How many AFVG

[Cjc]

If say the AFVG had gone through (what would it have been called?) Say by having Dassault leading the airframe and bristol leading the engine, then how many would have been bought by both powers?

 

[Rule of cool]

IIUC the RAF wanted 150, to go with the 50 F111K.

 

[CV12Hornet]

According to this post, 300 initially, 175 British and 125 French:

Essentially we have G4 (strike version) and G8 (air defence version) with scaled up RB.199s from some time after 1975. And what effectively amounts to Mirage F1E with FBW and the uprated RB.199 on offer for the deal of the century (with an early Spey version already in production).

Now I'm not certain how well the Germans can be accommodated in this scheme. Supposedly the French and British together were initially talking about a run of 300 aircraft (125 AdA, 175 RAF). I can easily see these numbers expanding to roughly 200-230 for each, after all the French wanted 200 ACF and RAF got about 230 strike Tornadoes. Thing is the Germans at the same time claimed they wanted to build 600 aircraft and after 1972 324. The initial number is twice what France and Britain had initially committed to build combined. Somehow I doubt France and Britain are willing to give over 60% of the work-share to Germany. Would Germany be willing to accept something around 30% of the work and the existing French and British design arrangements? If not I don't see how a deal can be reached.

Does at the same time the call it Mirage F3E win the deal of the century? I could see it gaining the Belgian order, maybe, particularly if the Dutch were still part of MRCA. The whole order I'd guess not. Which then opens the road for "Mirage 2000" to come to being complementing AFVG instead.

As noted, this could easily expand if the French Navy buys in and the RAF starts pushing for OTL Tornado numbers.

 

[Rule of cool]

Is there any date on that number? IIUC in 1965 the RAF wanted the AFVG to replace the Lightning as a fighter, but in 1966 changed that to replacing the Canberra as a strike aircraft alongside the F111K.

 

[Rule of cool]

This has me thinking, what production number would be required to make the AFVG, or any combat aircraft for that matter, a failure or a success? Obviously, it changes with the decade and the sophistication of the aircraft, but would 300 AFVG be enough to start production? Would only 300 be considered a failure, 400 considered good and 500 be considered a success?

 

[zen]

Assuming Tornado numbers isn't a bad starting point.
150 to 230 AFVG would be needed by the RAF for GRmk1 (Ground Attack and Reconnaissance).
Another 165 or so for Fmk1 Bomber Destroyer.

Assuming equal numbers for France, we're talking 800 aircraft.

 

[Rule of cool]

Assuming Tornado numbers isn't a bad starting point.
150 to 230 AFVG would be needed by the RAF for GRmk1 (Ground Attack and Reconnaissance).
Another 165 or so for Fmk1 Bomber Destroyer.

Assuming equal numbers for France, we're talking 800 aircraft.

800 AFVGs, or the 990 Tornados built make these aircraft highly successful. That's much better than the 726 Mirage F1s, 573 Jaguar or 601 Mirage 2000s built.

Personally, I think that with a 385 Tornado requirement Britain should have just gone ahead with the UKVG, or at the very least retained at least 51% (or controlling) share of the project. I think 300+ aircraft of this complexity is enough momentum to make a project worthwhile.

 

[CV12Hornet]

Assuming Tornado numbers isn't a bad starting point.
150 to 230 AFVG would be needed by the RAF for GRmk1 (Ground Attack and Reconnaissance).
Another 165 or so for Fmk1 Bomber Destroyer.

Assuming equal numbers for France, we're talking 800 aircraft.

France would require fewer planes - maximally we're looking at 200 interceptors and about 100 multirole naval aircraft, and practically probably somewhat fewer.

 

[Rule of cool]

The French timeline for the AFVG is confusing to me. There seem to be a lot of studies happening from the early-mid 60s, but in the end only the Mirage F1 and Jaguar were built.

