Are you aware that Rafales are plumbed for CFTs too? The Rafale would retain its advantage over the Typhoon even if the Typhoon got CFTs.

And what happened after it was integrated with CFTs? Were they issued for operational use to the squadrons? Are they retained as reserves for operational contingencies?

If I said that the Rafale’s range was limited by the absence of CFTs, you’d argue, and rightly so, that the AdlA had determined that 3 x 2000L were sufficient for cruise missile delivery. But if the EF were to demonstrate a similar range with CFTs, it would be “inadequate” in your eyes because its not piling on even more fuel that’s not required to get the job done.

The Rafale CFTs don’t hold 1500L but 12~~ something IIRC.

But are you saying a Rafale couldn’t take off with 2CFT, 2 2000L tanks & 2 Scalps? How is this config unpractical exactly?

Its impractical because its unnecessary. If it were necessary, I’d imagine it wouldn’t have been a theoretical configuration and we’d have seen it in service. Especially with the integration having been flight tested.

the beggining of your answer says it all… it’s the same Typhoon story since 30 years.. “once you integrate [add the thing you wanted to have yesterday]…”

This is absurd. German Rafales? No problem. Never mind the induction costs, new training pipeline, difference in munitions & logistics, local workshare etc. Upgrading Eurofighter with CFTs, to the same end? No can do because.. budgets, politics and what have you.

I can think of a few features the Rafale offers over other platforms for deep strike penetration

Over the current Typhoon

The operative phrase being ‘current’. As far as Germany is concerned, it makes far more sense to invest in upgrading the EF to equal or exceed that capability than it does to invest in an entirely new platform.

No I get it, but it is just your own little intuitive concept, and there is nothing to actually demonstrate that the lower labour costs in India would make it bearable for the IAF. If you need nearly twice as much manpower to look after an aircraft, over 40 years of ownership and given the number of airframe in the MMRCA competition you can bet the differencial will be significative in absolute value as well for total cost of ownership. And bringing the GDP per capita is still perfectly valid as costs are relative to each country. Just like talking of the added complexity of managing a bigger workforce or the impact on fleet availability are relevant.

There is nothing to demonstrate that it wouldn’t either. “If you need nearly twice as much manpower” but your manpower costs a fifth or sixth as much, the cost of spares will be a bigger factor (compared to Switzerland) leading to a more competitive CPFH if your spares are cheaper.

You did not establish anything, and saying that there was no standardized method of comparison is exagerated, unproven & very unlikely. Unless CNC are complete rookies, you have to come with a method to compare costs and they would use their critical sense to see if there is a distortion between manufacturer. Rafale was not declared L1 out of the hat after such a long process of evaluating costs. You will always be able to raise some questions in such a mamoth task, especially from those with an agenda, but in the end the L1 evaluation has not been invalidated, and nor Dassault nor former Indian defense minister were faces with any charge. MMRCA stalled at a latter stage during exclusive negociation due to the complexity of implementing the contractual frame.

Your belief in the L1 status appears borders on the religious, but I don’t think others will be as blase about the facts.

– Dassault’s bid included 50-60 unpriced ‘misc’ items, which distorted the LCC assessment.
– the defence minister put the L1 up for review after getting that (and possibly other) feedback
– the decision to proceed with the CNC before resolving the L1 problem, was made on an ad hoc basis (discretionary decision by the DM)
– “in the end” the MMRCA was scrapped, so the L1 review never happened, the selection was never validated and the issue was not resolved
– the idea of ‘nobody faced any charges’ so all must have been well, implies that there was no criminal conduct but ignores the possibility of gross incompetence on the MoD’s part in drafting the RFP or in accepting Dassault’s bid (in either case, since no contract was awarded under the MMRCA RFP, no subsequent investigation was deemed necessary).

In what appears to be a rerun of the Scorpene project, around 50-60 ‘un-priced’ items are believed to have been listed as miscellaneous’ in Dassault’s offer for the Rafale which emerged as L1 or the lowest bidder in the MMRCA tender ahead of the Eurofighter. MoD sources claim that it is these sundry articles that have emerged as the principal financial hurdle in negotiating the Rafale deal on the basis of its Life Cycle Cost based on keeping the fighter operational for four decades. It appears that subsequent pricing by Dassault of these so-called miscellaneous but critical items — like in the Scorpene tender — in its deliberations with the MoD’s Cost Negotiation Committee, are responsible for significantly inflating the Rafale contract cost, jeopardising the vendors L1 status and delaying its closure.
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what does prompt embarrassing questions for the MoD and the IAF is their failure or worse, possible collusion in categorically evaluating bids, leaving vendors to spring un-anticipated and hugely expensive surprises upon them once it was too late to pull back. – Link

No that’s different as the rafale was assessed during a comprehensive technical evaluation and was declared L1 after a long assessment. MMRCA was scrapped at a later stage and the final choice of the cancelled MMRCA has not been called into question both technically and on price. Because MMRCA contractual frame was so complex the new Indian authority decided to go the Gov to Gov route to speed up the process. If there were any wrongdoings, Dassault and former Mindef would have been faced with a probe and a fresh bid would have been relaunched. Because the New Indian government was comfortable with rafale selection (and they certainly had a closer look) they could proceed with a direct purchase with France, capitalizing on MMRCA selection.

