If (and it’s a big ‘if’) everything had worked as advertised, the TSR2 would have been outstanding in its main role – delivering laydown nukes against well-defended targets. It would also have been as good at recce (including IR/TV imagery datalinked to a ground station) and no doubt could have been turned into a good EW platform. It would have been awesome in the anti-ship role too.
It had enormous range – especially if the conformal tanks had been fitted – and could maintain supersonic low-level speed for much longer than just about anything else. It could fly from short, rough fields and was fully autonomous, which meant it could operate from ‘in the field’, and it could launch a mission in five minutes. Low-level speed was about M1.2 and it was theoretically a M3 high-altitude aircraft, although (like the F-111) it would have been limited by the skin temperatue to about M2.5.
I’m convinced that if it had been produced it would have served right throughout the ‘low-level’ era. Whether it would have lasted much beyond is open to question. It would have needed a big avionics core update to make it compatible with new weapons/pods. Still, like the F-111, it would have made a very good precision bomber with a phenomenal range – just stick some LGBs under the wings and a tank in the bomb bay and you’re looking at around 1200 nm radius.
My guess is, though, that it would not be around today. Like the 111, it would have been retired in the 90s as being just too big and too expensive to justify once its main mission had gone.
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