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A rising tide of sick leave is straining an already depleted Royal Navy, figures reveal.

Manpower has been slashed in government cuts to 31,000 – the lowest in Admiralty history – but with 4,740 off ill, warships are struggling to find crews.

Sources claim an acute shortage of specialists is also affecting combat capabilities. And more cuts could be on the way from Chancellor George Osborne.

The crisis affects destroyers, frigates and submarines, with a 45 per cent shortage of marine engineers.

To stop the gaps, sailors are being sent from one warship to another to keep up operational capability ­before recruiting begins.

The senior service is ­struggling to assign 800 crew to new aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, which will be commissioned into service next July. Two assault ships will go out of service so it can be manned properly.

Fleet-wide vacancies for weapons and hydrographic specialists, medical ­technicians and nuclear watchkeepers for submarines are shown in the Ministry of Defence annual report.

In 2013 General Sir Nicholas Houghton, head of UK armed forces said: “The Royal Navy is perilously close to its critical mass in terms of manpower.”

A senior Navy source told the Sunday People: “The problem is that we got rid of a lot of engineers in the defence cuts and we are struggling to recruit more because not as many young people are studying engineering.”