Originally Posted by
typerated
The RAF wanted a bigger aircraft - something to fill the hole from TSR-2, F-111, AFVG . The Germans wanted something with the performance/size of a Jaguar.
Tornado was best compromise between the two.
and then someone thought what a great platform to make an Air Defence fighter.
Typerated,
Just to further back up what Finningley Boy said earlier, the RAF got exactly what they wanted in MRCA/Tornado. The range issue concerned the TSR-2 and F-111K, and was predicated round the Far East requirement, not Europe. Even after the pull out from Singapore and Malaysia was announced, Healey was talking about basing long range strike aircraft (TSR-2 then F-111K) on islands in the Indian ocean or even in Australia.
The MRCA as was was conceived in a post Far East era and that long range requirement was no longer there. The idea of the RAF striking Moscow went with the end of the V-Bomber deterrent, and the tactical requirement was to strike Eastern Europe and the Kola peninsular, which is what Tornado was actually designed for.
It was THE best solution to this need, and gave the RAF the fast, low level, two seat radar equipped well defended strike aircraft it had sought to replace Canberra from the late 50's on. Buccaneer was an interim replacement, never really up to the job, and as for Jaguar...
The MRCA was in fact the REAL replacement for the Jaguar's predecessor, the Phantom FGR2, the aircraft I flew in Germany. This was the fast, low level two seat well equipped and versatile radar equipped strike aircraft that the RAF needed in Europe. Just so ironic that it had actually been a planned purchase to replace Lightning in the AD role. The fact that the RN no longer had a requirement for their FG1 fleet beyond the 28 they eventually took, meant that some one in the ivory towers realised just what they could do in Germany with the FGR2, especially as NATO had adopted flexible response and a conventional period of warfare, as opposed to the all out nuclear retaliation that the TSR-2 was designed for.
I realise that the MRCA range was woeful compared to that of the Vulcan, but in fact there never actually WAS a Vulcan replacement in the RAF, as the bulk of the RAF Tornado fleet was committed to Germany, thus restoring a level of credibility to the strike attack role lost when the Jaguar replaced the FGR2 in Germany. When the RAFG Jaguar squadrons re-equipped with Tornado the Vulcan squadrons just withered on the vine and were disbanded one after the other. The TRUE Vulcan replacement of course was Polaris, THIS was the UK threat to Moscow and other points east. The remaining Vulcans post 1969 being committed to theatre nuclear strike, the conventional capability also being left to wither on the vine, hence the hasty rushing around to resurrect it in 1982!
In fact, talking of the post 1969 theatre nuclear Vulcans, I always wondered at some of my allocated strike targets in RAFG. SAM sites and similar in Eastern Germany, they always to me looked like we were blasting a path for someone else...
And as for your snipe at the F3, it was NOT a fighter designed to mix it with Migs and Sukhois, it was a long range autonomous interceptor designed to loiter 400 miles off the UK coast at low level at night or in a snow storm and take out Regimental sized Backfire raids heading for the UK. NO other aircraft of the day, with the possible exception of the AIM-54 equipped F-14, came anywhere near meeting that requirement. It wasn't the fault of the F3 that the world changed in 1989.