 

[Rule of cool]

Given the French were exploring the Mirage F2 and F1 as their tactical fighter it appears as if the French AFVG requirement was for the Navy and to replace the Mirage IVA. The Navy ordered 40+10 Jaguar Ms prior to cancellation and the Air Force ordered 62 production IVAs. However, the AFVG would be too heavy for the Navy, which leaves only the Air Force as the customer.

In 1968 the French hoped to buy 60 twin-engine Mirage G4 for the nuclear and conventional strike role, and the G4 was pretty much the direct replacement for the AFVG in French planning.

I'd think the French wanted ~60 AFVGs.

 

[alertken]

The reason OP asks his Q is that he is confused by reported numbers upto 1,000.

There never were any funded, Approved, real numbers.

Archibald elsewhere has well displayed the dazed and confused state of AdlA fighters in this timescale. UK was just as mixed up.

At MoU 17/5/65, intent 50:50, no firm offtake, 200 each reported, MoD Healey told Commons (RN Bucc., RAF Lightning, RAF+RN Phantom): "We are satisfied (AFVG) is likely to be a suitable replacement for some, or possibly all". In the evidently dying days he was reported to have offered a 60:40 cost split (for the Project Definition Phase intended 1 /4/67) linked to offtake of 175/UK, 125/France.

Reported cancellation cost to UK was £2.5Mn, modest, reflecting that UK had only reached airframe mock up, engine component rig work.

 

[Archibald]

The french navy knew that with Clems carriers it was 17 tons MTOW - or bust. Blame the british BS-5 catapults lol. I think that was the reason they went with the two smallish M45 turbofans. They wanted a twin-jet for long range interceptions, but even with VG it was at the limits of the Clems.

 

[Rule of cool]

The french navy knew that with Clems carriers it was 17 tons MTOW - or bust. Blame the british BS-5 catapults lol. I think that was the reason they went with the two smallish M45 turbofans. They wanted a twin-jet for long range interceptions, but even with VG it was at the limits of the Clems.

The interesting thing about this era is there are so many intertwined threads inFrance. Not only the AFVG, but also the TF30 and Atar Mirage 'Fs' and the morphing the Jaguar from an advanced trainer into a quite sophisticated carrier and medium attack aircraft.

 

[Rule of cool]

The reason OP asks his Q is that he is confused by reported numbers upto 1,000.

There never were any funded, Approved, real numbers.

Archibald elsewhere has well displayed the dazed and confused state of AdlA fighters in this timescale. UK was just as mixed up.

At MoU 17/5/65, intent 50:50, no firm offtake, 200 each reported, MoD Healey told Commons (RN Bucc., RAF Lightning, RAF+RN Phantom): "We are satisfied (AFVG) is likely to be a suitable replacement for some, or possibly all". In the evidently dying days he was reported to have offered a 60:40 cost split (for the Project Definition Phase intended 1 /4/67) linked to offtake of 175/UK, 125/France.

Reported cancellation cost to UK was £2.5Mn, modest, reflecting that UK had only reached airframe mock up, engine component rig work.

Britain seems very naive in this era when entering into these joint development programmes.

60 years down the track we can work out roughly what the French need, by looking at what else they're doing and their requirements. They went 50:50 with France on a vague promise of 200 aircraft, but a firm-ish requirement for maybe 100 carrier aircraft and about 60 bombers, with the F2 and F1 taking care of the rest of France's needs. On top of that Britian sold the BS5s to France, so would have known the AFVG was too heavy for the Navy, so the real requirement was for about 60 aircraft. Britain wanting/needing 150/200 and France needing/wanting ~60 does not warrant a 50:50 work-share although I suspect the British were ken to get the money. The 1967 offer of 60:40 work-share is far more realistic, but 70:30 would be better again.

Britain did virtually the same thing with the Tornado 2 years later. The Germans and British were negotiating where the Tornado HQ and first flight would be, the Germans stated a requirement for some 600 aircraft compared to 385 for the RAF, so got the HQ and first flight. As soon as this was decided the Germans dropped their requirement to about 320. They British should have expected this, the Germans had already ordered 88 RF4Es and with the first F4F flying in 1973 I suspect that the Germans were looking to make a big Phantom buy would have been public knowledge. This alone would reduce the German requirement by 250+, making the competition for the first flight and HQ much closer and worth fighting for.

