Being interested in military aviation history, especially the Cold War, I've stumbled upon some questions which I haven't been able to answer yet. Since there are many people here who actually flew/maintained/controlled UK Phantoms, this must be the perfect place for those questions
With the end of the CW and the following array of defense reviews in Western armed forces, some things didn't turn out exactly the way they had been planned pre-1990. One example of which seems to be the FGR.2 in RAF service. Unfortunately, I've only got superficial knowledge about the Cold War RAF so far, gathered mainly from the Internet, so I hoped that you could help me with those questions.
1) Am I right in believing that the Tornado F.3 had only been intended to be a
partial replacement for the Phantom? So far, I haven't found any evidence that any ADVs were bound for the Wattisham squadrons or RAFG. Of course, those bases were axed in 1992, but to me, this seems to be the result of the post-Cold War drawdowns rather than restructurings planned on a long-term basis.
2) If some Phantoms were to be kept in service beyond the FOC of the F.3s, had there been any plans to modernize the remaining fleet (something like the Luftwaffe ICE program)? I know that the British Phantoms got those new, awkward-looking RWRs on top of their fins at some point in the 70s, but apart from that, I can't recall any major upgrades during their RAF service. But then again, my knowledge is, like I said, only superficial
Thanks for helping!