The L1 decision was never validated as I showed above. The decision to proceed with a govt-to-govt sale was made by the PMO by bypassing the MoD. If the political factors are to be ignored, and this assumed to be proof of the Rafale’s superiority, then it would be hypocritical to allege “politics” when it comes to the F-35’s success.

And how do you know that assumptions would have been more liberal or conservative for one or another competitor and the the CNC would have been plain naive or corrupted ? You are implying that Dassault would have cheated or quoted unfair prices but this has never been proven by a court/indian justice/inquiry. If there was something serious Dassault would currently be under scrutiny. There is this naive idea that Dassault would have played its game well within the RFP and that Typhoon Gmbh wouldn’t have tried to do the same…This has never been demonstrated and is just in the mind of people who will never completely accept the outcome.

I don’t know that it would have been more liberal or conservative or exactly the same. Nobody does. Hence the dispute. The L1 decision should have reviewed in order to remove these ambiguities before proceeding with exclusive negotiations but the defence minister (presumably afraid of facing brickbats for a process that had already taken almost decade) decided, on his discretionary authority, to let it ride and leave the L1 problem to be sorted out later (maybe by his successor).

I’m not saying that Dassault provided “unfair prices” that is unproven. I am saying that it provided incomplete prices, and that IS proven. Did EF do the same? If so, did they do so to the same extent? Nobody knows.

You were proven wrong but cannot accept it, rafale ease of use was a design driver and is deeply rooted in Dassault’s DNA of producing light, rugged and simple fighters that can be remotely operated and there is nothing anecdotical with it

Err.. I don’t think you understand what ‘anecdotal’ means. I think you have it confused with ‘believable’.

I am understanding your rationale but it is simply incorrect. X€ per hour of Indian manpower might not seem expensive from the swiss point of view but that is another story for India. Bringing the GDP per capita or the cost of life is perfactly relevant.

No you certainly have not understood the concept, at all (or you’re pretending not to). Nowhere in my post was the ‘Swiss point of view’ or any such positional perception mentioned.

If the CPFH to India for aircraft B is lower than aircraft A because of lower labour costs, and we’re talking in absolute figures (not whether it ‘feels’ less or more), then GDP per capita is obviously meaningless.

You did not prove anything, the first L1 has not been called into question in the end. The new Gov had all latitude to put former indian Mindef or Dassault Under scrutiny if any wrongdoings were suspected. That would have been quite a political coup and I am sure they would have jumped on the opportunity if it was the case. When the new Gov took office, they must have had a closer look of the process, some points were raised, but not to the point that a fraud or error would have cancelled the deal.

“In the end”, the MMRCA contract was scrapped so the re-examination of the L1 status became a moot point.

We’ve already established that the Dassault bid included a large “miscellaneous” uncosted component (which is what led to the L1 dispute). You can blame that on ambiguities in the RFP, but if so that means that there was no standardized method of comparison. And if there was no standardized method of comparison then the L1/L2 positions aren’t genuine. That’s just basic logic.

The fact that the rafale choice has been confirmed by the new indian gov is the most important thing. Acts not just words.

Oh that’s perfectly fine then. But I trust you will not display a hypocritical streak when the same logic i.e. “it was chosen by the govt so it was clearly the best, ‘acts not words’!” is used to justify the superiority of the F-35 over the Rafale.

Incorrect, here is French AF chief of Staff in 2012 point of view in an Interview:

An apt example of anecdotal evidence.

Defense is national by definition. While in France you have Dassault who has, pretty much, eaten all competition, you can’t go much further as every country (because they all are separate countries) wants to protect its own “national defense sector industry” and has its own policy, thus, its own specific needs.

Well India needed to create its own version of Dassault (or BAE, if you like), so this argument that monopolies are bad of business is obviously questionable.

Now, talking about Reliance, why regression? It’s the answer to a need expressed by the GoI. They want Rafales, Dassault brings them Rafales. They want 51% offsets.. Dassault provides the offsets they asked for. It’s not because others were there before that everything has to go through them… if they can win markets, good for them, if not, their problem. IF you want to move on, you need competition, without competition (with a monopoly of one actor), you only get stagnation or even regression as there’s no stimulation that will make them move forward.

The problem is that you’re looking at this from the perspective of a Frenchman. So you’re justifying a monopoly as good & fine for France but a duopoly (with HAL) as a source of stagnation for India.

