"Which given that we were reliant on shore access weekly to top up the RFA to RAS for the extant ELLAMY task group..."
The RN confirmed this in a press release a couple of weeks ago talking about the RFA effort, noting the weekly RAS runs to do top ups, noting the reliance on a land and air based supply chain into the ports and so on.
I'm not disputing that the RN can and does do long term stuff at sea, my point is that with only three store ships (of which one or two is only ever likely to be at sea), it becomes ever harder to sustain these ops, and that all these ops are ultimately reliant on land basing to support themselves.
Unfortunately, I have seen stunningly naive people post on t'internet the assumption that RFA's have magic, near tardis like holds capable of sustaining indefinitely, and that simply isnt the case.
As for the Falklands, the UK relied on Ascension as a major factor in the supply chain, plus a long line of dozens of tankers going to / from the task force with supplies. If we hadnt have had Ascension, then I would suggest 82 would have been nearly impossible to achieve.