Editing Town-class cruiser (1936) (section)

===''Southampton''===
In the mid-1930s, the {{sclass|Arethusa|cruiser|1||1934}} was the Royal Navy's latest light cruiser design, with six vessels to be built. Following the new, heavily armed small cruisers of the United States {{sclass|Brooklyn|cruiser|5}} and Japanese {{sclass|Mogami|cruiser|0}}es, the last two planned ships, {{HMS|Minotaur||2}} and {{HMS|Polyphemus||2}}, were cancelled and re-ordered as a new, much larger cruiser type, with the new ships named {{HMS|Newcastle|C76|2}} and {{HMS|Southampton|83|2}}.<ref name="Name">Bassett (1988), p. 7.</ref>{{efn|In Bassett's book, it was speculated that the entire class would have conformed to a theme representative of Greek history and mythos had the Admiralty decided against renaming the two vessels.{{citation needed|date=April 2023}} }} 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 {{sclass|Leander|cruiser (1931)|0}} cruiser.<ref>Waters (2018), p. 7</ref>

Initially the class was designated the "M" or "Minotaur" class but was renamed the Town class in November 1934.<ref>Waters (2018), pp. 7–8</ref> Uniquely, the final ''Southampton'' class cruiser, ''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 (United Kingdom)|Admiralty]] doubting 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.<ref>Waters (2018), p. 17</ref>