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“Failures regarding the Royal Fleet Auxiliary leave the Royal Navy exposed,” security expert Professor Clarke

RFA Argus, originally expected to join CSG25 for the second part of the deployment, is now considered so unsafe that she cannot even be moved to another berth and remains stranded in Portsmouth.

Britain’s Carrier Strike Group's participation in Operation Highmast is a “sparkling example” of the Royal Navy's “shop window”, but the deployment also reveals the depleted state of our domestic maritime defenses, a UK security expert has told BFBS Forces News.

Speaking to the Sitrep podcast, Professor Michael Clarke said that a catalogue of failures regarding the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, or RFA, has left the Navy logistically exposed.

Although a civilian fleet, the RFA provides essential operational support for Royal Navy and Royal Marines deployments around the world.

“Without the RFA, we are a coastal raiding force,” Prof Clarke said. “It's the RFA that makes us a deep water navy, a global navy.”

“Without the RFA, we lose that capability, because the whole point of... any deployed operations is to be able to do so in a time and place of your choosing, with or without host nation support.”

Prof Clarke's comments echo a similar warning issued by former Royal Navy commander Tony Sharpe, who described the state of the RFA as “withered” and warned of imminent safety risks.

Former Royal Navy commander Tom Sharpe said the state of the RFA was one of the biggest defense scandals of the modern day

Cdr Sharpe was speaking after the withdrawal of the safety certificate of RFA Argus, which had originally been due to join CSG25 for the second part of the deployment.

She is now considered so unsafe that she cannot even be moved to another berth and remains stranded in Portsmouth.

Just three of the RFA's 12 vessels are currently thought to be available for service: RFA Proteus, RFA Tidesurge and RFA Tidespring, which is currently deployed in the Indo-Pacific on Operation Highmast. Other vessels are unavailable due to maintenance works or crew shortages.

“That's a pathetic roll call of various sorts of failure,” Prof Clarke told the Sitrep podcast.

“It's been building for a long time, this crisis. Unless we address it now, it will just get worse until we don't have an RFA force at all.”