffield'' but it received less structural alteration. ''Liverpool'' was put into reserve in 1952 to preserve it for potential modernisation and ''Glasgow'' had a less extensive refit to allow her to be sent quickly if needed in the Suez crisis of 1956. ''Birmingham'', ''Newcastle'' and '' Sheffield'' had the pom pom and 20 mm armament replaced by 40mm Bofors mounts.[ '' Belfast'' was fitted with MRS 8 HACDT to combine 40 mm and twin 4 inch AA fire and to permit the use of 40 mm proximity fused ammunition as used by the British Army.
]
Sub-classes
''Southampton''
In the mid-1930s, the was the Royal Navy's latest light cruiser design, with the intention that it number six vessels. However, in response to new, heavily armed small cruisers of the United States and Japanese es, the last two planned ships, and , were cancelled and re-ordered as a new, much larger cruiser type, with the new ships named as and .[Bassett (1988), p. 7.] Based on the initial design chosen in November 1933, the estimated cost of the new ships was £2.1m each compared to an estimated cost of £1.6m each for a cruiser.
Initially the class was designated the "M" or "Minotaur" class but was renamed the Town class in November 1934.
Uniquely, the final ''Southampton'' class cruiser, HMS ''Birmingham'', was built with a fully flared bow and is easily distinguished by the lack of the prominent knuckle found on her sister-ships. This was due to some elements in the Admiralty being doubtful of the benefits offered by the knuckle design. This modification was introduced during construction in March 1935 but was not continued in the follow-on '' Gloucester'' class.
''Gloucester''
The subsequent ''Gloucester''s, added a second director control tower for two channels of fire at long range against ship or shore targets and better protection against plunging fire with a redesigned deck, an intermediate layer of armour above the magazines and machinery area and received thicker armour on the gun turrets. The extra weight is balanced with extra beam, increased from 64.02 ft in the Southampton to 64.10 ft in the three Gloucester ships and more propulsion power with 82,000 shp engines to maintain speed and add more electrical generation.
''Edinburgh''
The ''Edinburgh'' class were longer at compared to , initially to allow an increase in the main armament from twelve 6 in (152 mm) guns in four triple turrets as in the two previous sub-classes, to sixteen 6 in guns in four quadruple turrets. The idea was soon shelved however, due to the difficulties in actually manufacturing an effective quadruple 6 in turret, and so the class reverted to the original main armament design, although improved through a "long trunk" Mk XXIII turret design, which reduced the crew requirements and increased the speed of the ammunition hoists. Four extra 4 in (102 mm) "High Angle Low Angle" guns and eight extra 2-pounder (40 mm) guns and further armour protection were added instead.
Additional ships using the design of ''Belfast'' were considered by the Admiralty in 1940 but were eventually rejected.[Waters (2019), p. 46]
Later improvements
All were heavily modified during the Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
and after the Korean War
, date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
; , and had one aft turret replaced by two quad 40 mm Bofors guns during the Second World War, since there was insufficient space to fit the needed extra anti-aircraft guns and retain the turret. This was not a problem in the ''Edinburgh''s, because they were longer and had more room. They still had substantial modifications to their weaponry, including addition of 40 mm Bofors guns. The addition of radar equipment during the Second World War aided the ships' combat effectiveness.
Service
The first Town-class ship was launched in 1936 and commissioned in 1937, just two years before the outbreak of war. The class saw much service during the Second World War and took part in many famous actions, such as the sinking of the . Four, , , , and , were sunk during the war. The surviving ships continued in active service to the end of the 1950s, some seeing action during the Korean War. The last Town-class ship to be scrapped was ''Sheffield'' in 1967. One ship of the Town class — — remains, moored on the River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...
in London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
as a museum-ship of the Imperial War Museum, a role she has performed since 1971.
Ships
See also
* Crown Colony-class cruiser
Notes
References
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External links
{{Authority control
Cruiser classes
Ship classes of the Royal Navy