Surface ships, stealth, and visible defense

Surface ships remain useful for diplomatic visits and humanitarian assistance because those missions are easier to conduct from a visible, accessible platform. Wartime escorts also have to defend convoys, amphibious forces, and carrier groups that an opponent can already locate. Sacrificing weapons to reduce an escort's signature can therefore weaken its ability to protect the force. Some radar-signature reduction still helps by making the escort harder to distinguish among other contacts. The argument gives greater weight to available defensive firepower when hiding the protected ships is impractical.