Scorpion82@MSphere
The 2017 target date was proposed for the export standard with the old backend and limited capabilities. Partnernations aim for the early 2020s to introduce the radar operationally, supposedly a more advanced variant of what’s being offered with a lot new hardware and more advanced software. The modular architecture of the radar shall permit integration of additional hardware if the need for it arises and software is being incrementally developed. It will definitely take some time before the radar is debugged and fine tuned and certain capabilities will be implemented.
So you are certainly right that the “Mk2” won’t be ready with all proposed capabilities by 2019.
Scorpion82You are right about one thing. Typhoon life will be probably much shorter than Rafale’s. You can thank Eurofighter GmbH for Typhoon’s initial hasty development, lacking some fundamental elements present on the Rafale, such as highly modular avionics, allowing room for vast and relatively easy improvements, RCS discretion thought from the start, among other. Typhoon was developped as a dragster on which they thought they could add ESP and ABS later. They probably can, and are achieving this on various updates (P1E, P2E..), but they have to make a lot of compromises.
Hilarious when you take a closer look at Typhoon RCS reduction measures.. close to none.
The original ACX demonstrator wasn’t overly stealthy either and afaik it was not part of that design. This changed for the ultimate production configuration, but Rafale is hardly an LO platform like the F-22 or F-35. Typhoon isn’t either and it is correct that the RCS reduction measures are overall limited, but the difference is hardly as significant as is between Rafale and F-22/F-35 (or Typhoon vs F-22/F-35 for that matter).
As far as modular architecture is concerned, you chaps obvsiously confuse the modular design of the MDPU with that of the overall avionics system.
A modular computing system like MDPU, ICP or CIP is without doubt a more modern approach by integrating multiple processing boards into a single LRI (rack type housing here) vs a federated approach where processing is spread across multiple LRIs as on the Typhoon or other aircraft. The advantages of the modular computing system are lesser volume and power consumption, lesser weight and probably cooling as well. As far as networking of the systems, the related integration or modularity of these systems is concerned I can’t see how the Rafale scores any better here than a Typhoon.
Scorpion82I don’t care: the Rafale is officially put in the same league as the Growler and F22 concerning electronic warfare and that was enough for yesterday 🙂
Again:
:pAfter, the “will”, “potentially”, “by 202x”, “growth potential”, etc, of the others…
They have the right to do so note well, those who talk about the Rafale don’t. If you talk about well funded DGA programs such as INCA, TRAGEDAC, MELBAA, CARAA, DEDIRA, GaN, F3R, it’s “What if” and “communication”
Ok.I remember an article from John Lake several years ago posted on Keypub. The titlle was: “Eurofighter is catching up” or something like that. As convincing as usual. The date for the merge was more or less 2015 IIRC. With AESA especially. We are in 2015, the Eurofighter is still catching up possibly but with the AESA not clearly in sight it’s not few second behing, it’s one full turn behind to recover today.
We could talk about speculations about of the final results of all the (funded) programs above. It gives a certain interesting view on 2020+ already. But in spite we are in the Rafale thread, it’s clearly worthless.
Make creative technical speculations posts about Rafale future capabilities? forget! It’s not the F35 for god shake!
(Not even the Eurofighter)
IMO you should care if you want to be taken serious! As said read the disclaimer at the beginning of the publication, it clearly outlines that opinions expressed are that of the author and not that of RUSI, let alone “officials” from the Eurofighter program. Irrespective of whether there is some reality to the statement made or not, it’s not an “official” statement.
As far as ECM capabilitity is concerned putting Rafale, F-22 and EA-18G in the same basket is a bit of a stretch, IMHO. Rafale’s ECM system is first and foremost a self-protection jammer, with some offensive capabilities, but those tiny ECM arrays used on the Rafale are hardly comparable as a built in EA capability of an AESA radar, let alone that of a dedicated EA platform with multiple powerful broadband jammers.
Technically there isn’t much from a public perspective that clearly distiguishes the ECM systems of the Rafale and Typhoon, which both feature programable techniques generators, DRFMs and AESA antenna technology. This itself doesn’t tell you too much about the actual capability of the respective systems however.
The description would better fit to the ESM systems where Rafale, Growler and Raptor all use comparable technologies including interferometers and digital receiver technology. This is an area where Typhoon definitely lacks behind with its spiral receiving elements and analogue receiver.
Wrt the rest of your post I don’t think I have even implied on talking about “what ifs” or “in the future”, so please be a bit more careful and don’t confuse my statements with that of others. Thanks!
Scorpion82Such range figures are nonsense anyway. Every mission is planned with emergency and combat reserves in mind. Let alone that the 2900 km figure with a complement of AAMs is rather doubtful.
