How cutting Type 45 numbers inflated unit cost

The Royal Navy planned for twelve Type 45 destroyers but received six, leaving fixed research and industrial costs spread across fewer hulls. Design features, including additional power provision, were also removed in pursuit of savings and later had to be added through intrusive work. The first six cost roughly £450-460 million each to construct before research costs were assigned, while established tooling and workforce learning would have made a second batch markedly cheaper. An estimate based on the Type 23 production curve puts the average program cost for twelve ships at roughly £650 million per destroyer, with enough hulls for global deployments. The same numerical lesson applies to early Type 83 planning: a replacement force intended for worldwide deployments should at least match the six Type 45s already in service.