Town Class Cruiser Summary

3D Print Town Class Light Cruiser

An alternative to out of the box Axis and Allies pieces, 3D print opens a new world of customized pieces, where basically any historical ship can be obtained. We use 3D printed game pieces regularly to enhance the realism of our fleet and also to use as equipment upgrade paths during the game.

These 3D designs by EBard offer exceptional detail and combined with our custom painting and decal graphics, make these ships simply the finest 3D printed game pieces available. These are guaranteed to become the most prized pieces in your collection.

The Town class of light cruisers consisted of 10 ships. The Towns were designed to the constraints imposed by the London Naval Treaty of 1930. The ships were built in three distinct sub-classes, with each sub-class adding on further weaponry.

Southampton Sub-class
In the mid-1930s, the Arethusa-class cruiser 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 Brooklyn and Japanese Mogami-classes, the last two planned ships, Minotaur and Polyphemus, were cancelled and re-ordered as a new, much larger cruiser type, with the new ships named as Newcastle and Southampton. 

Gloucester  Sub-class
The subsequent Gloucesters, 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 and more propulsion power with 82,000 shp engines to maintain speed and add more electrical generation.

Edinburgh  Sub-class
The Edinburgh class were longer at 614 ft (187 m) compared to 592 ft (180 m), initially to allow a planned increase in the main armament, but due to the difficulties in manufacturing an effective quadruple 6 in turret, the class kept the original main armament. Other improvements included smaller secondary guns and additional armour protection.

Later improvements
All were heavily modified during the Second World War and after the Korean War; Glasgow, Sheffield and Newcastle 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 Edinburghs, 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.

Ships of Class:

• Newcastle    
• Southampton - Scuttled following air attack off Malta, January 1941
• Sheffield    
• Glasgow    
• Birmingham    
• Liverpool    
• Manchester - Scuttled following torpedo attack off Cap Bon, August 1942
• Gloucester - Sunk following air attack off Crete, May 1941
• Belfast    
• Edinburgh - Scuttled following torpedo attack, May 1942

Note: Sculpts of this class are identical.

Approximate dimensions (LWH): 55.5mm x 6.5 mm x 10mm

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