 

[Cjc]

Britain seems very naive in this era when entering into these joint development programmes.

60 years down the track we can work out roughly what the French need, by looking at what else they're doing and their requirements. They went 50:50 with France on a vague promise of 200 aircraft, but a firm-ish requirement for maybe 100 carrier aircraft and about 60 bombers, with the F2 and F1 taking care of the rest of France's needs. On top of that Britian sold the BS5s to France, so would have known the AFVG was too heavy for the Navy, so the real requirement was for about 60 aircraft. Britain wanting/needing 150/200 and France needing/wanting ~60 does not warrant a 50:50 work-share although I suspect the British were ken to get the money. The 1967 offer of 60:40 work-share is far more realistic, but 70:30 would be better again.

Britain did virtually the same thing with the Tornado 2 years later. The Germans and British were negotiating where the Tornado HQ and first flight would be, the Germans stated a requirement for some 600 aircraft compared to 385 for the RAF, so got the HQ and first flight. As soon as this was decided the Germans dropped their requirement to about 320. They British should have expected this, the Germans had already ordered 88 RF4Es and with the first F4F flying in 1973 I suspect that the Germans were looking to make a big Phantom buy would have been public knowledge. This alone would reduce the German requirement by 250+, making the competition for the first flight and HQ much closer and worth fighting for.

I'm not so sure the uk could have seen that german down order coming, the tornado was supposed to replace the f-104 and Germany ordered nearly 1000 of them. So 600 plus 250 f-4s (especially sense the german economy had grown a lot in between those orders) would seem reasonable.

 

[duker]

Yes. Germany ordered the F-4F a simplified E plus the RF-4E recon version , 263 in total. As for the F-104G starfighter ( and TF-104G trainer) the actual wing deployment gives a better clue
At their peak in the mid-1970s, Starfighter equipped five nuclear-armed Luftwaffe Fighter-Bomber wings, two Interceptor wings, and two Reconnaissance wings. In addition, two attack wings of the Marineflieger (Federal German Navy) were equipped with Starfighter. The large numbers delivered reflected the high attrition rate also.

So that indicates apart from the 136 TF-104 2 seat trainers , there was also 2 interceptor wings and 2 recon wings which the F-4 was ordered. The remainder were suitable for replacement by Tornado strike aircraft., 7 wings in total. That would be well short of 600.

 

[Rule of cool]

Of the 9 F104 LW (+2 for the MF) wings some 5 (and 1 G91) wings were replaced by RF4E and F4F by the mid 70s; both fighter, both recce and one of 5 fighter-bomber wings. In addition while the West Germans and built bought 900+ F104G, they crashed 115 before 1970, so the LW strength likely peaked at ~600 aircraft and the MF another ~100.

The 88 RF4Es were ordered in 1968, so that removes 2 F104 wings of about 100 aircraft that don't need to be replaced. I don't know when the F4F was ordered, but I'm confident that the development was public enough knowledge in defence circles that the British should have known about it. The exact numbers would likely have been unknown, but the British should have had a rough idea of if it was going to be ~150 close to ~250.

The Tornado replaced 4 LW fighter-bomber wings, in 1969 the British should have known that the LW only was in the market for 5 or so wings of aircraft and the MF another 2.

 

[Cjc]

Yes. Germany ordered the F-4F a simplified E plus the RF-4E recon version , 263 in total. As for the F-104G starfighter ( and TF-104G trainer) the actual wing deployment gives a better clue
At their peak in the mid-1970s, Starfighter equipped five nuclear-armed Luftwaffe Fighter-Bomber wings, two Interceptor wings, and two Reconnaissance wings. In addition, two attack wings of the Marineflieger (Federal German Navy) were equipped with Starfighter. The large numbers delivered reflected the high attrition rate also.

