Sloops, frigates, and corvettes embodied different standards

In the British wartime comparison, a sloop was a twin-screw vessel built to full naval standards. A frigate combined naval and civilian standards and retained two screws, while a corvette was largely a civilian-standard single-screw ship. Many of these distinctions collapsed into the general label "frigate" after the war. Interwar treaties did not restrict sloops, so the Royal Navy could build them in peacetime and use them to test equipment and operating ideas.