The Strategy of the TSR-2

Abstract

In preface to Royal United Service Institutions monograph on complex history of ill-fated tsr-2 British tactical strike reconnaissance aircraft, I wrote: This study was inspired by melancholy spectacle of a great nation forced to cancel an important military aircraft. The aircraft was considered by Air staff to be a necessary piece of hardware even though financial necessity eventually compelled its cancellation. Tsr-2 was conceived at a time when 'Geneva Spirit* had given way to heightened international hostility under impact of Khrushchev's world-wide political offensive. The project was finally axed when Britain's imperial commitment was undergoing its final rites in South-east Asia. Throughout this period away from public gaze, with a mysterious life all of its own, project seemingly flourished. Like monasteries of preReformation England project attracted speculation about riotous spending and scandalous conduct.1 The significance of tsr-2 can be seen clearly in both military and technological spheres, but it was one of accidents of history that its rise and demise should reflect and perhaps accentuate -a more basic change in Britain's position than had occurred at any time since sixteenth century. When tsr-2 was at drawing board stage of development, in that rather curious embryonic way that military aircraft emerge from aspirations of airmen and technological hopes of designers, Britain ran half of Africa, dominated Red Sea Gulf area, and had undisputed claim to maintain the peace in Indian Ocean, British Africa, and large tracts of Southeast Asia. By time tsr-2 was scrapped in 1965 Britain's imperial decline had become an irreversible fact although, of course,