However there was quite an evolution and it’s why in the future all these classes will be treated separately.
After her service in the Eastern Fleet until 1926, she joined the North American and West Indies Station until 1932 and was back to the Eastern Fleet in 1932-1935, returned to the UK, placed into reserve.She served for the duration of the war, first with the Home Fleet, capturing the German merchant ship Henning Oldendorff SE of Iceland. On site, he served as a training ship for gunners. Afterwards she served with the 5th LCS at Harwich Force 1916-18, sinking the German torpedo-boat S 20 by gunfire off Belgian coast, 5 June 1917. The ‘C’ class were called artificially that way by most authors for simplification; This comprised the Caroline class on one hand, and the Calliope, Cambrian, Centaur, Caledon, Ceres, and Carlisle, relatively similar in design, concept, and specifications. She was paid off but served as troopship for some time. She was back home and sent there again in August 1921, until paid off in July 1923. in 1930. This was blamed later on the wild zig-zag pattern of the Queen Mary to escape possble U-Boat attacks.Curlew was laid built by Vickers Limited, commissioned on 14 December 1917. The latter joined the Royal Irish Navy branch at RNVR Belfast, used as an administrative base, then was refitted for preservation in the 1951 and is now a museum ship.In wartime, the Caroline’s two light guns were soon seen as useless and discarded, replaced by a single axial 6-in gun Mark XII. She was towed to Alexandria but was judged a total constructive loss was was summarily repaired to be used as a base ship in Alexandria in March 1944, hulked in 1948, broken up in 1949.HMS Colombo was in service with the 5th LCS at the China station until 1922 and joined the 4th LCS in the West Indies. Commander Skills for Light Cruisers. Placed in reserve, she was broken up in 1948.Calypso gathered the Greek royal family in 1922 after the abdication King Constantine of Greece when a military dictatorship seized power. She left the reserve in 1920 to join the Atlantic Fleet until 1928, making a short sweep in the Mediterranean Fleet in 1922–1923 during the Chanak Crisis. In March 1919 she joined the China station, up to 1923. In August 1940 HMS Carlisle served in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, evacuating troops from from Berbera (British Somaliland), then she joined the Eastern Fleet in August 1940; and later assigned to the Mediterranean Sea, and arrived by March 1941. She was the leader of the 13th Destroyer flotilla, from December 1915 to early 1919. Armament (ww1, same but two 2-pdr Pom Pom AA) 8 x 102 mm DP (4×2), 6 x 40 mm (1×4, 2×1) AA, 5 x 20 mm AA during WW2.In July 1917 HMS Ceres joined the 6th Light Cruiser Squadron, Grand Fleet. In 1919 she served with the 8th LCS with the north Amrican and east Indies station, but was hit by another boiler room fire, in the Azores in 1919.She was repaired at Devonport and returned to her station but in 1920-21 she was in reserve, recomm.
She was the only ship still in service during WW2, as an administrative center for the Londonderry escort coordination and C&C.Back to the RNVR it was decided to preserve her, and she was overhauled and completely restored to her original state by Harland & Wolff in 1951. In November 1924 the destroyer HMS Venomous (D75) hit and sank accidentally one of Calypso’s boats in Grand Harbour, Valletta, Malta but the four crew onboard were saved.During the early Second World War, Calypso served with the 7th Cruiser Squadron, Northern Patrol. So we will rather focus on the Calliope, which was the actual game changer and really setup the ‘C-class’.In size, these cruisers differed little, jumping from 136 to 137.6 m (446 – 451 feets), 12.6 m (41 ft 6 in) wide, 4.5-4.7 m draught (14-15 feets), and from 4230-4695 tonnes FL to 4290-5250 tons, and same speed of 29 knots for about 37,000 to 40,000 hp.
By the inter-war period the need for this type of ship was even more important, given the increasing need for protection from aircraft, and the need to screen the fleet from submarines or destroyers. She was hit four times but sank four trawlers minesweepers off Jutland later on 1st September 1917. Refitted in 1931–1932, she was back home with Home Fleet as Commodore (D).
In January 1940 she was refitted in Belfast, and sent to the Mediterranean.She made patrols in the Ionian Sea or off the Greek coast, intercepting axis ships. She was in reserve in 1933, paid off into dockyard control and was sold for BU in July 1934.
The first post WWI British light cruiser wasn’t lain down until 1930. Fast direct-drive ships were only capable of 29kts, but at much higher revolutions, therefore vibrations and therefore engine fatigue.Rearranging the boilers also made it possible to reduce the funnels to just two, a fate and a thinner, a classic ‘C’ class cruiser feature and an extra pair of 4in guns on the forecastle which was revised during the war into three 6-in guns. Many fought in Jutland and as AA escorts in WW2 The Curacoa followed the same reconversion in 1940, but with four twin turrets of the same model as the Dido class.