So that indicates apart from the 136 TF-104 2 seat trainers , there was also 2 interceptor wings and 2 recon wings which the F-4 was ordered. The remainder were suitable for replacement by Tornado strike aircraft., 7 wings in total. That would be well short of 600.

That would seem to be almost exactly 600 needed based on these calculations (583 specifically).

 

[Archibald]

. They went 50:50 with France on a vague promise of 200 aircraft, but a firm-ish requirement for maybe 100 carrier aircraft and about 60 bombers, with the F2 and F1 taking care of the rest of France's needs

The AdA paid the price however. Over 1968-73 those 200 Jaguars (while they made themselves useful in Africa from 1977) where pretty expensive. Not exactly a good bargain for a not all-weather attack plane. The AdA could have procured more IIIE (all weather, at least in theory) or Mirage V or F1A - barebones Mirage variants.

I'm still at lost why French Jaguars never got Mk.104 Adours. I should ask that at Airfense.net .

 

[Hood]

AVFG cannot be separated from Jaguar. The two agreements were quid pro quo - the UK selects a French supersonic trainer/light fighter with a British engine and the French choose a British VG airframe with a French engine. The fact the airframes and engines were joint ventures was immaterial, it was the lead status for each project that counted.

BAC would not have countenanced not building a VG winged combat aircraft. They desperately wanted to. The wanted P.45 to win ECAT/ASR.362 but France (quite rightly IMO) rejected the VG wing for a trainer. Those VG wing collaboration talks morphed into a 'combat aircraft' which obviously had to be larger than Jaguar. It couldn't be as large as TSR.2/Mirage IV because those roles were taken (and once TSR.2 was cancelled the F-111K was automatic frontrunner in that class).
So that left a limited field open - either replacing the Lightning and Javelin as an air defence platform would seem to be the obvious contender, but a reasonable force of Phantoms were already on order and would last well into the 70s. The smaller TSR/F-111 striker seemed less well fitting, it wasn't a mud-mover like Harrier and Jaguar, it wasn't a long-range striker, the RN already had Phantoms and Buccs and by 1966 the carriers were on limited life support until 1975.
France had its Mirage interceptors, Mirage IV nuclear bombers and Jaguars for mud-moving. The MN just bought Crusaders, the carriers were too small for strike aircraft and until this point that hadn't doctrinally had strike at its core. Dassault however certainly wanted the AdA to invest in larger interceptors/multi-role aircraft. As we now know, the funds were never there to realise that.

For me, AVFG was too soon to meet any real need from either nation. MRCA came a few years later was more of a late 70s/early 80s proposition when the mid-60s fleets acquired around the time AVFG was drafted needed replacing.
I think had P.45 gone ahead as a trainer that Britain would not have sought a VG wing collaboration with France at that time.

 

[Rule of cool]

The AdA paid the price however. Over 1968-73 those 200 Jaguars (while they made themselves useful in Africa from 1977) where pretty expensive. Not exactly a good bargain for a not all-weather attack plane. The AdA could have procured more IIIE (all weather, at least in theory) or Mirage V or F1A - barebones Mirage variants.

I'm still at lost why French Jaguars never got Mk.104 Adours. I should ask that at Airfense.net .

They went about getting an Attack aircraft in a roundabout way, by growing it from an advanced trainer. My guess is if they started in 1965 with the 1969 spec it might have been a bit cheaper.

 

[Rule of cool]

For me, AVFG was too soon to meet any real need from either nation.

I think they were still operating under the assumption that the first generation Mirages would only last for about 10 years, so the IVAs would need to be replaced in the 70s.

IIRC the RAAF Mirages that were delivered in the mid 60s were to have a life of 1500 flights hours, but most did well over 3000 hours and some did over 4000 hours. My guess is that the users didn't know these aircraft could be viable for 20 years until they got to 10 years and realised that these aircraft weren't obsolete.

 

[Hood]

They went about getting an Attack aircraft in a roundabout way, by growing it from an advanced trainer. My guess is if they started in 1965 with the 1969 spec it might have been a bit cheaper.

