GarrisonMiniatures,
Regarding the ever larger ships the whole Western naval building world seems to have lost its mind. I'm not sure why replacing three 3,000 ton frigates with a single 6,000 ton ship is seen as a good thing.
I suspect it's due to the fact there hasn't been anything approaching real naval warfare for decades so they haven't a clue how a real naval war would be fought. The last time two peer forces used larger surface vessels against each other was India-Pakistan in 1971.
Yom Kipper and Iran-Iraq saw extensive naval conflict but it was true littoral warfare mainly conducted by aircraft and fast attack missile boats.
The Argentine surface fleet was effectively stuck at port for most of the 1982 Falklands War bar the destruction of ARA General Belgrano and that was engaged in a troop carrying capacity.
And it's clear that most Western navies have drifted from Cold War concepts too – gone are the large numbers of frigates and in their place a mere handful of large destroyers backed up by a few larger Offshore Patrol Vessels which are purely for long range policing. Gone are also the large number of Anti-Submarine Warfare helos and Minesweepers and mine layers.
Bizarrely a lot of the new large destroyers are dedicated to anti-aircraft operations. This is despite the fact that the aerial threat has diminished considerably since 1991. The submarine threat on the other hand has proliferated with sales of large number of Kilo class subs.
It's interesting that in Asia most navies are trying to maintain larger hull numbers than the Europeans and are going for a bigger mixture of ships. They're packing some numbers of 6,000 ton destroyers but also are happy to buy large numbers of 1,500-3,000 ton frigates and corvettes.
The Russians are doing the same. They're also reorienting from small numbers of expensive multi-purpose subs to larger numbers of single purpose subs.