How small escorts accumulated firepower

The four-inch gun was prized for its versatility. A doubtful report claims that one corvette may have replaced its gun with an anti-aircraft rocket launcher, but the account remains unverified. Light anti-aircraft guns and anti-submarine mortars widened the corvette's options, and some officers devised tactics that combined the four-inch gun with a mortar against surface opponents. Official allowances were forty depth charges for a regular Flower and seventy for a modified ship, yet paperwork sometimes records withdrawals of sixty and about eighty respectively. Some of the surplus may have been collected for trawlers, so those figures do not prove that every charge stayed aboard. Crews also tried to carry as much Hedgehog and anti-submarine-mortar ammunition as possible, packing a small escort with a heavy anti-submarine load.