Don’t get defensive just because you don’t have the facts and figures about the programme……

So nice…
I certainly won’t bother spending time to dig in my 10 years old rafale archives just to please your whims, mister lazy.

The last time you gathered data about the Rafale it was about the aircraft cost, with the only purpose to distort the truth.

So, why should we help you this time ?

F3-O4T not F3-04T

O as in Original or Orange

If not the F 35 why not buy more Su 30s and wait for the FGFA. Logical decision.

Because of the technology transfer package comming with the Rafale that will be of great help for the FGFA development.

The american jets are black boxes despite their promises. You won’t get any valuable tech from them if you want to remain fully independant.

There were nothing in the Mig-35 package that India doesn’t already has with the su-30 mki, so the mig had nothing interesting to bring on the Indian technology wish list.

The only way to get an extensive tech package was with the Rafale and the Eurofighter.

Let us look at what you describe as “vague armchair specialist claims”.

“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.”

I would consider those to be factual statements.

That’s a generalistic comment that everybody would agree with.
But we are beyond that today with the Libyan campaign and the swiss evaluation.
Those 2 events brought facts on the table about spectra that you can’t dismiss so easily.

“SPECTRA is clearly a good system, but as Scorpion implies above, other aircraft have similar systems, and Rafale has no truly unique capabilities.”

Whether we agree with this depends on whether or not we believe Spectra to incorporate active cancellation. Although France has conducted significant research on active EW (and I have been briefed on it), I do not believe that this technology was mature at the time Spectra was designed.

Spectra does have capabilities that allow the Rafale to be sent prior to any massive anti sam strike and without the usual NATO prowler/growler escort. Whether those capabilities are unique or related to active cancellation is irrelevant. The fact remains that the Rafale demonstrated this ability while the other NATO fighter jets didn’t.

“All of the emission free/limited emission tactics being described here can be used by a Super Hornet, an advanced Eagle or a Typhoon.”

Seems factual enough.

correct.
But that does not imply that they perform that kind of engagement with equal efficiency.

“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.”

Seems factual enough – and that last sentence is certainly correct.

That’s what I call vague
And when he tries to be more specific, his only argument is the following :

“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.”

The usuall Jack technic… He points out a (not proved) small issue and use it as an all mighty argument to diminish a Rafale strengh.
Would it be too much to ask him to expose his Spectra coverage calculations ?
Apparently not as you are already convinced…

That claim can be checked by looking at the location of the antennas.

:rolleyes: please… That’s a bit facile.
At least do a drawing or something.

“Rafale doesn’t have a towed decoy.”

Almost certainly fact – I have seen no reports that the aircraft is fitted with one.

That’s a fact.
The towed decoy does not really fit the Spectra philosophy which is to avoid detection as much as possible.

“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.”

Seems a fair comment

Spectra is certainly not perfect, nothing is.
But it is unique as it allows first day strikes to be performed by a multirole fighter which is not VLO by design.
Is that a game changer ? Well, I don’t know, but many NATO countries are spending billions in order to get that capability with the F-35.

Now let us look at your own claim that Rafale “demonstrated brillantly the capability of SPECTRA to handle a fully operational Air defence network without any dedicated EW support.”

Isn’t that true ?

That “fully operational network” was largely made up of ageing Soviet-era radars and equally ageing SAM systems. The long and medium range SAMs were all obsolescent at best, while in the area of short-range SAMs the best were probably the SA-8s and 30+ year old Crotales.

So it was hardly a modern air-defence system.

Did I say modern ?
No I said fully operational.
BTW, old does not mean harmless.

And was it really “fully operational” for more than hours given the cruise missile bombardment that Libya received in the early stages of the campaign?

Definitely not. But the Rafale first strikes took place 1 day before those massive cruise missile and B2 strikes which destroyed most of the Lybian defensive network.
So yes, the Rafale proved to be able to fly and fight through a fully operational and intact SAM network.

I have no desire to belittle the Rafale and its combat record over Libya. I’m only trying to place that record into context.

Then you should talk to the Rafale pilots who took parts in those very first missions over Libya. They saw the Libyan missiles flying by and they trusted spectra with their lives.

I agree with youre previous regarding unknowns such as software and components and any EMI/EMC issues, but we have similar if not the same engineers, similar access to technology which is why im happy to assume similar capabilities.

If that was true, both the Rafale and the Typhoon would have had similar capabilities at any given time since 1986.

The truth is that it was never the case for various reasons (technical or political)
A good technical example is the FBW software : similar engineers, similar access to technology but it took about 3 more years for the Typhoon team to get their software right.

However as I have said before this claim (Joust) was never for the Typhoon it was for typhoon and meteor in combination. I know it got misinterpreted by others and has been used as a stick by various fanboys of all ilks.

Rafale,s score was so low in the table as it was rafale/Mica.

If it was re-run today now that rafale will get meteor Rafale would be a lot higher up the table and a damn sight closer to Typhoon.

No thanks. We have had enough of those biased British simulations intended to artificially hide the not so shiny reality of the typhoon program status.
The Swiss did a joust of their own with the real aircrafts and ranked the Rafale higher in all A2A missions. That’s worth a million joust simulations run with flawed data.

Yes, but it’s very hard to imagine circumstances in which France, but not Italy, would be embargoed by the USA.

replace Italy by Sweeden and France by, let say… Brazil for instance.
that should unleash your imagination. 😉

Not necessarily. The MN commanded about 60 Rafale M because they expected to operate at term at least 2 aircraft carrier.With the plan for the second aircraft carrier falling through, they may be more than willing to “lease” a few to the RN.

No.
60 Rafale is the absolute minimum to maintain a Rafale fleet operational for one carrier at a time.

2 x 15 Rafale on the 1st carrier
15 Rafale for training (either from land or the second carrier)

15 spare Rafale for attrition

BTW, The initial plan was to order 86 Rafale M

Are you really asking that, Kovy? Such information, or speculations, aren’t that difficult to research if you look in the right places.

Yes I am. I’m fed up with Jack’s empty claims.

Like wise for France/Dassault pre India, remember? Despite having the products, they still couldn’t organise a p*ss up in a brewery & messed up so many potential deals, even deals where they were the only bid. They done no better than the UK or Germany. Actually, it could easily be said France done much, much worse in those countries than UK & Germany did in India. Remember one’s history, surely its not that easy to have a bit of brain fade, or maybe its certain parts of history one doesn’t want to think about…

Given the recent outcomes, I think all the countries in question have learned something and all of them have done so the hard way.

As far as pre india deals are concerned, Dassault alone managed to be shorlisted in more contests than BAE, EADS and Alenia together :p

Post india, we have 126 for Dassault and 87 for Eurofighter Gmbh.
Game over