Courtney
I still think the lads are up to it, but I still think things would work a lot better for all if the Navy now adopted more intelligent use of its diminishing people.
In the offshore OG world as you know UK rules limit the amount of time you can spend on a rig (think its 3 weeks or 21 days in the UK shelf, STBC). Go further away and many or most multinationals put limits on, things like 60 or 90 days maximum deployed working hard on a 12 hour cycle.
Think the Navy should adopt this rule, especially here.
This looks a very hard slog for the ratings onboard. Its now approaching high Summer, we all know what that's like in the North Africa region. Risk of disease is very evident. I would wager emotional fatigue will be a factor.
What will really sap at people is the knowledge that they are a 1 trick pony. There is no relief ship for Bulwark, she is all the nation now has.
I listened at length to the lads who returned from HMS Ocean after the Libyan attacks. They were there offshore for months because they also had no replacement. They and the ship were in literal bits at the end of that particular long futile slog.
Its just no way to run things in the modern era. We have airheads, cheap rentable airliners and literally thousands of ratings onshore who could be trained and rotated through if required. (There is little else on operationally as important as this little hot coal at the moment).
Civilians do this within the Oil and Gas and it works a lot better, their retention of people is higher. Most importantly the RN's own peoples quality of life would be far better and that's what counts.