Carriers, destroyers, and the industrial tradeoff

How many destroyers did Britain give up by continuing carrier construction, and were the Tribal class the competing priority?

The Tribals were already built, and carrier yards, engines, and doctrine did not translate into a simple carrier-for-destroyers exchange despite the political appeal of emphasizing escorts.

The prompt asks how many destroyers Britain would lose by prioritizing carriers and treats the Tribal class as the likely competing program. The Royal Navy's Tribals had already been built, apart from later Canadian and Australian construction. Stopping carriers also went against Admiralty doctrine because those ships were required for anti-submarine and other fleet tasks. The pause did create a political signal that the government was serious about escorts, which mattered to insurers and convoy confidence. Yet carrier slipways, heavy machinery, and large propulsion plants could not simply be switched into destroyer output. The choice concerned whether to interrupt a specialized program whose ships also contributed to convoy defense, rather than trading one carrier for a calculable number of destroyers.