The UK Royal Fleet Auxiliary is playing an increasingly important operational role in an expeditionary orientated Royal Navy, but resource constraints and the economic downturn mean its future equipment aspirations remain clouded. At a time when the UK's afloat support and logistics shipping is working increasingly hard in support of wider maritime security tasks, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) are facing up to the twin challenges of how to manage and recapitalise the bulk of an ageing force. A dichotomy is evident. On the one hand, the RFA has, in latter years, demonstrated its ability not only to provide fully integrated expeditionary task group support to the Royal Navy (RN), but also to deploy worldwide to execute a broad range of 'traditional' naval constabulary tasks. On the other hand, an overheated defence procurement budget, suffering further meltdown due to the economic downturn, has recently seen the RFA's number one re-equipment priority - the acquisition of new double-hull tankers as the first element of the Military Afloat Reach and Sustain-ability (MARS) recapitalisation programme - brought to a grinding halt. At the same time, the RFA and the MoD must wrestle with a number of attendant issues, notably the continued operation of single-hull tanker vessels and the integration of its units in an increasingly network-enabled force structure. These are substantial challenges.
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