British Town Class Cruisers: Design Development and Performance: Southampton & Belfast Classes

by Conrad Waters

Entering service between 1937 and 1939, the ten British Town class cruisers were the most modern vessels of their type in the Royal Navy when World War II began. Built in response to large 6-inch gunned cruisers in the U.S. and Japanese navies and primarily designed for the defense of trade, they saw arduous service in a wide range of roles, playing a decisive part in victories such as the Battle of the Barents Sea and the destruction of the German Navy's Scharnhorst at the North Cape. The cost was heavy: four of the ships were lost and the other six all survived heavy damage, in some cases on more than one occasion.

In this major study, Conrad Waters makes extensive use of archive material to provide a technical evaluation of the Town class design and its subsequent performance. He outlines the class's origins in the context of interwar cruiser policy, explains the design and construction process, and describes the characteristics of the resulting ships and how these were adopted in the light of wartime developments. Heavily illustrated with contemporary photographs and drawings by A. D. Baker III, John Jordan, and George Richardson, British Town Class Cruisers provides a definitive reference to one of the Royal Navy's most important World War II warship designs.

288 pages, Hardcover

Published December 1, 2019

Reviews

[Shrike58 · Rating 5 out of 5]

A few years ago when I had the opportunity to read Erminio Bagnasco's study of the Italian "Littorio" class battleships, I thought that this was the model of what a class monograph should look like, while recognizing that it was going to be a rare event for a book on that scale to be published. With Conrad Waters' study of the "Town" class cruisers one has something of the same magnitude, and one can only be impressed with the amount of work and detail that went into this book. The caveat here is that this isn't a narrative history of the class, and those who are mostly interested in the men who crewed these ships might not find this their cup of tea. Otherwise, if you care about British warships, and cruisers in particular, you definitely want this book before it becomes a prohibitively expensive collector's item.

[Mike Grady · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extremely detailed book on the development, design, modifications and service histories of each of the World War II Royal Navy’s Town Class Cruisers. Lots of pictures and illustrations throughout.