When an escort shortage sends a tanker after a submarine

In December, a Royal Fleet Auxiliary tanker was used to shadow a Russian submarine through the Dover Strait. The encounter was not expected to become a fight, but it assigned a support ship to work that should normally fall to a warship. That substitution suggests that the high-readiness escort was committed elsewhere or unavailable. The incident exposes a readiness problem hidden by fleet totals: a navy may own ships on paper yet lack the right ship for an unexpected task.