Why is it so difficult for the Royal Navy to argue for numerous small ships?
Short answerA fixed hull allowance encourages the Navy to spend scarce peacetime approvals on large ships with long construction times, because smaller vessels can be produced faster once a crisis begins.
NotesA navy can build and crew small vessels more quickly during an emergency, whereas major combatants require long peacetime lead times. Large ships also offered visible employment that made them easier to defend politically. If government authorizes only a fixed number of ships rather than a balanced tonnage, the service therefore has a strong incentive to make each hull as large and capable as political and industrial constraints permit. A tonnage allowance would instead let planners distribute the same resource across a more balanced mixture of large and small ships. The Queen Elizabeth-class carriers provide a modern illustration of the hull-count logic.