You are very mistaken………………as a matter of fact I wouldn’t be surprised to see the single seat F/A-18E’s go before the more practical twin seat F/A-18F’s. Which, can support the Growler Fleet and do missions like the FAC, SEAD, etc.

Are you sure about this Scooter? Any proof?
Anyway this is Rafale thread, so anybody to answer my question from the post 383?

Could we leave the fields of national pride and the contest of “mine’s bigger than yours” aside, and get back on topic please ?

Thank you !

That would be great Frank. But some people are so assertive when it comes to comparisons and this kind of conversation seems inevitable, unfortunately.

Back to the Superhornet.
Any news from the Aussies for now?

The Super Hornet is a excellent Striker no doubt! Yet, it will become obsolete as soon as the F-35 enters widespread service……….;)

As far as I know, the SH is intended to work with the F-35 and not to be replaced by it.
Is there gonna be a replacement for this lost Rafale?

Errr… Are you sure? I am reading Maj. Nathan Miller on the guy’s uniform..

There’s also Marine patch on it:confused:
It must be something else flex.

The CVBG will not parade that way you are used to see at pictures, when all assets are close to “show” a powefull force. For ease of understanding, I did not even mention the weather or daylight conditions in the Northern Atlantic, when it comes to track or spot something. Even radar is of little help, because it shows a return only, but does not tell you, what you have spotted by that really. All modern war-ships are powerfull enough to hide the own position by creating fake returns f.e..

I know they won’t.
I doubt any side would attack another in a very bad weather conditions when you just can’t use full potential of your recce equipment(satellites primarily). Even if they would, that would be conducted under almost a perfect plan that will catch the opponent with his “pants down”.
And why do you think that kind of battle would happen in the Northern Atlantic, rather than Pacific? (just curious, cuz I would rather opt for the second variant) hehe joking on this one

In the meanwhile “softkills” through EW wizards are more important than “hardkills” from outdated F-14s.

I would agree until one point but…
…weren’t the same EW wizards supposed to “clear” the path and protect the F-117A that was shot down over Yugoslavia 1999? Later, same thing happened to the F-16 that was downed by the same Yugoslavian AAD battery. Those EW wizards were coming from the CVN-71 TR mostly. I know they didn’t do defensive operations then, but rather offensive ones… and they failed. And Yugoslavian Air Defense consisted of ’60 and ’70 vintage SAMs.

.
I am still surprised to learn limited claims here. Advertisment data and performances do say nothing about real combat performances. Just that weaponsystems may have a chance to inflict some damage at best, when capable to overcome all EW-wizards shielding the “target-area”. When caught unaware and trapped in total, things will look different, but that is the worst case scenario at all.

I just said what assets could the Russians use against an CVBG, and what an CVBG has for an answer(I missed the Prowlers or Growlers that will come in some years). I said nothing what damage could be done, or about weapons specs, predictions who will be whipped out or similar fairy tales. If we(I mean on all people on the forum) start talking about this widely, we will get into an never ending debate that will not bring some credible results but only hypothesis.

I can’t believe how some people here are biased when it comes themes like this. You can’t judge the defensive capabilities of one country relaying on most of the times unproven data and giving hypothetical answers. By the way, Schumacher‘s question was rather hypothetical, and as somebody already said we can never find out the answer for it until this you are talking about really happens (and I hope it won’t).
Removing the best defensive asset of the Navy (IMHO Tomcat), CVBG has to relay heavily on the remaining Bugs and Superbugs that have to work with E-2 in order to work out something. On the other hand, those Su-27SM’s and MiG-31’s are not gonna be alone either(A-50 or A-50M would be on station for sure). First hand striking platforms for now would be Tu-22M3 and various Su-24M platforms(those would certainly include recce versions and some other special purpose Fencers like MP).
How all of this would end, only God knows… all we can do is continue guessing:rolleyes:

Try to look into the related problems and you will find it out yourself.
The satellites capabale to spot CVs have to be in low orbit. It covers a distance of ~50000 km in 90 minutes, what is >500 km per minute. The resolution to distinguish a CV from a tanker, container-ship or something other in similar size gives a narrow search track. Even than the amount of pixel-data to relay to a ground-station does reach astronomic values. Even when you have an idea, where to look at first and do spot a CBG by that, you still have to pinpoint your moving target. Your satellite will deliver the next position in 90 minutes at best, when the CBG had moved well of 50 km in all possible directions and unknown speed. The network support of the CBG has similar assets to deal with. Every suspicios activity will alert the CBG and supporting forces. That supporting forces do not belong to the US-forces only. The USA has no shortage of allies, when coming under the possibility of attack.
In Cold War times the SU and WP did run numerous assets to track such CBGs, be it people, subs, ships or aircraft in military or civil service. In that days the constantly updated maps did show the general area of sea, where such a CBG has to be for physical reasons. In time of tension the USA and NATO did all to distract such observers and shadowing such observers by own forces.
Todays Russia has no longer the capability and number of assets to “play the former cat and mouse game” at all. Even in its highest capability times the SU commanders were not shure, “who was the cat and who was the mouse in that game?!”

Sens, you forget that this CV has a big tail (all the fighting and supporting vessels that create the CVBG). And she is going nowhere without its shiny tail. With its entire escort(and those are not tiny speedboats) CV is easier to be seen than without it, wouldn’t you agree?;)

As has been demonstrated many times, you have to compare forces, not platforms. A single Su-30 is undoubtedly far superior to the F-5BR – or even a few F-5BR – but a squadron of Su-30MKV is not necessarily superior to a networked air defence system with AEW, better ECM, & a much larger number of individually inferior fighters.

Ok guys, my bad. I didn’t explain what I thought. Nobody normal wouldn’t expect any commander to send a squadron of his best fighters deep inside the enemy’s airspace without planning and eliminating all possible threats. With a long range AAMs and A2G stand-off missiles AWACS and ground radar could be taken out, as well as SAMs.
Don’t tell me that Chavez would send his pilots in a promising suicide attack and make them thinking that was the only way to something good for their country;)

No, Broncho

They would “swamp” the Flanker´s with dozens and dozens of F5BR, backed up by a very good network of AEW R-99 and ground radar´s. That´s a much tougher oponent than 12 “hand me down” MIRAGES.
The F5BR equiped with the “Derby”, Python IV, Grifo, HMD DASH, and a very nice data-link is nothing to laugh about, as the French discovered in the latest Cruzex exercises…

Cheers 😉

I don’t like to compare thing to often but… are you serious about this?
IAF’s Su-30MKI, although different from these MKVs of AMV, had a very good results with American F-15C on Cope India 2004(I don’t wanna say wiped as a lot of journals had reported then), you really think that Su-30MKVs could be handled by F-5BR (with the help of all this equipment you mentioned)?