Small destroyer orders sacrificed economies of scale

American six-ship procurement contrasted with prewar British domestic and export orders large enough to sustain yard learning. A yard needed similar jigs, tools, materials planning, and worker training whether it built one destroyer or a dozen. British batches spread those fixed costs across many hulls, allowing the government to demand more for each pound spent. American orders divided into ones, twos, and threes instead used scarce hulls to establish infrastructure across several coasts. This throughput problem made American destroyers costlier and less refined than British counterparts without implying that American builders were inferior.