The Admiral Saunders class used the same hull as the Christensen class with five years of upgrades and improvement incorporated into it. New boilers added a bit more power to the engines for a two knot increase in speed. Necessary to keep ahead of the Fleet in Scout mode. The four inline 6" gave a much better broadside capability with a uniform gun size. Much easier for the range finder on the bridge to make corrections from. The torpedoes had their own rangefinder on the bandstand between the aft 6" and the powerboat. An altogether much cleaner design



These ships proved the inline dominance for light cruisers over the 'broadside' cruisers that were being built for the Royal Navy (see Chatham Class and Birmingham Class). The Royal Navy then turned around and built 50 odd of the 'C' type light cruisers with inline armaments.

The early part of WW1 the ships were grouped with two Mikkelson class cruisers to form a hunting group for locating Admiral Spee's cruiser squadron. 1915 and the group was transferred to the Mediterranean as the 6th Cruiser Squadron operating with the pre-dreadnought Fleet that was tasked with taking the Gallipoli Peninsular and forcing Turkey out of the war. The rest of the war was spent in this duty. One ship being torpedoed and sunk by a U-boat in 1917. None of the remaining three ships made it to WW2 the last being scrapped in 1938.

 

Displacement	3,900 tons standard, 4,300 tons full load
Length	436 ft
Breadth	46 ft
Draught	17 ft
Machinery	4 shaft, steam turbines, 30,000ihp
Speed	27 knots
Range	5,000 miles at 10 knots
Armour	2" side, 1" deck
Armament	As completed 4 x 6" (4x1) 2 x 4" (2x1) replaced with 3" AA in 1917 2 x 2pd (2x1) replaced with 2pd AA in 1917
Torpedoes	4 x 18" (2x2)
Complement	420
Notes	Admiral Saunders - Commodore Roe - General Hawkins - Senator Handley -

 

Torpedo away!