SchorschI appreciate your serious replies, Nicolas10, Scorpion82 and OPIT.
Can the probe be removed easily (for example when the mission does not necessitate air refueling)?
SchorschWell, that’s because the Typhoon story is often reported in a wrong way. Actually, the requirements of the 4 countries weren’t exactely the sames.
It is true that British wanted to replace Jaguar etc.
But in the same time, the German and Italian wanted mainly a superiority fighter.The story of the weight increase isn’t clear. 9,5 tons was the weight of the EF as the German wanted it to be (at the very begining). But British have planned it to be 11tons for a long time ago.
The Germans can thank the British. The German Luftwaffe will replace its Tornados with Eurofighters. I think when the current procurement is finished (~2015) they will eventually procure kind of a Tranche 4 tailored as fighterbomber. Possibly a twin-seater, stronger engines and higher MTOWs with conformal tanks.
When the Eurofighter was planned nobody could think of a 220 aircraft Luftwaffe (at that time it was at ~1200 aircraft).
The French will do the same with their Rafale and finally have only Rafales in their inventory.
Une autre chose:
Why does the Rafale have such an ugly air refuel probe? Isn’t that bad for drag and RCS? Serious question, serious answer appreciated.
SchorschIt seems rather ironic to me that two of the Typhoon’s main drawbacks (its lack of carrier capability and its limited air-to-ground capability) were partly to blame for France pulling out of the programme. If the rest of the consortium had accommodated France’s requirements there wouldn’t be this needless competition, and the UK wouldn’t have to go buying F35Bs from the Americans.
Why does the Typhoon suffer a lack of ground attack capability? Isn’t that just a software and validation thing or are the pylons unsuitable for external loads? I guess everybody remembers the recent photos of a Eurofighter with several LGBs loaded.
SchorschHow, pray tell, can ‘the European consortium’ prevent a free and soveriegn nation such as France from building their own jet? Do you assume they just say so and the French do as they are told?
I guess you misunderstood the meaning of the post. The “European consortium” was in negotiations with France. But they could not agree on the specifications (the French wanted to have a slightly smaller, carrier-capable aircraft). flex wanted to express, that all would have been better off if the consortium had agreed to French requirements.
But I guess the most important issue was workshare. And the French had not much to win. They were the only independent military aircraft manufacturer in Europe and were offered to take a proportional share in a program (~20-25%). So they would loose their dominant role in Europe and being part of an unflexible programme without real authority. So they denied (or put up unacceptable terms like overproportional workshare).
But you can’t say they went out as winner.
SchorschIts not war that sells weapons, but victories.
You can have a 100-1 numerical superiority with AWACS and EW jets in support of your superior numbers of fighters and it would not matter as long as you got a better then 1-1 kill to loss ratio at the end. That would count as being evidence that your fighters are better then your opponent’s.
Right. If you have an air war and you win due to a number of reasons, people will always credit you victory to your superior fighters. On the other hand, if you lose your fighters are crap. See what the Soviets went through after all of their customers misused the MiG-23s. Since then this aircraft has the stigma of being a looser.
SchorschI still stick to my claim about the other things I have said. European consortium made a big mistake to let the French go develop their own Rafale. But then again, this decision was made by blindfolded fools for whom pi$$ing the French by not accepting their weight and size requirements seemed more important than the future of the whole programme. Now you got what you wanted. Two 4+ gen and no 5th gen aircraft.
Besides the largely speculative talk about RCS, this is factual. And actually, it is of much more importance than the RCS or supercruise ablility. But on the other hand, in the 1960s it was even worse. We now have 2 competing aircraft designs in NATO-Europe, when we had much more in the beginning of the 1960s. The Eurofighter/Rafale are equal to latest American fighters (except for stealth). Detailed combat performance depends on integrated systems.
SchorschNice playing on words. So now any plane that’s capable of flying low is a stealthy plane? Nice logics you got there.
Update your logics: If you ingress low, stealth is not an issue any more. The level of “Stealth” on the Rafale might delay detection/lock-on on the edge of the radius of a SAM site. It will not delay detection for low ingress.
The market is decided by politics. It doesn’t have much to do with the relative merits of the planes, but I understand why you want the market to be the judge of the performances of the plane, since the 4 eurofighter consortium members combined have a lot more political leverage than France alone. Nice try again.
And finally we have the reason why the Rafale is a failed program. Dassault needs to find a nation that really appreciates France aircraft and the nation in general to overcome their disadvantage in economic power. Ask your politicians why they didn’t realize that at program start.
SchorschOh damn, I forgot to write something “on topic”. 😮
I think if they do like France, China and UK and reduce nuclear weapons to ~200 warheads, 4 SSBN and some ICBMs, they get out with less Rubel spend and can afford … something different.
Actually, I think the Americans should do the same. Reduction of nuclear warheads to 1 per 1 million citizens or the current level (whichever is lower).
SchorschThe Russians did not intend to conquer NATO just for the fun of it. They had surely very concrete plans how to take over Germany (military and civil). But most of the time the Soviets were scared … of the Americans and NATO. A very important characteristic of Soviet leaders was their paranoia about being overthrown by internal/external forces (possibly collective memory of the 1919/1920 war).
