Bittern-class sloops as a Commonwealth escort program

The Bittern class provided a compact design lineage leading toward the Egret and Black Swan sloops and, in this account, the Hunt-class escort destroyer. At a little over 1,000 tons, it combined geared turbines, about 19 knots, six 4-inch guns, a close-range anti-aircraft mounting, and roughly 90 depth charges. Its dimensions were close enough to the smaller Flower-class corvette for merchant-oriented yards to learn to build capable sloops before war rather than default to emergency construction later. Orders in Canada, Australia, India, and South Africa would create trained yards and turbine demand while avoiding the treaty sensitivity attached to destroyer construction. A distributed program begun in peacetime could give the Commonwealth a large, effective anti-submarine escort force before U-boat losses forced a crash response.