The capabilities of current EW systems are naturally highly classified, and for armchair experts to try to compare them on an internet bulletin board seems particularly facile. A little knowledge coupled with an incomplete understanding can be dangerous.

SPECTRA is clearly a good system, but as Scorpion implies above, other aircraft have similar systems, and Rafale has no truly unique capabilities. All of the emission free/limited emission tactics being described here can be used by a Super Hornet, an advanced Eagle or a Typhoon.

Moreover, while SPECTRA does enjoy some real advantages when compared to rival systems, it also has drawbacks and disadvantages. System design is always a compromise. For instance, just as the location of Rafale’s SPECTRA antennas confers some advantages, it also brings some small issues with airframe obscuration (for example) and makes it harder to achieve truly spherical coverage.

Rafale doesn’t have a towed decoy.

That’s not to say that SPECTRA is necessarily ‘worse’ than a particular rival system, I’m only gently pointing out that it isn’t either perfect, nor unique, nor the kind of game changer that some are implying.

Finally, with any EW system, mission data is of paramount importance. Threat libraries differ widely, and systems can be tweaked and tuned. This could mean, for example, that the difference between (say) an Austrian Typhoon and an Italian Typhoon in EW performance could be greater than the difference between a Typhoon and a Rafale. This is why the USA (with its vast resources, and its access to threat systems) does EW so well.

Childish and inaccurate.

Let’s move along.

Eagle made some stupid and unsubstantiated points about Typhoon CFTs. I corrected them. Had he not brought Typhoon into the thread I would not have done.

Though many others are regularly making deliberately provocative remarks that deserve to be slapped down.

EG:

“I do not know why we must have a drawing of a possible up-date of the failed European fighter project in the thread about the awesome Rafale.”

As for the CFTs for the typhoon I don’t know all the details but one could make a reasonnable assumption by saying that it is not as easy as it would seem.

They’ve done detailed structural design, and tunnel tested the CFTs. It is not a ‘reasonable assumption’ that integration is ‘not easy’. The CFTs are ready, should any user require them, and T3 aircraft are being built with the required interface, which could be easily retrofitted to all earlier aircraft.

Just that without them a typhoon with 2 cruise missiles will only be able to fly with a single small drop tank which makes this config simply almost useless operationnaly for deep strike missions.

Nonsense. Typhoon still has a useful unrefuelled radius of action, just not as long as Rafale’s.

Also with 2 GBU-24 and a LDP there is bo room left for external fuel.

Are you sure? I think that GBU-24 can fit on the inner pylons, and in any case, in an era of low collateral damage, 2,000-lb LGBs are a bit passé.

My point is that without the CFT investment a whole range of missions are realisticaly excluded form the typhoon scope.

No they’re not.

The F35 and Tornado doing a good job in those tasks the case for turning the typhoon in a multirole aircraft is weak.

It may be that the case for turning Typhoon into a dedicated very long range heavy strike aircraft is weak, but again, you’re being so black and white as to be effectively wrong.

I just suspect that the CFT development being a difficult one………

CFT development is done and dusted. There’s nothing difficult about it.

member nations are reluctant fielding other capabilities before and as other options exists (F35, tornado) the necessary investment for export markets is not made.

At last, one good point! It is certainly true that the reluctance of the partner nations to fund particular capabilities long before they are needed by the partner nations means that investment in those capabilities is not being made early, even though such early investment might be useful for the export market.

[QUOTE=eagle1;1868591]CFT for the rafale is another matter. The close coupled canard config might make them easier to integrate[QUOTE=eagle1;1868591]

What a lot of tosh! Close-coupled canards won’t make CFT integration any easier.

but the requirement is a bit superfluous when you can already carry 6000L of external fuel.

It’s always good to free up underwing hardpoints. Though whether Rafale can realistically carry more than it already does with those M88s is certainly a pertinent question!

For the ‘facts’ you selectively cite, there are others that would support the contention that Typhoon is cheaper.

Rafale is being built at a lower-than-optimal rate., for example.

The cost of development, of the radar, engines, OSF, SPECTRA, etc. is spread over a smaller production run.

I’m not claiming that Typhoon is definitively cheaper. I don’t know. And nor do you.

But there are enough indications that it is fair to say that neither aircraft is ‘clearly’ cheaper than the other, and that prices are similar.

Except in India, where Dassault clearly made a significantly lower bid.

The Iron Cross

is a cross Patté, not a Maltese cross, which specifically has eight sharp points:

It not only predates Nazism, but Germany itself!

The Iron Cross was instituted by King Friedrich Wilheim III in March 1813, during the War of Liberation against Napoleon. It was a Prussian decoration, awarded without regard for nationality or social class to combatants for acts of heroism, bravery or leadership.

However, the Iron Cross medals awarded during WWII incorporated a Swastika in the centre, and this led to its wearing being banned. (Following the Second World War all public display of the Swastika was outlawed and prohibited, and this prohibition this included all military and political awards that included the Swastika in their design).

In 1957, however, West Germany passed legislation to allow those who had won the Iron Cross in World War II to wear it, though only with all Nazi symbols removed. This law signified that the Iron Cross was an award for Military bravery and not a political award.

Though it has no links with Nazism, the Iron Cross has become associated with Nazism, and is often used by neo-Nazi groups as a hate symbol. In Germany, in particular, the Iron Cross can be displayed (as long as their is no Swastika as well) where the Nazi Swastika can’t be.

It should not be confused with the ‘Crusader’ or Greek cross

or the George Cross, which has its own association with Malta!