Typhoon has a good range performance and endurance with some limitations wrt external fuel load. For everything other than missions requiring carriage of weapons on the CWP it’s ok and often enough, but that depends on the mission.
Scorpion82There are a couple of iterations on the roadmap with progressive hardware and software growth. Particular configurations that end up in-service remain to be seen. Development will certainly take some time, especially on the software front.
I think the RAF or so has outlined its timescales for the AESA introduction.
Scorpion82The back end of Captor-E will be incrementally developed as is the whole radar. The basline proposed for export retains receiver and processor of the present Captor-M, but core nations and potentially prospective export customers opt for something better to have a more future proof design that can fully exploit the capability of the AESA technology over time.
Scorpion824 years to IOC from the time deliveries start? What’s the point of receiving aircraft that long before being able to use them operationally? And why will it take another 8 years from now to reach IOC?
They will need time to:
1.) Test and evaluate the aircraft on airforce terms
2.) Get the logistics up and running
3.) Develope training syllabi for aircrew and ground personnel
4.) Develope tactics for employment together with testing them
5.) Get enought aircraft and personnel trained and ready to perform the roles they are intended to perform at IOC state
6.) Add possible bugfixes to address teething problems and/or development of workaround procedures
etc…
The Gripen E will be very different to the Gripen C so many things have to be redone as if you would introduce an all new aircraft.
Scorpion82You’re boring. I am sry but I have no obligation to provide extensive explanations. For free.
Shooting at the messengers won’t help you much, don’t you know?
Sorry pal the response you replied to two posts above was pointed at c-seven which itself was the last message visible to me by the time I hit the reply button. So sorry for the confusion that may have created.
Scorpion82There are nation specific developments, but much of this is being integrated at quadrinational level at a later stage and sometimes other partners buy in. An example for this are the UKDE and R2P which were funded by the UK and introduced around the same time as Drop 1. Italy f.e. has introduced the R2P separately as has Germany, obtaining the software and some support from the UK for use on their SRP 4.3 standard aircraft. R2P is on the other hand the baseline for the T1EP1 which itself is the Eurofighter managed “internationalisation” programme for Drop 3.
These are just some examples how it works these days.
Scorpion82regarding the two way Meteor’s datalink Vs one way on the Raf, I would rather refrain myself to take any hasty conclusions from that. Cyber or Spectra might negate the needs for a download datalink. Moreover when the radar provide the the Datalink.
Would you be so kind to elaborate on the meaning of the last sentence? Makes no sense to me the way it’s written.
Scorpion82Maybe you first read the disclaimer at the beginning of this publication and then learn the difference between ESM & ECM.
Scorpion82Swap the Paveway IVs for another 3 Brimstones and you’re looking at taking out a dozen tanks, IFVs, APCs, artillery pieces or SAM sites from up to 60km away in a single mission. It’s a moderately effective SEAD/DEAD package as well as a precision strike package. SPEAR will be another game changer. I think that the next few years will see the Typhoon undergo massive development, as the Tornado is phased out:
Already funded for integration in P3E
CFTs;
Storm Shadow MLU (anti-ship capability);
Brimstone II, anti-tank and DEAD capability, up to 18;
Paveway IV dual racks, up to 12 in total;
ASRAAM upgrade (unspecified, based on CAMM?);
Meteor;
DASS upgrade;
Striker II helmet;
AESA radar (Captor-E).Soon after 2018 – funded for development?
SPEAR quad racks.
Lukos stop talking nonsense! The only not weapon related changes as part of P3E are avionics reliability improvements.
Captor-E is funded under a separate contract, Striker II at best a BC and don’t expect too much from the number of weapons the aircraft will be cleared to carry!
Furthermore changing/improving the integration of weapons does not necessarily entail changes to the weapons itself.
Scorpion82I’ve read it in a few places, not saying it’s right but it’s been proliferated around quite a few sources.
There is quite alot that’s being said by “sources”. One only needs to think about such a claim and its implications. This one is definitely a mere.
Scorpion82I don’t know how often we went through it over the last decade. Hope it’s over now.
Just one thing, the canards aren’t linked to the AIS, DASS or any AVSS for that matter. Their purpose is solely aerodynamic and they aren’t moving to minimise the aircraft’s RCS. Dunno who invented that nonsense, but it’s just that!
Scorpion82In this field where so much money is involved the clueless politicians will delegate the evaluation of products and services to those who know what’s relevant and as such to those who don’t take the marketing ploy as gospel. Arguably some strong words from the seller may serve as a first attention getter. There might nuances and differences from country to country and often enough political and economical considerations will eventually override anything else.
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