- Joined
- 27 September 2006
- Messages
- 6,089
- Reaction score
- 6,206
Visitors to the Whatifmodelers site will be familiar with the saga of the RAF as it might have been with TSR2, HS 1154 and HS 681 in service.
Following the exhaustive coverage of the likely TSR 2 squadrons in Model Aircraft Monthly and articles on HS 1154 and HS 681 in Air Britain and Air Enthusiast/International (forget which), I am struck by how small the RAF would have become by 1975 when the types were planned to be in service. Even with maximum buys of 150 TSR2s and 150 1154s, plus about 50 681s, the front line force would have required considerably fewer bases than the RAF actually used in 1975 with its Hunter/Harrier/Phantom/Jaguar/Buccaneer/Vulcan force. RAFGermany would only have needed Wildenrath for its 2 1154 squadrons and Gutersloh for its 2 Lightning squadrons. No TSR2s would have been permanently based at Bruggen and Laarbruch. Bases in Cyprus and further afield would have seen units rotate from main bases in Britain.
This serves to put the high cost of the individual aircraft in some perspective, though whether fewer aircraft would in fact have been able to do the job of the wider range of aircraft. Eventually the RAF did end up with a mainly Tornado force with a mobile Harrier/Jaguar component, but only towards the end of the Cold War, a decade at least later than planned.
Hope this is of interest. Do go to Whatifmodelers to see what the RAF in 1975 would have been flying.
UK 75
Following the exhaustive coverage of the likely TSR 2 squadrons in Model Aircraft Monthly and articles on HS 1154 and HS 681 in Air Britain and Air Enthusiast/International (forget which), I am struck by how small the RAF would have become by 1975 when the types were planned to be in service. Even with maximum buys of 150 TSR2s and 150 1154s, plus about 50 681s, the front line force would have required considerably fewer bases than the RAF actually used in 1975 with its Hunter/Harrier/Phantom/Jaguar/Buccaneer/Vulcan force. RAFGermany would only have needed Wildenrath for its 2 1154 squadrons and Gutersloh for its 2 Lightning squadrons. No TSR2s would have been permanently based at Bruggen and Laarbruch. Bases in Cyprus and further afield would have seen units rotate from main bases in Britain.
This serves to put the high cost of the individual aircraft in some perspective, though whether fewer aircraft would in fact have been able to do the job of the wider range of aircraft. Eventually the RAF did end up with a mainly Tornado force with a mobile Harrier/Jaguar component, but only towards the end of the Cold War, a decade at least later than planned.
Hope this is of interest. Do go to Whatifmodelers to see what the RAF in 1975 would have been flying.
UK 75