You can trace the demise of TSR2 back to the Whitehall civil war being waged between the Navy and RAF over the period. There already was an aircraft fulfilled 90% of the requirement filled by TSR2, the Blackburn Buccaneer. Thing is, seeing as it was a Navy plane, the RAF wouldn't touch it. Or as Adm Hill-Norton put it:
"we said to the RAF 'Why don't you have the Buccaneer'. 'oh well we couldn't have a dark blue aeroplane, the service would go raving mad.' of course in the end they had to take it and it was five years too late. If they'd taken it (then) and modified it for land operations they'd... have been in a very strong position to have a new aeroplane about ten years later, the early seventies. Relations were so bad they wouldn't take it for one reason and that was because it was painted dark blue. At the time of course they were still smarting because they hadn't got Polaris. So they were damned if they were going to have it (Buccaneer) and the fucking Navy could go to Hell."*
In other words, TSR2 should never really have got off the starting blocks in the first place. That, and by early 65, costs per unit had risen such that they could only afford around 50 aircraft making it virtually too expensive to deploy in an actual war, which does rather defeat the ultimate purpose of a combat aircraft. I'm guessing that not all the advanced research into avionics etc was junked and was recycled into other projects. For example, didn't a lot of the electronics know how,not necessarily the hardware, for TSR2, especially things around terrain following radars and such like, end up in the Tornado?
Regarding the V-Bombers and the procurement of all three types, wasn't that because they wanted to keep all three manufacturers in business? It's an interesting 'What if?'. Suppose the Air Ministry decide to procure just one of the three which would they have chosen? I'm guessing they'd have gone for the Victors given its more sophisticated design and larger bomb load. Which would have made sense in the late 50s but caused a lot of problems when they switch to low level bombing profiles around 196t8, iirc the Vulcan was much better suited to the role, hence the Vulcans switched and the Victors were converted to tankers. Still its an intriguing possibility though. Imagine that rather than buying over 300 hundred assorted V-Bombers, they instead buy 300 Victors**. Certainly sorts out any tanker issues till the 90s. Given that some were converted for long range maritime reconnaissance and strike, would a the availability of large numbers of Victor airframes suitable for conversion obviate the need for the Nimrod procurement of the early 70s?
*Edward Pearce - Denis Healey - A Life In Our Times - Little, Brown 2002, p267-268. Adm Peter Hill Norton, interviewed by author c.2000
** Of course buying 300 doesn't mean 300 in front line operational service. A number would be used for training, aircraft development and weapons testing, and a number would be in storage as an attrition reserve. Quite what the actual numbers break down as i couldn't tell you, can anyone shed light on that?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2010-11-11 01:01 pm (UTC)"we said to the RAF 'Why don't you have the Buccaneer'. 'oh well we couldn't have a dark blue aeroplane, the service would go raving mad.' of course in the end they had to take it and it was five years too late. If they'd taken it (then) and modified it for land operations they'd... have been in a very strong position to have a new aeroplane about ten years later, the early seventies. Relations were so bad they wouldn't take it for one reason and that was because it was painted dark blue.
At the time of course they were still smarting because they hadn't got Polaris. So they were damned if they were going to have it (Buccaneer) and the fucking Navy could go to Hell."*
In other words, TSR2 should never really have got off the starting blocks in the first place. That, and by early 65, costs per unit had risen such that they could only afford around 50 aircraft making it virtually too expensive to deploy in an actual war, which does rather defeat the ultimate purpose of a combat aircraft.
I'm guessing that not all the advanced research into avionics etc was junked and was recycled into other projects. For example, didn't a lot of the electronics know how,not necessarily the hardware, for TSR2, especially things around terrain following radars and such like, end up in the Tornado?
Regarding the V-Bombers and the procurement of all three types, wasn't that because they wanted to keep all three manufacturers in business? It's an interesting 'What if?'. Suppose the Air Ministry decide to procure just one of the three which would they have chosen? I'm guessing they'd have gone for the Victors given its more sophisticated design and larger bomb load. Which would have made sense in the late 50s but caused a lot of problems when they switch to low level bombing profiles around 196t8, iirc the Vulcan was much better suited to the role, hence the Vulcans switched and the Victors were converted to tankers. Still its an intriguing possibility though. Imagine that rather than buying over 300 hundred assorted V-Bombers, they instead buy 300 Victors**. Certainly sorts out any tanker issues till the 90s. Given that some were converted for long range maritime reconnaissance and strike, would a the availability of large numbers of Victor airframes suitable for conversion obviate the need for the Nimrod procurement of the early 70s?
*Edward Pearce - Denis Healey - A Life In Our Times - Little, Brown 2002, p267-268. Adm Peter Hill Norton, interviewed by author c.2000
** Of course buying 300 doesn't mean 300 in front line operational service. A number would be used for training, aircraft development and weapons testing, and a number would be in storage as an attrition reserve. Quite what the actual numbers break down as i couldn't tell you, can anyone shed light on that?