Q&A · 3:13:57-3:14:50

Wartime destroyer classes as the postwar fleet's core

A large programme of modern wartime destroyers could form the core of the postwar Royal Navy without defining the whole force.

Question

Would the planned late-war destroyer classes become the Royal Navy's postwar destroyer fleet?

Short answer

They would form its core, although they were wartime designs and would not necessarily define the entire peacetime force.

Notes

The proposed mix amounts to about ninety relatively modern destroyers from several late-war classes. They were ships built for an emergency war rather than a fleet designed from scratch for peace. Survivors would nevertheless provide the central pool from which the postwar destroyer force developed. If the war continued in the Far East, they would remain the core of an active combat fleet before any peacetime rationalisation.