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The Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) is a civilian-manned fleet owned by the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence, whose purpose is to support the Royal Navy. The RFA enables ships of the Royal Navy to maintain operations around the world. Its primary role is to supply the Royal Navy with fuel, ammunition and supplies, normally by replenishment at sea (RAS). It also transports Army and Royal Marine personnel, as well as supporting training exercises, and engaging in anti-piracy and anti-drug smuggling operations.

The RFA counts an Aviation Training ship/Hospital Ship and landing vessels amongst its assets. RFA personnel are members of the Ministry of Defence civil service, and since 2003, special members of the Royal Naval Reserve deemed sponsored reserves, which are civilians who must be part of the Armed Forces in some capacity, in order to carry out specialist civilian jobs in a military capacity. However the RFA itself is not part of the Naval Service, and officers wear Merchant Navy rank insignia with naval uniforms but are under naval discipline when the vessel is engaged on warlike operations. RFA vessels are commanded and crewed by these civilians, augmented with regular and reserve Royal Navy personnel to perform specialised military functions such as operating and maintaining helicopters or providing hospital facilities. Royal Navy personnel are also needed to operate certain weapons, such as the Phalanx, however other weapons (such as the GMPG or 20mm cannon) are operated by RFA personnel.

History
Since its creation in 1905, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary has had a key part to play in the sea going assets of the United Kingdom, resupplying and rearming Royal Navy warships even if that means putting itself in harms way to do so but the RFA's Contribution has and still does, go largely unnoticed, often in news articles you will see RFA ships being listed as "Royal Navy" Ships, despite the fact that RFA Personnel regularly put themselves in harms way. That being said, the RFA has had a part to play in every major naval conflict and still does to this day, examples of this can be seen in the 9 RFA ships that were awarded battle honours for their part in the first Gulf War.

In the Late 19th Century the Admiralty built up a sizeable auxiliary fleet in order to provide coaling facilities for the Navy in an era when the change from sail to coal-fired steam engines as the main means of propulsion meant that a network of bases around the world with coaling facilities or a fleet of ships able to supply coal were necessary for a fleet to operate away from its home country, This early auxiliary fleet was a mixture of Admiralty owned Ships and ships taken up on charter and employed as and when needed, the Admiralty wanted a way to distinguish ships that were taken up on charter from ships the admiralty operated full time. Thus the Royal Fleet Auxiliary was founded by issuing of a Letter titled " Circular Letter No 9 T 3487|1905".

Circular Letter No 9 T 3487 1905

Pre First World War
The Merchant Shipping act 1894 states that " A ship shall not be deemed to be a British ship unless owned wholly by persons of the following description (in this Act referred to as persons qualified to be owners of British ships); namely,— (a)Natural-born British subjects, (d) Bodies corporate established under and subject to the laws of some part of Her Majesty's dominions, and having their principal place of business in those dominions" This act caused a unique problem for the Admiralty as Neither the Sovereign or the Admiralty are eligible to register a ship under the act, But there are a number of distinct advantages to registering as a Merchant ship, such as being able to enter ports of neutral countries and not to have any restrictions a warship would have while in port. Therefore the Admiralty decided to register the RFAs as the property of The Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty with the managing owner listed as the Secretary of the Board of Admiralty. During the Pre-War years key identifiers of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary were laid down, the blue ensign was approved by the admiralty in 1908 and by 1913 RFAs started to appear in the Navy List.

On 6 March 1905 the Tanker Petroleum purchased by the Admiralty for £61,122 therefore RFA Petroleum was the RFAs first tanker. Also in the same year, the Hospital Ship Maine was taken over and became RFA Maine, the RFA's First Hospital Ship. During this period the first experiments with Refuelling at sea began, although mainly of the early experiments proved too dangerous of too time consuming to do it routinely before the Second World War when US developed a reliable Replenishment at sea technique.

The Royal Fleet Auxiliary Ended 1914 with thirteen vessels within its fleet.

Fleet
Ships in RFA service carry the ship prefix RFA, standing for Royal Fleet Auxiliary, and fly the Blue Ensign defaced with an upright gold killick anchor. All Royal Fleet Auxiliaries are built and maintained to Lloyd's Register and Department for Transport standards.

The most important role provided by the RFA is replenishment at sea (RAS), therefore the mainstay of the current RFA fleet are the replenishment ships. The Wave-class and Rover-class are 'Fleet Tankers', which primarily provide under way refuelling to Royal Navy ships, but can also provide a limited amount of dry cargo. The remaining Rover-class will be replaced by the new Tide-class 'Fast Fleet Tankers' that were ordered in February 2012. The four new tankers have been ordered from DSME, South Korea with design support from Britain's BMT Defence Services, the first of which tidespring will be entering service in 2017. The 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review has confirmed that three "Fleet Solid Support" Ships will be built and bidding for the contract will start in late 2016.

Fort Victoria is a 'one-stop' replenishment ship, capable of providing under way refuelling and dry cargoes (I.e rearming, victualling and spares). The older Fort Rosalie-class ships provide only dry cargoes. The Wave-class, Fort Victoria and the Fort Rosalie-class have generous aviation facilities, providing aviation support and training facilities and significant vertical replenishment capabilities. They are capable of operating and supporting several Merlin and Lynx Wildcat helicopters, both of which are significant weapons platforms. The presence of aviation facilities on RFA ships allows for them to be used as 'force multipliers' for the task groups they support in line with Royal Navy doctrine.

The RFA is tasked with the role of supporting Royal Navy amphibious operations through ts three Bay-class dock landing ships (LSD). Typically one Bay-class is also assigned as a permanent 'mothership' for Royal Navy mine countermeasures vessels in the Persian Gulf.

The unique support ship in the fleet is the aviation training ship Argus, a converted roll-on/roll-off (RoRo) container ship. She is tasked with peacetime aviation training and support. On active operations, she becomes the Primary Casualty Receiving Ship (PCRS); essentially a hospital ship. She cannot be described as such - and is not afforded such protection under the Geneva Convention - as she is armed. She can, however, venture into waters too dangerous for a normal hospital ship. Argus completed a refit in May 2007 intended to extend her operational life to 2020.

The Point-class sealift ships were acquired in 2002 under a £1.25bn private finance initiative with Foreland Shipping known as the 'Strategic Sealift Service'. These ships are Merchant Navy vessels leased to the Ministry of Defence as and when needed. Originally six ships were part of the deal, allowing the MoD use of four of the ships with two being made available for commercial charter, these latter two were released from the contract in 2012. The Ministry of Defence also maintains a single commercial tanker under permanent charter, the Maersk Rapier. The ship is tasked with supplying fuel to the United Kingdoms various naval establishments at home and overseas, as well as providing aviation fuel to RAF stations at Cyprus, Ascension and the Falklands. The MoD charters the vessel to commercial companies during periods where she is not in use for defence purposes.

As of 2016, there are 10 ships in service with the Royal Fleet Auxiliary with a total displacement of approximately 240,000 tonnes. These figures exclude the five merchant navy vessels under charter to the Ministry of Defence.

Ranks, rates and insignia
The Royal Fleet Auxiliary ranks, rates and insignia form part of the uniform of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and are largely based on Merchant Navy Ranks.