IIRC the russian UGST has a range up to 50km/27nm with speed 35kts and range up to 25km/13.5nm with speed 50kts.

they have to use stand off torps, as their subs cant get in close, you dont think the west has effective anti torp capability ?

AFAIK Spain has been allowed to integrate Iris-T and Taurus missiles on it EF-18C/Ds and Australia ASRAAMs on its own. Dassault on the other hand has a past of directly denying the certification of a lot of foreign weapons on its fighters.

So obviously they will have to be commited via a contract the very least. But this would equally apply to all three companies…

france will not be given access to the necessary codes to implement the fitting of asraam, aim-9/120, i dont know about iris-t
the rafale buying nation will need to deal direct with uk/usa for it

“capacity of visual confirmation up to 40km instead of 5km.”

i guess that refers to 40k for daylight optical and 5k for IIR optical ?
the IIR has been discontinued as its considered obsolete and are awaiting NG to be given the go ahead for development
is this right ?

Actually, France has a substantial amount of equipment in its arsenal which is either directly procured from aboard, or developed in colaboration with other countries. They is hardly 100% indepedent, even though they do have an admirable defence industry.

Better rephrased as “it is increasingly costly”. Indepedence and self reliance has a price, understandably, but up to a certain point. Defence equipment is procured in continuously smaller numbers with far larger prices…

a lot france’s independance hasnt been chosen for its self, because of past infringement of foreign IP, there is a lot of tech that now isnt shared with france

as I said previously, the rafale, I have no doubts the US won’t take it

the EF, on the other side, would require too many changes to get on carriers for a reasonable price (and most certainlyl not in a short time).. it would have to almost completely redesigned… strenghtened, treated for corrosion, etc…

The EF builders (there isn’t only UK involved) have no experience in naval “conventional” fighters, you’d have to involve somebody else to speed up things, like grumman for example, not to say that US laws require a US firm for integration of US-specific hardware and it would make it even more complex to work around (every partner wanting its share of the deal.. that’s one of the reasons the EF costs so much already, even if its orderede in much higher numbers than the rafale, for example)…

they could make thing interesting by remodernizing the F/A-18 E/F, redesigning the fuselage (more blended with the wings) to reduce its RCS, maybe increase the wing area, put more powerful engines adding, eventually, thrust vectoring, fit in new generation electronics (AESA, ECM suite, etc…), that may be an interesting evolution from a proven airframe (possibility to reuse various parts of existing aircraft). What’s more, blending the fuselage may give it a sleeker frame combined with more space for fuel tanks, improving its range without increasing overall size of the aircraft…

there will never be an EF carrier model nor will the harrier ever be rebuilt,

there is a fa-18ef block 3 option
boeing can have 20% more thrust now, but the navy say they dont need it that much

they have already tested high angles of attack using thrust vectoring, modifications to the flight controls, and with actuated forebody strakes on the fa-18 going from the now 55 deg to 70 deg, the euro’s are about 30 deg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Alpha_Research_Vehicle

some of you dont seem to get it, usa is so ahead of the rest

It’s not like it is any different elsewhere. I am sure than few RAAF officers would see the Su-34 as the best and only worthy replacement of the F-111, does anybody care?

just for info, russia did offer and aussies did an eval of the su for air 6000

the people in all countries who do evals are professional and politics isnt on the list, that comes after the report
i doubt that any real info has been leaked as signed confidentuallity agreements are in place and it would hurt brazil in any future procurement evals

until now, i dont think there has been a post of cola’s that i’ve ageed with,
has anyone even bothered to open his attachment ? he has a creditable copy of an email from ef germany with a name, phone number and email address
if anyone wants to discount it as a lie, he might want to contact ef first, so he doesnt look like a complete idiot