Interwar treaty rules left useful space for building sloops outside the most contested capital-ship and cruiser limits. The proposed alternative was for Britain to produce at least a flotilla each year. Australia, Canada, South Africa, and India could collectively have matched another annual flotilla, building both numbers and Commonwealth naval capacity. By 1939 the resulting force would have provided many more anti-submarine and patrol vessels. Two-thousand-ton sloops were also adaptable enough to become small merchant or civilian craft if later sold. The proposal shows how treaty categories, industrial policy, and peacetime disposal could have supported wartime readiness.
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Treaty-exempt sloops offered a route to fleet numbers
Small treaty-exempt sloops could have expanded British and Commonwealth patrol and anti-submarine forces before the Second World War.