Oh, you can do that pretty well with a smaller ship - but you do it by not including any war fighting stuff, like missiles, sonar with any pretensions of ASW capability, etc.
Unfortunately, as per the latest Gp FF brief on the Ihs Jane's site, it seems a smaller local-design ship for T31 is the preferred route. As a bystander, the larger T26 design with space to grow would seem a logical choice for a lower-end navy that may not have the funds to buy it 'fully-equipped', you just add the capabilities you can afford later to the fullest possible extent, but I guess the accountants are running the show as usual.
"The idea of a 'pared down' Type 26 was mooted at an early stage, but has latterly garnered less attention. Time and cost work against this option, and it would necessarily still be a large and largely 'unexportable' design.
Hence, the spotlight has fallen on variants or derivations of export designs that UK companies have in development or have already built. BAE Systems Naval Ships and BMT Defence Services have both - under their own resources - worked to develop MOTS concepts which map onto the broad GPFF 'solution space'.
BAE Systems has over the last six months developed two different ship concepts - extrapolated from the Amazonas-class/River-class Batch 2 (RCB2) OPV and the Project Khareef corvette - that plot different datums on the cost/capability curve. In both cases the company has sought to grow and modify its existing MOTS designs while retaining much of the existing detailed design.
The lower-end concept, known as Avenger is essentially a Batch 3 River class. While drawing on the design pedigree of the commercially-based RCB2, the 111 m Avenger embodies improved survivability (being designed to more stringent naval standards and introducing greater redundancy in machinery arrangements), an enhanced combat system, improved aviation facilities, and an air weapon magazine.
At the higher end of the cost/capability curve, Cutlass is a significantly stretched and enhanced derivation of the 99 m Al Shamikh-class corvette design, three of which were previously built by BAE Systems for the Royal Navy of Oman (RNO) under Project Khareef. The Cutlass concept design developed with GPFF in mind is, at 117 m, a somewhat larger ship than that built for the RNO, incorporating a 15 m mid-hull stretch, and an additional 3 m on the transom. Cutlass would additionally offer improved resilience and survivability, a more extensive combat system, a higher power electric drive system, replenishment at sea points on either beam, a full NBCD citadel, and space amidships to embark special forces' boats and equipment."
