I think we are running circles here. Without replying directly to anyone I want to raise some points however.

1.) It is true that the french deployed 15 Rafales to Afghanistan in 2007. The AdA sent 3 Rafale B F2+ to Doushabne (or whatever the name of that base was) and the CdG had 12 Rafales onboard, albeit just 3 of them were F2s. The remaining aircraft were F1 examples which supported combat operations as tankers at best, but weren’t dropping bombs or directly supporting combat actions.
AdA guys from Nancy I talked to in 2008 shared the opinion that Rafale’s Afghanistan deployment in 2007 was more a politically motivated one, not one based urgent needs or operational benefits. Wether this few is shared for the newer deployments I don’t know.

2.) The RAF has received ~60 Typhoons so far, meaning as many or even more than the AdA received Rafales. But what people should take into account is that the current AdA Rafale units main task is AG, so these units are not meant to stand QRA commitments and if you take a look at the aircraft being currently replaced the Typhoon replaces fighters/interceptors in the first place while at least AdA Rafales replace AG types like the Jaguar and even those MN Rafale don’t stand QRA commitments either. So the comparison is somewhat nuts and mainly based on the lack of knowledge or understanding.

3.) RAF Typhooons were meant to be deployed to Afghanistan in the second half of 2008 after the OED for multirole capability, this has been abondoned due the lack of trained pilots, upgraded aircraft and the lack of an adquate weapon (1000 lb is to much for most scenarios). Following modification of Khandahar the RAF deployed Tornado GR.4s instead to lower the load of the Typhoon squadrons which has to train pilots and provide 24/7 QRA for southern England and the Falkland Islands.

4.) Regarding the UAE results Rafale vs Typhoon I think it’s to early to draw tall conclusions as some already did (SPECTRA here, RBE2 there) we virutally know nothing except for the results, that it was BVR fighting and that the french sides missiles had a degraded range. What is not being told is wether Typhoons were in fact acting as such or as red side aggressors acting as threat aircraft (simulating the capabilities of aircraft like the Su-27 and their tactics) for example. We don’t know about the ROEs and wether the missile range on the other side is generic, which is quite common practise.

I remember that back in 1997 an aviation magazine listed the minimum/maximum fly-away prices per copy with:

A model: 28 – 31 mln $
B model: 31 – 35 mln $
C model: 35 – 38 mln $

Let me see. Are you claiming that your opinion that the PWIV is that weird “Theatre entry standard” is some kind of official RAF position? And if that’s the case, can you provide some element to back up that position?

Also can you also tell us what makes the PWIV so superior to an EPWII as used by, say, the FAF? Be specific please.

I think it much depends on the exact version. AFAIK the AdA/MN(?) have recently decided to procure the GBU-49 EPW II (500 lb) which should be more or less compareable to the PW IV, except maybe for the cockpit selectable fuses.

Some people seem to be blown away by the term inferometry and believe it’s somewhat a unique capability for the SPECTRA. The truth is most modern RWRs are interferometric, though not every manufacturer makes a big deal out of it.
What does interferometry? Interferometry measures the direction of arrival of the emissions. In other words older RWRs just provided an azimuth bearing or plain simple provided a 1D position. Interferometric RWRs measure the elevation angle as well and therefore provide a 2D position of the emitter. It hasn’t to do with ranging in the first place. Range is usually gathered via triangulation and amplitude measurement could be used as well, but in times of power managed radars amplitude measurement isn’t overly reliable. Ranging a threat emitter depends on many factors such as bearing accuracy, antenna location, processing/clocks and the movement of the receiver in relation to the threat emitters location. Fixed emitters can be ranged relative fast and accurate with modern systems, older emitter locator systems often required minutes to do so. The problem is that even a <1° bearing accuracy produces a miss distance over range, in other words the farther away the emitter is the lower the accuracy. In order to hit a target you either need exact range measurement or the weapon must be capable to detect, identify and acquire the correct target by the means of terminal guidance. Against aerial threats the ranging is at best vague, that’s still enough to launch a missile, but you won’t get an accurate firing solution and the pk is comparably low. I’m not sure wether the fighter datalink of the radar could be decoupled and use other sensor datas to update such a missile, though you likely have no MCG either, which is further going to reduce the pk of the missile. Ofcourse you could use the target image from the OSF to estimate a rough range based on the zoom factor and the target images size.

So are you able to target an AASM with INS/GPS guidance only? At shorter ranges it might work, but at longer range the weapon would likely miss the target if it doesn’t receive acurate range data in the first place or if it hasn’t a sensor for terminal guidance. Against aerial targets the pk is likely to be very low or basically a waste of a missile, though it can be launched into the direction of the target.

I don’t think we’ll hear much more about it. It appears that there were two 4 vs 4 fights, supposley BVR with generic weapon ranges and the Rafale is said to have come out on top with 4:0 in the first encounter and 3:1 in the second one, where their missile range was even further reduced. Beyond that we know nothing, the RAF haven’t officially commented and will probabley not do so at all, perhaps some off track comments with no names being given and that’s probabley all we’ll get. Without knowing more details about the DACT we aren’t able to judge that much, if this repeats often enough however there might be an indication that the Rafale is better than many expect in the A2A area. Many people judge the Rafale’s A2A performance on the base of predejuices rather than factual information & data.

Indeed the sheer ignorance of the fanboy brigade is astonishing. And woe those “naysayers” doubt LMs claims on schedule and cost, those wicked witches have to be burned for not “believing”. And if just another delay is evident and the naysayers were once again confirmed in their anticipation, the ignorant fanboy trolls just adapt to the new reality and propose the next new revised schedule who becomes the gospel truth until the next delay being officially announced. Yeah yeah but everything is just fine and on track and LM “delivers”, yes it does but when and at what price?

The thing to consider though is how the F-22 has performed when fighting other US aircraft, who weren’t holding back with sensors/techniques. Granted the Typhoon and Rafale are more modern airframes, but the Super Hornet and AESA equipped F-15s(with helmet sights, etc…), have very modern avionics, and even that hasn’t changed the outcomes. Another thing to consider, and was mentioned in some of the videos, is that these Raptor pilots may only have 100hrs in the F-22 vs. a pilot that may have thousands of hours in their aircraft, and the Raptors were still dominating.

No Rafale or Typhoon pilot has thousands of hours. 1000 h was achieved by a RAF pilot a few weeks ago, most of them have just a few hundred at best.

Even more critical is the fact that Saab has virtually no experience with carrier born aircraft.