Jaguar was designed to be both from the outset, the ECAT specs made that clear. While the RAF were keener on the trainer version, it was always meant to be a short-field relatively simple ground attack aircraft.
Saying that, the lack of an APU was an omission for field operations, even if it could land and take-off from rough grass fields.
The Adours were a little puny. To answer Archibald's question - I don't know why they kept the Mk.102. They even resisted double-catalyst reheat ignition at first. I think it was a case of them not wanting to spend any more on Adour than they had to. While the RAF soon adopted the Adour for Hawk, France never did find another use for it.

The French seemed to have penny-pinched on Jaguar from the start, I don't that was deliberate or part of some evil M. Dassault plot, but simply a reflection of how limited the AdA's funds were given the other programmes and acquisitions at the time. Later on I guess the Mirage F1 was seen as the better bet and upgrades were simply skipped, after all in African bush wars you didn't need much more than the Jaguar could provide.
The RAF liked its high-tech toys to decked its Jags out with all-singing all-dancing kit.

 

[Archibald]

I asked the question on a french forum. The answer : tight budgets. They provided one example : in the late 1980's Jaguars serial 130 to 160 got ATLIS day laser pods and LGB capability... finding the money for that goodie was a hard fought uphill battle. 30 planes out of a 200 fleet.

The French seemed to have penny-pinched on Jaguar from the start -- simply a reflection of how limited the AdA's funds were given the other programmes and acquisitions at the time. Later on I guess the Mirage F1 was seen as the better bet.

Spot on. Fact is that the original F1C, IOC spring 1973 like the Jaguar (you can see why the AdA combat budget was stretched thin) got three variants / upgrade : the F1C-200 with Super 530F (late 1970's); the -CR for reconnaissance (early 1980's); and finally, in the early 1990's: the 55 * airframe -CT conversions to a fighter-bomber role (1992).
...
The AdA fighter-bomber fleet, 1960-2005 was made of
-Mirage IIIE
-Mirage VF (thanks Israel for that)
...
-Mirage F1-CT
-Jaguar
-Mirage 2000 N/D
Of the last three, only the Jaguar never got a "partial fleet upgrade". The Jaguar fleet size of 200 was comparable to the F1 fleet (246) or the 2000 fleet (315).
Even more telling
-the F1C got a fighter-bomber conversion to the -CT standard, 55 airframe
-the 2000RDI got 37 airframe converted to the -5F standard.
-There never was such major midlife upgrades to the Jaguar fleet. The closest is the -30 airframe conversion to ATLIS pods for LGBs.

And still, in GW1 it was the Jaguar that bore the brunt of the fight. Mirage IIIE and VF were totally obsoletes, while the F1CT and 2000D were not there yet, by a few years. Mirage 2000N was in service but ASMP above all - or dumb iron bombs, but no in-between. One of them was shot down over Bosnia in August 1995, the crew went POW until December.

 

[Rule of cool]

Jaguar was designed to be both from the outset, the ECAT specs made that clear. While the RAF were keener on the trainer version, it was always meant to be a short-field relatively simple ground attack aircraft.

In that case it appears as if the RAF moved towards the French over time, and eventually surpassed them by fitting fancier kit to their Jaguars.

Presumably the Jaguar was to replace Hunter advanced trainers, as the RAF received 105 Gnat trainers between 1960 and 1965.

 

[Rule of cool]

Would the AFVG have been more successful if the 60:40 work-share offered by the MoD in 1967 had been been the initial 1964-65 negotiated work-share? It would likely better reflect the countries respective requirement and interest in the project, and if France still pulled out it wouldn't be as damaging.

UK had only reached airframe mock up, engine component rig work.

Funny how this mock up doesn't get the attention as the other famous British mock up, the P1121.

It looks very round, compared to the Tornado which looks more angular. The main landing gear looks very Jaguar-esque.

 

[Scott Kenny]

I think they were still operating under the assumption that the first generation Mirages would only last for about 10 years, so the IVAs would need to be replaced in the 70s.

