Originally Posted by
ORAC
and eats fatigue life at an incredible rate.
So, to be frank, in the last few years of it's life it was an airframe in search of a role.
Orac, this is true as are your points about finance, superiority and supremacy.
Counter-factually however a stand-off missile carrier in the 70s would have made the AFVG and the Tornado obsolete. It could have carried cruise quicker to launch areas than a submarine. This is ignoring the political non-escalatory deployment of submarines, on the other hand the overt deployment of TALCM has a deterent value all of its own.
In the 70s though we were not really talking micro-miniature yet. Not sure what computor size the AWG 9 or 10/11/12 radar capacity was but the Nimrod was a whopping 16-bit 8k.
It would certainly have cost lots of money for modern electronics.
My favourite mod would have to been to rearrange the electrics to permit 2 engine cruise. Now that would have increased its endurance.