What surprises me in this thread, is that there have been a lot of efforts made to dismiss the credibility of the source and the reality of the rafale BVR performance against the typhoon… From the point of view of many forumers, this is merely impossible that the typhoon could have been defeated by the rafale in a BVR fight.
On the other hand, very little was said on the reasons why the typhoon would have been dominated by the french fighter during these exercices. So what if there was no porkies (:D) from the french side ?
1- ROE : well they are the same for everyone. So unless the typhoon top speed and altitude were restricted, I don’t think there is any disadvantage for the eurofighter there.
2- visual ID required : One rule that could definitively favor the rafale would be visual ID before any (simulated) shoot. But then again, some sources say that the pirate can to that in BVR.
BTW, what would be the point of BVR exercices if one side can’t actually engage at BVR distances due to a restrictive rule ? That makes no sense to me.
3- overloaded typhoon. The official mail from the com service of the eurofighter Gmbh states that the typhoon had more payload. As we are talking about BVR combat, I supose that they are talking about external fuel tanks.
Well that’s a strange reason. Why would the RAF send their planes with unnecessary weight and drag ? unless those fuel tanks were required to stay in the air long enough to fulfill the mission.
The same rule applies to the rafale : if it can stay in the air as long as the typhoon with less fuel tanks, well, that’s a true advantage, not an unfair trick.
4- typhoon piloted by junior pilots. This is the other argument of the eurofighter Gmbh to explain the poor results of the typhoon and that could explain a lot of things indeed. But I think this explanation is a bit too easy not to be taken with pinch of salt :
I would be very surprised if UK had sent under trained pilots to such an exercice to meet both the rafale and the mighty raptor (+ mirage 2000-9 and F-16bk60) in front of several potential and rich customers.
If you think about it, that makes no sense at all. To fight against such high level threats, everybody would expect the RAF to select her very best pilots on the type.
Furthermore, RAF typhoon pilots train mostly for A2A combat as this is their squadron main task. On the other hand, rafale squadrons emphasize on their A2G training because they can be deployed to Afghanistan anytime…
That being said, it is true that some rafale pilots may have a serious A2A background on the mirage 2000C or -5. But still, that wouldn’t explain the 7-1 score mentioned by Grandclaudon.
So, what decisive advantage would the rafale have to defeat the typhoon in a 4 vs 4 BVR fight ?
5- smarter sensor use and better sensor fusion ?
The typhoon seems to rely heavily on its radar raw power and range. While it might works against legacy fighters (F-15/16/18) it could be a big mistake against a quite low RCS fighter like the rafale which relies mostly on passive detection means (IR/optical and RF passive 3D detection and tracking)
6- Better SA and workload managment thanks to the rafale backseater ?
I assume that the rafale sent to the UAE were twin seaters (at least one of them was). If in a 1vs1 BVR combat, a backseater is not really needed, he can become a real advandage in a complex scenario (4vs4). Indeed, backseaters can act as battle coordinators as well as ECM managers, reducing the pilots workload and increasing the team SA and overall efficiency.
7- Silent kill. This might be THE rafale BVR advantage the most underestimated by many : the trilogy mica IR, OSF and link16 allow totally passive and muli-targets kills
my humble thoughts on the subject.
Sign In
