TSR2 60 years ago today

If the TSR.2 was never canclled then there would have been no need for the Tornado and the RAF would have had a far superior strike aircraft. But that was typical British politics at that time.
 
FighterJock said:
If the TSR.2 was never canclled then there would have been no need for the Tornado and the RAF would have had a far superior strike aircraft. But that was typical British politics at that time.
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Tornado was superior in every way besides unrefuelled range.

It wasn't politics, it was cost and cost growth.
 
Mike Pryce said:
It's 60 years since the infamous event

https://twitter.com/x/status/1908792157692903689
View: https://x.com/MichaelJPryce/status/1908792157692903689


And this thread https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/tsr2-conference-cosford-13-may-2023.41350/

Was it really the turkey we all now say it is?
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Consider for a moment that Operation Rolling Thunder had started just a over a month before this cancellation. By the end of 1965, Wild Weasel missions were well underway, and it would have been clear that undefended low level tactics of the type envisioned by the TSR2 were unserviceable. By the time of Linebacker II and the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the TSR2 would have been fully obsolescent.
 
People have unrealistic romantic notions about the TSR.2. Cancellation was the best decision for the RAF. Unfortunately there wasn't really anything good enough until Tornado.
 
red admiral said:
Tornado was superior in every way besides unrefuelled range.

It wasn't politics, it was cost and cost growth.
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Tornado had zero growth from the outset, as reflected by the continual degradation of its performance over the decades. By the end of its career it was a medium-ranged, subsonic, medium-level, twin-bomb attack aircraft with a barn-door RCS that flew most of its missions with the wing forward.

Not enough fuel, no internal space for ECM, no internal space for countermeasures, no internal space for targeting sensors, permanently reduced stores carriage due to external tanks. Hard to find many positives.
 
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TinWing said:
Consider for a moment that Operation Rolling Thunder had started just a over a month before this cancellation. By the end of 1965, Wild Weasel missions were well underway, and it would have been clear that undefended low level tactics of the type envisioned by the TSR2 were unserviceable. By the time of Linebacker II and the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the TSR2 would have been fully obsolescent.
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Not quite, the USAF was quite happy to do exactly those sort of missions with their F-111s in the later years of the Vietnam War.
 
Personally I think the right decision would have been to develop the line of proposals for advanced Buccaneers.

I also think some (but not all, and to varying degrees depending on the project) of the attraction for TSR2 and some other "what-ifs" is down to just how interesting they look, and there's no denying TSR2 is a cool looking bird.
 

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red admiral said:
All those things besides fuel apply to TSR2 and other contemporary aircraft
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Bill Gunston I think wrote something along the lines of "Tornado was too small for the RAF, too big for the Luftwaffe and just right for the Aeronautica Militare".

The ops plans for TSR2 were very impressive. Marham to Switzerland, across Austria and then up into WarPac territory. Also says a lot about attitudes to neutral countries!

The Tonka had to be based in Germany to try and smash through the heaviest defences.
 
Mike Pryce said:
The Tonka had to be based in Germany to try and smash through the heaviest defences.
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Which also helps a lot with sortie rate.

When longer range is needed then air to air refuelling is a thing e.g. the historical 3,000nm mission as part of Op Ellamy (Libya) that Tornado did.

The extra fuel on TSR2 buys additional range the other side of the FLOT. But then the 1,000nm from West Germany to Moscow is going after a rather different target set to battlefield air interdiction. @uk 75 's description of TSR2 as the 4th V bomber rings true in many ways.
 
If the RAF wanted more range why didn´t they went with the ADV airframe in the first place ?
 
red admiral said:
Which also helps a lot with sortie rate.

When longer range is needed then air to air refuelling is a thing e.g. the historical 3,000nm mission as part of Op Ellamy (Libya) that Tornado did.

The extra fuel on TSR2 buys additional range the other side of the FLOT. But then the 1,000nm from West Germany to Moscow is going after a rather different target set to battlefield air interdiction. @uk 75 's description of TSR2 as the 4th V bomber rings true in many ways.
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True, but they were thinking mostly about Red Beard/WE177 when planning so only modest sortie rates were required.

Even when the Tornado entered service the disappointing range meant a reshuffle for the RAF in 1981, with it replacing Jaguars in Germany rather than Vulcans in the UK. Buccaneers were kept longer too. That cost AST403 as well.
 
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Mike Pryce said:
Was it really the turkey we all now say it is?
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It was trapped in a never-ending weight increase spiral, plus the manufacturer could not provide ANY estimate of costs to finish development.

They couldn't even say "the problems we know about right now will take X many pounds to fix. That doesn't account for any unforseen problems that crop up later."

That's an utter failure of project management, regardless of aircraft performance.



Anderman said:
If the RAF wanted more range why didn´t they went with the ADV airframe in the first place ?
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Because the Germans didn't want to pay that much for an airframe, didn't need that much range.
 

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