Using commercial freighters for troop transport is not unusual.

Designing, building and maintaining ships specific to a task such as troop transport would be more expensive than leasing them as required.

During the Falklands War a good number of ships were ships taken up from trade, so called STUFT.

The British Army does however keep a number of vessels which are designed for use as tank and heavy weapon transport but these are much fewer in number and again they offer a cost benefit as leasing a merchant ship, and then cutting shipping routes into the hull and inside the ship itself would be prohibitively expensive.

About 8 years before the Falklands War the MOD decided that as a cost cutting exercise the blue naval working rig, called No.8's, and the overalls that were made of pure cotton would be replaced by a material that contained a high percentage of synthetic fibre.

During the war a good number of surface ships were hit and set on fire, the flash burns were made worse as the synthetic fibres melted into peoples skins. Another cock up by MOD bean counters.

Boots issued to the marines and army were the so called 'boot DMS', Boot direct moulded sole. These were of poor quality and led to many cases of trenchfoot in the boggy conditions. Some defence contractor was making money and probably providing funds to one of the political parties.