Oh, man.....let it go!!!
If the SHAR was truly viable as a AMRAAM shooting escort/sweep WITH the legs to get to the target with the bombers, loiter until they egress and sweep out again - don't you think that they might have played in TELIC? I.e. the one conflict where every RAF/RN aircraft type in the inventory took part (bar Jaguar - Turkish politics...oh, and I suppose AH-64...does that count yet?)
To quote the 2* at a recent brief (out here somewhere sandy) "the one thing we have learned from this conflict that we can no longer afford to have single-role fighters, you must instead have a good swing-role capability."
Before you start about the Blue Vixen/AMRAAM combination - I agree, it's good. It's the airframe that's pants.....
CV
