S85, S90, and the recurring promise of smaller warships

What were the 1981 S85 corvette and S90 frigate designs intended to achieve?

They sought affordable fleet numbers, but risked delivering the same number of less capable ships and fragile distributed systems.

The 1981 S85 corvette and S90 frigate are placed in a recurring Royal Navy effort to obtain more hulls through smaller designs, later echoed by the Black Swan concept. The difficulty is getting the promised numbers: an intended exchange of 12 large ships for 24 small ones can end with only 12 small ships. The carrier comparison makes the same point through a limit of two hulls regardless of their size. Distributing one air-defence capability across several ships also means all the necessary ships must be available together. Damage, grounding, maintenance, and refits can each prevent that combination from forming. Requiring four or five separate units to assemble an essential capability therefore creates a serious readiness risk.