The 23,480-ton RFA Fort Austin is a useful component in any Royal Navy task group.

As a stores ship, she carries a wide range of dry stores such as food, spare parts and equipment and ammunition.

This can be delivered to her 'customer' by means of a replenishment at sea rig - basically a heavy jackstay, on which stores are delivered as the ships steam side by side, or through vertical replenishment - vertrep - by using helicopters.

This aircraft capability - she has room for up to four Sea Kings in her hangar, and has an auxiliary flight deck on the hangar roof in addition to the conventional deck aft - makes her a 'force multiplier' in military terms, in that she adds considerably to operations as an extra helicopter carrier, and thus has a potentially vital contribution to make in anti-submarine or amphibious assault roles.

The ship, built by Scotts, was completed in 1979 and won a Battle Honour in the Falklands. In more recent times she served in the Gulf War, in the Adriatic off the former Yugoslavia, and off Sierra Leone.

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