Oh Jesus. While your enthusiasm is laudible, young man, perhaps you'd be better off joining the army with your friend.
Didn't realise that you were talking about the F3, not the GR1/4.
1. Super Etendards carried Exocet, not Mirage.
2. Yes, assuming you had an ADV with Foxhunter radar that did it's job properly (which was a big issue for a good many years), it would be much more effective at picking up the baddies than SHAR FRS1 with Blue Fox. However, the lack of AEW would still be a big problem. Even the mighty F3 (ahem) can't see something if it's looking in the wrong place. You also have the issue of BVR capability with the F3
3. Returning to the fuel issue, jets burn fuel at ridiculous rates during ACM and it's a long trip back to Ascension in a rubber dinghy.
4. SHARs were multirole (FRS) where as Tornados are not (GR or F) Hence you would need two aircraft to perform the same functions.
5. I hope someone somewhere determined that having dedicated interceptors down there was a good idea since we spent an awful lot of money building an airfield and many people have spent months at a time on that pitiful rock, bored out of their tree (if there were any bloody trees, that is).
BTW, I believe that SHAR entered service only 4 years or so prior to the conflict and F3s didn't show up until about 5 years after. The entire conversation is a little like debating whether the Luftwaffe would have won the Battle of Britain if they had their MiG 29s. Basically an argument like this is like running in the special olympics- even if you win, you're still retarded.