IIRC the RAAF Mirages that were delivered in the mid 60s were to have a life of 1500 flights hours, but most did well over 3000 hours and some did over 4000 hours. My guess is that the users didn't know these aircraft could be viable for 20 years until they got to 10 years and realised that these aircraft weren't obsolete.

Agreed. Remember, in the 1950s and early 1960s, planes might last 5 years in frontline service before being obsolete!

 

[Rule of cool]

Agreed. Remember, in the 1950s and early 1960s, planes might last 5 years in frontline service before being obsolete!

I read somewhere that Dassault expected an order for 60 Mirage G4s, which fits replacing the IVA fleet at about 10 years.

 

[TsrJoe]

 

[Hood]

AFVG could have been a good looking aircraft, no denying it. The Dassault G4 had a nice charm to it as well.
Tornado looks more menacing, maybe angular aircraft appear more threatening psychologically? I'm sure someone could do a PhD thesis on that.

 

[Archibald]

TBH I never quite understood why did France committed to AFVG in the first place. It was a VG plane solution looking for an operational problem, probably influenced by McNamara TFX multirole idiocy.
"VG can bring together USAF strike and USN interceptor requirements."
Well... no.

 

[Archibald]

With perfect hindsight we can say AFVG made sense for the british because UKVG MRCA and finally: large Tornado procurement, a few hundreds.

Bottom line : RAF found money to pay for Tornado in the end. The OR was strong enough to get it rolling.

So they kinda proved the AFVG move was the correct one in the first place.
That is : twin jet VG strike can be affordable... with the right partner(s) to help paying the bill.
AFVG : France, fail.
F-111K : USA, fail.
Tornado: Germany & Italy : success !

But the AdA ?
After AFVG : G4 G8 ACF 4000 : no money for any of them. No operational requirement (OR) solid enough to get them funded... unlike the Tornado.

I'm left wondering whether the AdA ever had any OR and money for AFVG in the first place... 1965.

I think Jaguar expenses 1968-1973 and Mirage IVA funded through Force de Frappe
(62 build until 1968)
obliterated any chance of a French Phantom, F-111 or F-15E. They ended squeezed.
Heck in 1978 thanks to the ASMP the Mirage IVP bet the crap out of AFVG G4 G8 ACF and 4000... it literally replaced itself as France strategic bomber !

And in the mid- 1980's both Mirage IVA and Jaguar flew 10 hours+ missions from France to Africa and back, with multiple aerial refuelings.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

800 AFVGs, or the 990 Tornados built make these aircraft highly successful. That's much better than the 726 Mirage F1s, 573 Jaguar or 601 Mirage 2000s built.

Personally, I think that with a 385 Tornado requirement Britain should have just gone ahead with the UKVG, or at the very least retained at least 51% (or controlling) share of the project. I think 300+ aircraft of this complexity is enough momentum to make a project worthwhile.

IIRC the UK paid 47.6% of the R&D cost of Tornado IDS and (obviously) 100% of the R&D cost of Tornado ADV. So finding the money for another 3.4% of the R&D cost of Tornado IDS aught to be possible.

 

[Rule of cool]

IIRC the UK paid 47.6% of the R&D cost of Tornado IDS and (obviously) 100% of the R&D cost of Tornado ADV. So finding the money for another 3.4% of the R&D cost of Tornado IDS aught to be possible.

I thought the work-share was 42.5% UK, 42.5% West Germany and 15% Italy, but the point stands. After all if the UK can offer France 60:40 for the AFVG in 1967 they can offer WG and Italy 49% in 1969.

 

[Rule of cool]

I'm left wondering whether the AdA ever had any OR and money for AFVG in the first place... 1965.

I suspect they thought they'd need to find the money, but as the years went buy they learned that the Mirage IVA could still do the job, so could kick that can down the road. They did so until the 80s when they had to buy the Mirage 2000N, but by then they had the ASMP and tankers so it's short range could be rationalised away.

