What if the RAF had bought the TSR-2 into service?....
We cant go by "What-ifs" because we all know that there were many hard decisions made, and many good designs went by the wayside, mainly due to the inbuilt corruption of he who is paid to shout loudest gets the best governmental projects.
sure we can, that's called "historical simulation games"
Is this a real world thing then?...
The full potential of the TSR2 was never discovered, it was scrapped as too expensive.
However.
The F111 USAF aircraft that was supposed to be the cheaper alternative turned out to be also too expensive.
If the F111 had been priced correctly, it would have been put as more expensive than the TSR2, so we would have gone ahead with TSR2
Hence the Tornado.
the tornado, if you look at it, is just a sleeker TSR2 with its placed engines internal.
Its also smaller, lighter, and has more power(?)
"What if".
If the TSR2 had continued and the threat of cold war hadnt been put as "Declining" at the time, the TSR2, a heavier craft than the Tornado had been developed, it would have had a better payload, better range, possibly slightly faster, but maybe slightly not as manoeuvrable.
How would that have changed the theatre?.
The theatre being the time we spent in those days playing "What if" the Russians latest high level Bear is not just making sure we are watching still.
Surely the engines that were developed for the Tornado would have found their way into (/Onto?) the TSR2, and its variants may have included a smaller version being the "Fighter" designation.
OR, is it better we developed the Tornado.
Some would say, and that includes me, that the Tornado is a higher level than TSR2, and in its own right, one hell of an aircraft....
I have to, it was my Job to defend the buggers, and I quite liked them anyway.
Look, I will never ever gibe up my stance that the Harrier is the worlds best aircraft of all time, its through that we develop STOL and VTOL, it is the "Mark" when it comes to the question...
for any other VTOL craft, Yes, but is it better than the harrier?..
In loose order, Harrier, Hercules, Vulcan, Lightning, Tornado, TSR2, Spitfire, Lancaster, Hurricane, then many many many more. But NOT that Nimrod.
I Hated that.
I had to, I worked on it.
Would we have changed the Harrier?.
Hell no.
We did, between GR mk1 and mk10, but they were just upgrades.
I suppose looking at all the "what-if" questions would have been interesting to consider, but I couldnt ever imagine a scenario where I would spend "A weekend" arguing one point as a game...
Heck we can do that here anyway if we wanted to, just open a thread....
On the subject of "However", this is the TANK thread, perhaps we have gone off on a tangent?.. we should keep this chatter to a minimum unless we do migrate it to another thread.
