€36 m ($46 m) for an EPW or PWIV? Rubbish! More like €31 m ($40 m)

And Xman carefully doesn’t give a source for his French language piece describing the AASM price – which appears to be just a blog (http://info-aviation.com/?p=8785)

Even if it’s accurate, an AASM is still more than 3.7 x more expensive than an EPW II or PW IV.

You are dismissing a 15% price difference as rubbish ? Be serious. Such a difference is irrelevant and can be due to many factors (Year of purchase, quantity ordered, special conditions offered or not to customers)

The price you gave for the AASM is the total unit cost for France thus including R&D. That’s what I call rubbish comparison.

And Typhoon has a dual mode IN/GPS+Laser weapon right now. Rafale doesn’t.
Typhoon has a helmet mounted sight/display. Rafale doesn’t.
Typhoon has a better LDP than Rafale.
.

dual mode IN/GPS+Laser weapon : correct for the next few weeks/months after what the Rafale will have 2 dual modes weapons (GBU-49 and SBU-54) the later being far more advanced than what the typhoon will offer for a couple of years.

HMD : correct

LDP : wrong, unless you are able to bring valuable arguments and figures on the table proving that. The fact that the litening offers a higher resolution TV channel doesn’t make it an overall better LDP.

This gives AASM cost at around 2,5 time, that of an Enhanced Paveway, for around 5 time the range. Not the cheapest, yet not totally un-affordable/reasonable.

Jacko and costs…. :rolleyes:

The desperation of some Rafale fans to concede even the smallest superiority to Typhoon, in even the tiniest area, is instructive. It would be hilarious, were it not quite so childishly pathetic.

What’s instructive is your desperation to invent a typhoon “superiority” out of hot air.

Superiority for what ? stricking pickups with an oversized EGBU and a cheap LDP integration ? Is that even worth mentioning in an EFworld issue ?

A Gazelle/Tiger strike is cheaper and more effective than a Typhon to do that kind of job.

But without entrepreneurs to create jobs, wealth, and opportunities (and pay taxes) a country can’t thrive. Often the standard of living suffers.
Arguably, the free market has a better history of supporting industry than governments do. For an example, look what has happened to the UK aviation and auto industries.

Your dismissal of c-seven’s points are oversimplistic.

I don’t dismiss them all.

No one is saying teachers and public service employees aren’t needed.
Rather there needs to be a healthy mix of private and public sector jobs.

I agree.

But in the end…you need people (and firms) paying more in taxes that the government gives out. A nation of nothing but government employees and “takers” (no matter how worthy) can’t survive.

The people to pay the taxes are here but many firms decide not to employ them and move where the workforce is cheaper while still using state financial help.
when that happens, the system is broken because the state indeed spend a lot of money forming workers who eventually end up without a job to pay the taxes.

As it is, as of now, Typhoon has a better LDP than Rafale (and more experience of using LDPs),

better LDP : I think you are underestimating the long range / bad weather designation capabilities of the Damocles.
Damocles might not be the best pod to ID a Taliban but it has some other assets.

More experienced : no comment. The first days in Libya showed which air force / navy (French) was ready and which was not (RAF).

Shall I remind you that many Rafale Pilots are former Mirage 2000D (ATLIS II, PDLCTS) pilots/WSO and Sem (Damocles) pilots with extensive LDP war experience in Afghanistan for 10 years. Using a Damocles on a Rafale is a piece of cake for those men used to the austere MMI of their older platform.

a helmet (you keep failing to address this major lack in Rafale),

There is nothing to address. the Rafale helmet was posponed in favor of the AESA while The EF partners chose to integrate the helmet first and the AESA later…

Honestly, I think France was wiser to chose the aesa first to widen the gap with the mechanical Captor on the export market.

With India and the UAE openly asking for an HMD on Rafale for 2015, we won’t have to wait for long, imho.

a cheap PWII LGB capability, and a cheap dual mode weapon IN SERVICE right now, with PWIV round the corner.

That’s nice, but it’s time for the Typhoon to get weapons that allow other types of mission than short range GBU strikes.

The too big bombs thing is an irrelevance. Where they needed less Net Explosive Effect they just used part-filled or inert warheads.

unnecessary weight and drag.
You lose both aircraft and weapon range and useful war load capability
It can do the job in a low intensity war like Afghanistan or Libya, but it’s not a long term solution

If dropping cheap PGMs is the task at hand, Typhoon offers advantages over Rafale.

And the Rafale offer advantages over the typhoon

2 Rafale =
12 targets
6000 L of external fuel
No A2A refuelling needed

2 Typhoon =
8 targets
2000 L of external fuel
2 A2A refuelling needed (so one tanker in the air)

If you add the higher cost of the typhoon flight hour, I’m affraid the most cost effective way to destroy low threat targets is still the Rafale system.

Once you consider both the lack of experience of the RAF side along with the handicapped performance of the aircraft they flew I believe that it goes along way towards explaining the disparity in performance stated by Romain.

The same is then also true for the Italian typhoon story.

There is a very high probability that they faced Rafale M pilots who have been very busy training for complex real war A2G/recce missions (Afghanistan and libya) for more than a year with very little time to maintain their BFM and BVR skills.

It’s also worth noting that since 2010 they are swallowing a huge amount of known how on new complex A2G missions and weapon systems such as damocles, rover, exocet, Reco-NG, and ASMP-A (which is probably not the less demanding)

Italian Typhoon pilots on the other hand are full time A2A specialists.

Hence, it would not be surprising if the vast capability/versatility gap in favor of the Rafale was resulting in an A2A skill gap in favor of the typhoon pilots.

I have no problems with Rafale enthusiasts, its the Trolls that mess up the place.

Who ?

Hence my attempt to not mention the Italian Typhoon pilot’s claims because the thread becomes a battle of nonsense from both sides.

Paralipsis (παράλειψις), known also as praeteritio, preterition, cataphasis (κατάφασις), antiphrasis (ἀντίφρασις), or parasiopesis (παρασιώπησις), is a rhetorical device wherein the speaker or writer invokes a subject by denying that it should be invoked. As such, it can be seen as a rhetorical relative of irony. Paralipsis is usually employed to make a subversive ad hominem attack.

At least accept the fact that it is you who trigered the reactions (which have been very balanced btw) while you could have just report the story in a neutral way.

Yes, I deliberately didn’t mention the Italian Typhoon pilot’s claims in case the usual Rafale-Trolls came out of the woodwork (one of which had a nasty habit of posting Rafale news on Starstreak from January 31st), obviously my own efforts weren’t enough. :rolleyes:

Please, stop calling French contributors to this forum “Rafale-trolls”
It really starts to be annoying.

Unfortunately not. The only dates I’m aware off are the handover of M2 & 3 on 4th December 2000 amd that of M10 in October 2002. The rest are just general milestones, such as the first cruise of the CdG with 7 ac aboard from 21st May onwards and that two F1 were aboard the CdG when it embarked to the Indian ocean in November 2001. 5 aircraft upgraded to the F1 standard were directly ferried to the CdG from France requiring four aerial refuelings in May 2002 IIRC.

http://www.ffaa.net/aircraft/rafale/fleet.htm