I visited Huntings in 1974, well pre-Tornado let alone GW1, when I was on the WEC. We had concluded that overflight of an airfield defended by Rapier equivalent missiles was a no-no and that a rocket booster and an IN (Blue Steel
) would be ideal.
The guys at Huntings went quite white about the gills as they thought e might recommend cancellation of JP233.
We were also told that it was designed as a modular weapon with dimensions tailored to match the available fuselage lengths on Jaguar and Tornado and another aircraft probably Buccaneer or F4.
Bear in mind we already had Martel coming in to service so stand-off munitions were hardly new.