How more escorts might have changed the Spanish crisis

Plentiful sloops could have inspected merchant traffic suspected of violating the rules while scarce fighting units remained in reserve. The loss of a sloop and its crew would still have been serious, but it would not alter the fleet balance like losing a destroyer, cruiser, or battleship. Force mix therefore shaped the diplomatic risk London could accept against Mussolini. The episode ends with a provocative counterfactual: the decision to forgo large sloop orders in 1928 narrowed Britain's choices when the Spanish Civil War escalated.