However, on top of the Mirage IVA replacement, I suspect the French might was wanted to keep their options open for the AFVG to do something else. After all the F2 strike fighter was changed to the F3 interceptor just before cancellation and the G4 AFVG-esque strike aircraft was changed to the G8 interceptor. I could imagine the French wanting ~60 AFVG to replace the Mirage IVAs and another batch as interceptors.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

I thought the work-share was 42.5% UK, 42.5% West Germany and 15% Italy, but the point stands. After all if the UK can offer France 60:40 for the AFVG in 1967 they can offer WG and Italy 49% in 1969.

Quote from Page 219 of Charles Gardner's history of BAC.

The shareholding in Panavia remained at nationalisation, at least officially, at 42.5 - 42.5 - 15, but in May 1976 Mr William Rodgers of the Ministry of Defence said in Parliament that the UK's share of the total programme was really 47.6 per cent.

We're in violent agreement, because I wrote Message 33 in support of what you wrote in Message 7.

 

[Rule of cool]

I'm getting it now. From who's share did Britain pick up those extra few percent?

I'm quite dogmatic on the path I think Britain should have taken with aircraft development from the 57 DWP; avoiding the NMBR3 debacle with the Lightning and P1127, building the TSR2 and after all that entering joint development projects as the undoubted lead partner. TBH this was just on the feels and vibe, however this thread has confirmed that my sense of the vibe is correct.

The 1967 offer to France to split the AFVG 60:40 and the increase in Panavia from an agreed on 42.5% in 1969 to 46.7% by 1976 shows the realistic value of the British contribution to a high-end European combat aircraft development. I can't help but think that if when dealing with the French with the AFVG and Germany and Italy with the MRCA the British demanded a controlling interest they'd end up getting it without an adverse consequences to the resulting aircraft.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

I'm getting it now. From who's share did Britain pick up those extra few percent?

809 aircraft including 4 pre-production aircraft rebuilt to production standard: 385 (47.5%) UK; 324 (40.0%) BRD; and 100 (12.5%) Italy. (Percentages rounded to the nearest half a percent.) So 2.5% from West Germany and 2.5% from Italy.

 

[uk 75]

I think Jaguar worked well as a P1154 substitute for the RAF (with the P1127RAF filling part of the requirement).
A combo of 48 F111K (replacing the Vulcan B2) and several hundred AFVG replacing Phantoms and Buccaneers in the fighter and strike roles would have been excellent. Some might even have served on Ark Royal.

 

[duker]

Of the 9 F104 LW (+2 for the MF) wings some 5 (and 1 G91) wings were replaced by RF4E and F4F by the mid 70s; both fighter, both recce and one of 5 fighter-bomber wings. In addition while the West Germans and built bought 900+ F104G, they crashed 115 before 1970, so the LW strength likely peaked at ~600 aircraft and the MF another ~100.

The 88 RF4Es were ordered in 1968, so that removes 2 F104 wings of about 100 aircraft that don't need to be replaced. I don't know when the F4F was ordered, but I'm confident that the development was public enough knowledge in defence circles that the British should have known about it. The exact numbers would likely have been unknown, but the British should have had a rough idea of if it was going to be ~150 close to ~250.

The Tornado replaced 4 LW fighter-bomber wings, in 1969 the British should have known that the LW only was in the market for 5 or so wings of aircraft and the MF another 2.

According this german Phantom site
https://www.phantomstaffel.de/en/phantom-in-the-german-air-force/the-f-4-phantom/'Between 1971 and 1976 the German Air Force procured 263 „Phantom II“; of those 88 were RF-4 E and 175 F-4 F versions, which together equipped 6 Fighter-, Fighter Bomber- and Reconnaissance Wings'
Thats 6 wings in total with the F-4F, a downgraded F-4E, arriving in 1973. that suggests that 6 wings is the 265 plane ball park. All IDS Tornados, including MF, totalled 322 so that suggests 7 wings
It was speculation that Germany would buy a lot more Tornados then they did. Panavia during development & manufacturing process would have looked into the LW own detailed requirements not left it 'to the british to make it up' based on F-104 numbers