Why World War I required a six-hundred-ship Royal Navy

Fisher disposed of many older vessels, but he could not discard every ship whose work still had to be done. The Royal Navy did not fall much below roughly six hundred full warships during World War I. That total excluded the many trawlers serving through the separate Patrol Service, making the effective naval effort larger still. The scale follows from global coverage: local stations, convoy routes, and multiple task groups all demanded hulls even when those ships were not suited to a fleet battle.