Following the defeat of the British forces during the Aden Emergency, and seeing other conflicts happening at that time near the Suez, the RAF (Royal Air Force) saw the need to update their anti-shipping capability vastly during the turn of the '70s. This saw the joint development of the AJ-168 Martel anti-ship missile between Britain and France. However, the problem of carrying it still existed and, strapped on budget and time, the RAF decided to simply modify a selection of their existing Buccaneer S.2 aircraft with the required avionics and data bus to use the AC-226 HS datalink pod, allowing for terminal "Man-in-the-loop" TV guidance for the Martel missiles. 49 of this new variant, called the Buccaneer S.2B, were built between 1973 and 1977, with three going to the Ministry of Defence for weapons trials and testing, and the rest (46) entering active service. While the Royal Navy's Buccaneers had a long and fruitful service life, the RAF's Buccaneer's sat collecting dust mostly for nearly two decades, with their most interesting deployment being to be on station in Germany to laser-designate targets in case the Cold War went hot. The RAF Buccaneers were seemingly finally going to face their trial by fire during the Gulf War in the early '90s, when 12 RAF Buccaneer S.2Bs were deployed at short notice to the Gulf during Operation 'Granby'. However, these Buccaneers' mission was only to laser designate targets for Royal Air Force Tornados and Jaguars, with almost no real strike missions flown by the Buccaneers.

The Buccaneer S.2B was introduced in Update "Alpha Strike". Being a direct upgrade to its predecessor in the tree, the Buccaneer S.2, the S.2B variant not only has access to the powerful AJ 168 Martel missiles, but various new hardware and avionics upgrades over the older S.2. For starters, the S.2B has access to built-in countermeasures and the all-aspect AIM-9L missile, a major upgrade over the external countermeasures pod and the AIM-9B of its predecessor. More importantly for a strike aircraft, the S.2B has access to the Pave Spike laser targeting pod alongside Paveway laser guided bombs, or alternatively, the AJ-168 Martel TV guided anti-ship missile, which due to its TV guidance, can also be used against ground targets in mixed ground battles, where it proves its potency thanks to having one of the highest TV lock ranges in-game and a very powerful warhead. Players must still be aware of the usual shortfalls of the Buccaneer family, being its large size and weight resulting in cumbersome flight performance, along with the lack of any built-in cannon armament.