The proposed sloop programme used a treaty category for ships under 2,000 tons, designed for less than 20 knots and carrying no torpedoes. A dozen ships a year could have built a large escort reserve without consuming limited cruiser or destroyer tonnage. They would not all need to remain commissioned: active flotillas could exercise for a year, enter storage over winter, and hand over to another class in spring. That rotation would prevent individual classes from spending more than four or five years continuously in reserve. Dominion service and overseas gunboat duties offered further employment, while periodic activation would allow improvements such as newer ASDIC equipment. Britain already retained older sloops and V and W-class destroyers for reactivation, so the proposal extended an existing practice. It would also have increased the pool of personnel trained in anti-submarine warfare.
Notable Point · 1:25:03-1:28:27
The interwar sloop fleet Britain could have built
Treaty-exempt sloops offered Britain a cheap path to a large, trained anti-submarine reserve before World War II, but the opportunity was not used at scale.