The military planning was as remarked focussed on “offensive defence”. Additionally (and that is different to NATO), the Soviet forces in Eastern Europe were occupying forces. The Soviets always relied more on conventional forces, partly because they could afford it (no democracy, cheap labor). The huge presence of the Soviets close to NATO borders was also due to doubtful capability of the friendly forces, aggrevated by the Soviets by delivering second class material.
I guess some Soviets wanted to invade the “capitalistic enemy”, but the Soviet leaders after Stalin knew very well what the consequences were. And no sane (and they are all quite sane) Russian gives Moscow for the Lüneburger Heide.
In fact, the Soviets became scared by the American/NATO military power. When you take a closer look at the capabilities, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, it becomes obvious that NATO (esp. USA) had much much more offensive capability in all areas except as troops in Germany.
I am a true Western German, and I am very suspicious about the Soviets (and those who behave in today’s Russia like the old Soviets), but a sober view on the cold war shows that both sides excited the conflict and “we” western people were not really the nice guys (at least “we” “won”).
We (esp. we Germans) can be very lucky, that the last Soviet leader realized the gap between military power and economic capability and that the ongoing cold war was not affordable any more. Other options were on the table, but as I said previously, the Russians are no idiots.
SchorschDuring a recent press event BAE Systems stated that the
Typhoon’s RCS is bettered only by the F-22 in the frontal hemisphere and
betters the F-22 at some angles.
Perfectly possible. Here is how you do it. You …
– say of all in-sevice aircrafts (bye bye JSF)
– say of all fighter jets (bye bye B-2 and F-117)
– find one angle, where the (clean) EF is really better than the F-22 (there will be one angle)
– say that Rafale has generally equal RCS (which is somehow true)
… and the claim is valid.
As I said, the RCS must be reduced by one (better: two) magnitude to come close to “Stealth”. However, in a frontal engagement a delayed lock-on of 10 seconds can (but need not to) be decisive. They can be useful if the pilots really use this slight advantage to their best ability.
SchorschWell that and the terrain following mode of the RBE2 which can still search and track air threats at the same time. Can the captor do the same?
I don’t know, but a terrain following mode doesn’t sound like magic. Trying to be stealthy and using “Terrain Following Mode” is stupid². Stealth is not only the RCS, it is a lot more.
Anyway, such a small difference could very well be the difference between life and death, or between a successful or failed mission.
And the 15 knots more airspeed of the Typhoon may also be the cutting edge. Do you want to start bean counting and make yourself an idiot?
Of course french airmen and planners are dumb, so they won’t look to gain any other advantage possible if the Rafale is a tiny bit better than the EF.
I think French airmen a much cleverer than we think and would laugh loudly about this discussion. They know that the details of an aircraft do not matter too much in a real conflict, because other factors have a much higher impact. Lots of them political, weather-related, luck, etc. The tiny tiny advantage in RCS (which is still not more than marketing) becomes absolute insignificant.
A bit stealthier = a bit better.
The market will decide, actually I guess the market will not notice.
SchorschOnly frontal RCS diminution is good for a fighter, but it means the aircraft will be ill adapted to deep penetration missions where all around RCS reduction is required in my opinion. Therefore if this is the case (EF optimised only for frontal RCS whereas Rafale optimised for all aspect RCS), I think the Rafale will be a way better ground attack plane than the EF.
Nic
That’s exactly what I like on this forum.
The Rafale may have lower RCS (nobody really knows, but we may assume that for now). OK, this RCS is still at least a magnitude above the F-117’s RCS. Hence, the Rafale will not have the ability to go in undetected, it may just reduce the probabilty of detection slightly and/or make it slightly more difficult for SAM crew to get a good lock-on (especially when these crews use outdated SAMs).
That makes it a way better attack aircraft?
Of course not, because the local commander and/or air force may offset this slight disadvantage [of an alternate aircraft, f. e. the Eurofighter] with several measures (more numbers, better SEAD, more ECM, rely on stand-off missiles, …).
Finally: Does this make the Rafale noticeably better/worse/different than the Eurofighter? No, not really. It is still not stealthy.
SchorschWell, surface discontinuities are a good place to start – radar waves will scatter off them.
Compare the Rafale and Typhoon, its clear to see which one comes out best.
Dassault have openly admitted to developing the D [discrete/discret en francais] version of the Rafale whereas the Eurofighter consortium have concentrated on frontal RCS values alone.
For “Stealth” in aerial combat this makes sense. The engineers concentrated on the frontal BVR-combat situation, where some “Stealth” might bring serious advantage (or not, depends). However, true “Stealth” is achieved when you lower RCS by 90% or more.
SchorschMany of the parts and components developed for the Rafale will be incorporated in modernised Mirage 2000s (like the -5 and the -9), that will make them a very, very attractive buy; maybe we should include that in the positive side of the Rafale (if it finally happens) and not the same for the EF-2000.
I did do statements on the Mirage 2000. Use search function.
SchorschMisunderstanding. With “industrial nightmare” I meant that the money spent on the program by the French government is unlikely to be paid back. It is from an economical point of view badly invested money. The Eurofighter program wins by shear size (I don’t compare performance), which makes the contribution for development less costlier.
I mean that between the (announced) 620 orders of the partner nations and the (announced) 200+ orders by French nation lies the level, which you should have to risk a seperate development.
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