Crewed policing hulls are poor disposable combatants

The Osaka police and UK Border Force examples make the policing purpose explicit. A machine gun can make a small cutter more threatening, but it remains vulnerable to any genuine combatant. Small Iranian craft may pose a mining threat yet are easy to destroy once located. For a Western navy, a deliberately small and expendable combat asset is more logically uncrewed because casualties carry domestic political consequences. A crewed OPV instead works best as the arresting presence backed by the possibility of a larger warship.