Reliance offering “competitive” terms to Dassault to secure a deal might be good for Reliance, good for Dassault, good for France (supports exports & jobs) but not so much for India. The actual delivery of the offset value is very difficult to audit and further fragmentation in the industry makes the emergence of private sector counterpart/counterweight to HAL much more distant.

One more time: Europe as a country does not exist, period.

Well.. I’d describe Airbus as a European company but maybe that’s just me.

While liners compete on global scale and uniting into a single big multinational company still avoided monopoly as there’s Boeing to compete with, in defense, every country (UK, Germany, Belgium, Spain, France and so on, NOT Europe) has its own policy. The “would-be partnership” that gave the Typhoon, still can’t compete with a “single national product” be it price wise or on the development as it was delayed by for internal political reasons of different partners (the “I want my share and don’t want to pay for others” syndrome). Not to speak about countries that buy fighters from outside EU instead of buying “local”. You want to compare to the USA? do you imagine one second Texas, or any other US state buying the Rafale or the Typhoon for their Air National Guard? The european countries operating fighters like the F-18 or F-16, and still buying some today are there to prove, if need be, that they are European only when they can pull some profit from it but otherwise couldn’t give a damn about Europe

Well like I said, the objective of the SP model was to create national champions like those in Europe with France being an apt example; there’s relatively little overlap between Dassault, Thales, DCNS, Nexter, etc with most of the internal competition (like Breguet) having been merged into single entity.

Fragmentation will simply lead to a diffusion of investment capital & lower levels of local value addition leaving the state perpetually beholden to foreign OEMs. In that sense, allowing the likes of Reliance & Adani into the fray has been a regressive move, though given the kind political influence wielded by them, perhaps not unsurprising.

Availability rate does not mean much if you don’t understand the effort and money involved. With 10 time the manpower you might reach the same availability rate but it is ten time less efficient. And usually most ressources are drained to support opperations which leads to impressive availability rate while at home the situation is often less rosy. In both cases it doesn’t tell much about the maintainability of the aircraft but rather indicates where ressources are allocated.

You should look at the number of man hour required to maintain the aircraft per hour of flight for instance, the number of flight hours after which you have to put the aircraft to the depot for extensive maintenance, the ease of change of each subsystems etc…That is the only single way to measure. Your rationale does not work.

I’m still not sure what all this extemporising is meant to prove.

The Swiss gent said that the EF had higher manpower costs and likely lower spares costs in the Swiss environment. The cost of manpower is much lower in India than for the West for all levels of skill/education. So the labour component of the CPFH will be relatively much lower, and cost inputs will be dominant. That’s all there is to the manpower argument.

As for the argument about the EF having lower serviceability than its peers (and thus requiring a larger fleet), I still await actual evidence.

An aircraft that needs more (skilled) manpower to maintain is simply more difficult and expensive to operate, that is just plain logic.

It is costlier because of the bigger workforce you have to hire, train, and pay with the risk of brain drain from the private sector and that is worth for India as well, even if the workforce is relatively cheaper in comparison. More expensive is more expensive.

More expensive only if everything else is the same. In a country, where labour is cheap, the cost of spares will be a bigger contributor to the CPFH, and vice versa for a country with higher labour costs.

Just one example also that goes beyhond costs to show there is a greater stake at risk : I guess that an expert on optical sensor maintenance is a rare ressource in India (like in many other fields), I bet that the private sector would be happy to hire this expert which has gained valuable professional experience on top tier technology. Same goes for avionics, engine etc…You are assuming that this kind of skilled worforce can be quickly replaced while in real life that can be quite a headeache for the IAF. Less work force needed = peace of mind.

Trouble is that you’re ‘betting’ without any real knowledge of what the industries dominate the private sector in India and what their actual HR requirements are. There is, for example, unlikely to be a vacant position for an “optical sensor maintenance technician” in the classifieds.

The underlying fact is that skilled workers/technicians with such experience, have greater opportunities in the private sector in Europe (than in India) by virtue of a large & mature aerospace & defence industry. Which further inflates their wage difference with their Indian peers. (The same may not be true for the IT or automobile industry.)

Then if you need to perform more maintenance checks, your are anticipating more possible breakdown which will logically lead to higher spares consumption…Which is also logic given the rafale has fixed intakes, fixed fuel probe, fixed radar antenna, and no dedicated airbrake. Simplicity of design is in Dassault DNA as it sold many aircrafts to poorer countries and that the Armée de l’air deploys in remote location in Africa since ages. Light and simple has been one of Dassault’s trademark. Tornado or Typhoon is not of the same design tradition.

I’m yet to see any credible evidence let alone quantification of ‘higher spares consumption’. Fuel probes, intake ramps, airbrakes & radar gimbal aren’t typically associated with consumables or common points of failure AFAIK. The rest is anecdotal – has no evidentiary value.