Savings will also be made with the fact that a lot of rushed wartime construction won't have occurred, with ships too new to scrap, too expensive to sell, and too manpower intensive to keep in the active fleet. The OTL solution was a huge reserve fleet, which caused its own problems. Here, they can take a much more measured approach, due to more ships, better refit schedules, and less panicked construction during the war.
Okay, let me outline what the Admiralty is thinking about the post-war and its cruiser needs.
First, as in OTL, any ship that was ordered pre-WNT will be scrapped as soon as possible once hostilities are over. They are too small, too old and too knackered out. The C-class ships were kept in commission during the run-up to war as there was nothing better and the shipyards could not produce enough new ships fast enough. The D's, Es and
Hawkins were slightly better than nothing as well.
Now let's look at post WNT construction in four groups.
1) Heavy cruisers
2) pre-war light cruisers (
Leander,
Arethustra,
Town classes)
3) wartime cruisers (C
rown Colony and
Dido)
4) late war cruisers (
Minotaur/
Swiftsure)
The RN cruiser fleet has been run far less harshly in TTL than OTL. There are several drivers here.
First, the Mediterranean is not a seaborne Verdun. The RN cruiser force has taken losses there, but it is not the graveyard of the Town class. We have seen
HMS Manchester and
HMS Gloucester recently in service during the invasion of Sicily for instance.
HMS Fiji is serving with the Far East Fleet. Secondly, the cruiser force is not spending anywhere near as much time covering Arctic convoys. Those convoys are being fought through without significant concern of a surface threat. It is an escort battle where most ships are wartime expedients supplemented by modern destroyers. The cruisers and heavy units of Home Fleet are being used far less harshly TTL than OTL. Third, the RN basing structure is far more intact. The floating drydock that in OTL was destroyed at Malta was moved pre-war to Alexandria. Singapore is open for business. This gives cruisers far more opportunities to nip in for a quick five or ten day upkeep period that minimizes festering problems and maximizes the value of each day that is consumed in a long term refit/overhaul. Fourth, the entire Allied cruiser pool is significantly larger with a few more Dutch, nine more American (Keynes' cruisers) and half a dozen or more Free French cruisers that are available. This means some cruisers are available to cover for RN missions when RN cruisers are heading back to the yard. The RN is taking advantage of the increased cruiser pool to maintain something that vaguely resembles a coherent maitenance cycle.
HMS Rodney for instance won't be a floating mess in TTL.
The RN in OTL ran their heavy cruisers hard. They have an inefficienct AA fit, and compared to the new
Crown Colonies, are short ranged and slightly larger war time crews. The Counties also are in the uncomfortable position of having an in-between gun. As per OTL, the Counties are going out of the fleet sooner rather than later. There is still a need for a powerful surface escort for carrier groups and a ship that has incredible range for distant station flag showing. There are plans for a class of six to eight of those ships for either the 1945 or 1946 estimates but no firm decision has been made as to requirements or funding.
The pre-war light cruisers have had a hard war. The smaller light cruisers don't have much of a future either. They have been shot to shit or run ragged, and there is no growth margin. These ships will either be hocked to Dominion navies, or sold for either hard currency or scrap in the immediate postwar. However the Towns, Crown Colonies and DIdos will be in fairly decent shape with some growth margins on the Towns and Crown Colonies, especially if the 4th triple turret is removed. These ships will be expected to serve to the late 50s or early 60s with only a midlife refit bloc in the late 40s to early 50s to standardize equipment on by class as some ships will get new gear during battle damage repair cycles. The Crown Colony and Dido build out in TTL has the same number of hulls and roughly the same pace to slightly ahead of pace compared to OTL.
Now one of the modest differences is that in TTL the
Swiftsure/Minotaur class has been even further deprioritized compared to OTL. Only three ships (as of August 1943) have steel cut for them. Current estimated completion dates are late 1945 to mid 1946 assuming priority remains unchanged. The ships that made up the
Tiger class OTL never saw any of their long lead items ordered.
So the RN is looking at a cruiser construction drought from 1943-1949 or so with perhaps 3 new ships (Minotaur, Swiftsure, Triumph) joining the fleet and replacing the last of the Counties. The RN is also looking at the Didos and realizes that they are either AA ships, or trade protection ships that should be kept in reserve as that mission is disappearing quicker than fleet cruiser work that the Crown Colonies and Towns are better at doing. The great advantage a Dido had over any other post 1935 cruiser is a significantly smaller crew.
The RN thinks that their early-50s cruiser force will be a mixture of ~8 Towns, 8 Crown Colonies, 3 Swiftsures and 8-10 Didos with most of the Didos and Towns in reserve at any given point. There will also be the six to eight large fleet cruisers that the draftsman was working on, but those ships won't be available until early 50s. A few Counties may be in deep reserve if there is a need for 8 inch gun ships. By 1960, the Towns will have left the fleet and the Didos will be close behind while the Crown Colonies and Swiftsures will be on the backside of their mid-life deep refits and waiting for technological revolutions to obsosolete them. The RN is talking with the USN about AA missiles at the moment.
Now all of this could and will change once the Treasury and the strategic situation intervene, but this is what the Admiralty is thinking about their cruiser needs whenever they have a chance to think past the current war.