For a large destroyer the Waikato Class would have made pretty decent light cruisers. I do have a light cruiser armed with 8x4.5", the HMS Europa. That ship really is a light cruiser with much more light AA and electronics, bigger and with armour. The Waikato Class were of a size with the French Mogador type, but much slower. Whichever way you look at it, the ships were first class and were always in the thick of the fighting. Generally, one Waikato would team up with three to four Vendace or Albacore class ships to form flotillas that were more powerful than the twenty ship flotillas used at Jutland. The Waikato flotillas would be given whatever orders were necessary for their next deployment. Three or four flotillas might be sent together to screen the fleet. Originally eight ships were ordered, followed by another four in January 1939, then another four on the outbreak of war in September 1939.
Being in the Leader role, the Waikato Class, was always first into trouble. At the outbreak of war, six of the class had been completed, and all six were sent with the battlefleet to the European theater of war. Three were kept with the Fleet as the Escort Leaders. The other three were put in the General duties category for use wherever they were needed. All six swung around buoys at Scapa Flow during the phoney war. A couple of highlights was the Urewera and Cossack cruising off of the Norwegian coast looking to intercept the Altmark. The Cossack was in contact with the Altmark and followed it into the Norwegian Fjord, the Urewera waited at the mouth of the Fjord to stop any interference with the Cossack. Captain Vian of the Cossack ordered his ship alongside the Altmark and with cries of "The Navies Here" put a boarding crew onboard to release the 300 odd prisoners from ships captured by the Graf Spee. Captain Vian and the Cossack got the plaudits and medals while the Urewera waved the Cossack past and took some of the wounded aboard as the Urewera had a full doctor and hospital.
Suddenly the Phoney War is over and the Germans beat the Allies to the punch, landing troops in Norway. Now what always puzzled me, was that the Allies had ships with troops ready to do the same thing - take over Norway to get the iron ore going to England and out of German hands. But just as importantly keeping all the bases in Norway out of German hands to base their Navy at. But when the Allied High Command became aware of the German Invasion of Norway, they offloaded those troops and went after the German ships. Why did they not keep the troops aboard and go and land them where they were going to in the first place and dispute all the territory helping the Norwegian forces to fight off the German forces. The length of time it took the Allies to put boots in Norway allowed the German forces to take the key positions and beat off any Allied attacks. The whole sector would be dominated by the airbase at Stavanger. Once they had control of that, air control fell to the Germans and it was pretty much game over.
There was a lot of glorious actions in Norway. HMS Glowworm rams the Hipper. Skua dive bombers based at the Orkney Islands sinks the Konigsberg. The first and second Narvik Battles where the German destroyers are decimated. But the Germans have the last laugh, with HMS Glorious and its escorting destroyers being intercepted by the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, who sank all three ships. Glorious was unable to fly off any aircraft as its deck was covered with the RAF aircraft it had recovered from the ice lake airfield. That is what happened in real life. I have various alternate warships added to the Norwegian Battles, but I do not let them alter the outcome. The British High Command had already lost those Battles by its incompetence. Not the first time in WW2, nor the last time that the High Command didn't have a clue and would cause disaster after disaster. I know it is easy to sit back 70 odd years later with 20/20 hindsight and say 'They got that wrong", but some things should be obvious. The only way to defeat the Germans in Norway is with Allied troops in Norway. Delaying getting those troops into Norway, and Norway was lost.
Sorry, one of my pet hates.
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The last four ships had only just finished working up when Pearl Harbour occurred. All of the latest ships were gathered together at Retribution and given the task to clear out the Aleutian Island group that the Japanese had put troops into. This would be the first time the Panagaean Army would face the fanatical Japanese troops. Despite having air and sea superiority it took the Panagaean forces a lot longer than expected to clear the islands. This did keep the Panagaean forces out of the US Navies way while the initial battles were fought and lost.
One thing I intend to do is to centralize all of the little and big battles that I have all of these Alternate Navies fighting and winning and losing. I do enjoy working out battles that these ships can participate in. Then fighting them to a conclusion.
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