During WWI, the British probably had the largest fleet of warships in the world. Among them were a large number of cruisers. Interestingly, there was no distinction between heavy and light cruisers during this time, something I did not know until reading this book.

Post war, as is often the case, the UK went into austerity mode. The war, like all wars, was ruinously expensive for all involved and one was to handle this was to reduce the size of the military. For the Navy, this meant scrapping or mothballing ships. But not all nations were willing to stop building ships, and there was fear of an arms race. So, to help those who needed it, there were naval conferences held to limit the size and number of ships for all the major naval powers.

There was no real limitation on the size of small cruisers whose armament was under 8 inches. This began a rather steady building program to add what were later known as light cruisers to the fleet. These were generally armed with 6 inch main armament and were relatively low on the tonnage scale. Since tonnage was limited, it was found that one could build more of the smaller cruisers. Several of these were modified to anti-aircraft cruisers, though many were later converted back.

The British probably had one of the more generous allowances, based on their wartime tonnage totals than others, so a rather robust building program for various classes of light cruiser got underway. These 'treaty cruisers' proved very effective during the war to come as their speed and armament was such that then not only made good additions to the fleet, but were able to take on larger ships, thanks to the power and rapid rate of fire of their smaller guns. This was particularly so if they were able to get in fairly close as shown during the early war Battle of the River Platte where British light cruisers were able to damage the much larger gunned Graf Spee.

In this book, Angus Konstam takes a look at what led up to the building program between the wars and what was produced once all restrictions were removed. Though it is impossible to give much detail on each of the 65 light cruisers used by the Royal Navy, we are provided with information on each of the various classes and some information on each ship as to its use and fate.

This is superbly illustrated with a selection of period photos of these ships as well as the equally excellent art work or illustrator Paul Wright, who has ably illustrated several naval books. This includes a series of full color profiles. It is everything that makes the New Vanguard series one of my favorite from Osprey and a book I can easily recommend to you.

November 2012

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