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Old 19th Jan 2017, 20:49
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MAINJAFAD
 
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ColdCollation, the next new bomber after the TSR2 was the Harrier that also met that requirement. Essentially this off-airfield or MOS operation was a 50s/60s fashion that pre-dated the June war and the Jaguar after that also had to have an austere runway capability.

The V- bomber disperse plan also fitted this concept with an essential difference; it was for a single Strike mission which could be mounted from bare-base by self supporting detachments. As mentioned above, the off-base logistics support for sustained operations was not cheap. Austere then gave way to post-67 war hardening.
NATO war plans for continental Air Ops in the lead up for WWIII were the same as the V-force up to 1968 and that was single strike missions from dispersed basing. This was because NATO's overall war plan was all out nuclear from the start of any hostilities. The Harrier (and Jaguar to some extent) OR were written to that requirement. The move to hardened shelters was in light of what happened in June 1967, but was mainly driven by the move to a flexible response policy by NATO in 1968. This required operations to be totally non nuclear for a number of days in the face of around 2000-3000 WP fighter-bombers and light bombers plus non nuclear missile attack.
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