Matter of integrating those weapons on the Rafale if a customer wishes.

If you come up with your peewee weapons and become too much of a nuisance, the Rafale can nuke you.

To be fair, i agree that ASMP-A is alot more dangerous weapon conpared B-61

Why would you do jamming (& risk reveal your position while actually transmitting) when you are “invisible” from the front hemisphere in the first place? Would be more useful to jam the sectors where you are not as stealthy.

I think you are a bit confused, the purpose of jamming is not to remain stealth but to deny enemy’s ability to attack you by missiles, when they detect you
for example :
imagine a radar A very powerful, any F-35 get within 30 km distance from radar A will be detected.
So if the fighter get detected anyway, what F-35 pilot must do when he get too close to radar A? , that right he must use his jammer, saturated enemy’s radar with noise signal thus reducing the range it can track, lock the F-35
the 30 km range will now shrink to 10 or 5 km depending on how powerful the jammer is.. etc
also you can stop enemy SAM from intercept your weapons as well

obviously with jammer turn on F-35 will show up on enemy’s RWR ( So he isnot invisible anymore) . But as we have discussed earlier in this thread. Even though there are tactics that allow geolocate airborne target by RWR, even the most modern RWR doesn’t geolocate target accurate enough for long range BVR engagement, and the tactics- maneuver that allow passive ranging again airborne target is very time consuming and easy negated by smart opponent (as we discussed earlier) thus the pilot will still be safe from AAM, SAM ( he is detected but still cant be attacked)
anyway F-35 can carry ALE-70 if it want to have more coverage for it’s jammer

It’s a matter of integration, tactics and employment.
French Air Force, for some reason, don’t use these ammunition. However their integration shouldn’t pose any problem, since Rafale is STANAG compatible. Rafaut is surely able to design a 6 SDB pod.

well in theory, something like Su-35 could be integrated with Meteor as well, but they aren’t
, so in theory Rafale could be integrated with SDB, but at the moment they aren’t, and there is no future plan for that yet

I’d give you that. However, further TRAGEDAC developments could solve the datalink part. I don’t know enough on the RBE2 replacement development (early studies going on) to talk about other radar capabilities.

TRAGEDAC is triangulation thing, rather than stealth data-link

The first one, called TRAGEDAC intends to extend passive localisation capabilities of the Rafale using cooperative technics. The idea is to correlate and synchronise OSF and Spectra data from different aircrafts through link 16 to compute passive tracks more accurately (especially the target range as it is currently the most difficult data to assess using passive sensors only)

Not with external stores which are very likely to be employed during missions in a serious threat environment.

you get the fact mixed up, in serious threat environment, the F-35 will carry weapons internally to take advantage of VLO characteristics , in low threat environment it will carry weapons externally. not the other way round

As you can see, Rafale drawbacks are most likely to be assessed during the next major upgrades.

Well at the moment there is no upgrade plan that allowed Rafale to have 360 degree DDM-NG, jamming – data-links by radar, DIRCM, carrying weapons like Spear/SDB, in far futute it may equipped with these things but at the moment and near future it doesn’t

Also, there no upgrade even that will make Rafale Stealthy or give it ability to carry weapons internally

Future conflicts won’t be all like Libya. In a very dense threat, F-35 will have to carry external ordnance to have correct self defense and assault capabilities.

6 AAM in Air to air and 2AAM +8 Spear/SDB is enough for SEAD / strike mission
and again, you get your fact mixed, fhe point of VLO platform to to survive high threat environment

And in a dense environment, I’d favor low level runs with powerful active protection, rather than trying to achieve stealth. But this is a matter of tactics and preferences.

Low level run can healp you hide from ground radar because of radar horizon limitation but it won’t help you hide from AWACs or enemy’s fighter
also Low RCS make jamming significantly more effective

I’m afraid you are over exaggerating respectively Rafale drawbacks and JSF advantages.
Rafale still achieves very decent agility with heavy stores. On survivability, automatic TFR and SPECTRA are here for that.
F-35 certainly won’t be as agile with important loadout (incl. external stores) as it was empty. If you have figures to prove me the contrary, go ahead.. And assuming F-35 will remain TOTALLY undetected in a dense threat environment is laughable at best. 😉

you underestimate the effect store will have on aircraft, especially the drag when carry externally
if you want some number, you can go to http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?134667-Mediums-best-compromise-or-worst
also F-35 doesn’t need to be totally invisible, it only need to reduce enemy’s detection range enough to allow it to attack enemies without they can see it

Fact is : what the F-35A/C can do, the Rafale can do too,

No
F-35 can carry weapons like SDB II, Spear, Brimstone ( light, can carry in high number, have long range, have multi seeker) while Rafale cant
F-35 can do jamming and high speed data link by APG-81 while Rafale cant
F-35 is VLO even when carry weapon while Rafale isn’t
F-35 DAS cover 360 degree Fov while DDM-NG on rafale is blocked by the airframe
F-35 have DIRCM while rafale doesn’t
F-35 have stealth data link while Rafale doesnt
.. etc

lessen low observability, which are, again, negated when it comes to deep strike or long loiter time missions.

how is F-35 stealth negated when it perform deep strike or long loiter mission? , how do you define long?

Indeed, the only case where they wouldn’t apply is 1 v 1, and that’s the real ‘imagined perfect scenario’ because in all probability it’ll never happen.

The funny thing is even in 1 vs 1 scenario, RWR still suck so bad compared to radar in in air to air BVR engagement :highly_amused:

As explained above, common method that RWR can use to geolocate ground target cannot be used again air target
To geolocate an aircraft, RWR must use a very different method that involved a certain maneuver for a period of time. That method will be discussed in the paper bellow :
http://subs.emis.de/LNI/Proceedings/Proceedings154/gi-proc-154-222.pdf
http://users.isy.liu.se/en/rt/fredrik/reports/05bearingsonly.pdf

As you can see the method have many requirements such as
1) enemy’s fighter fly at constant speed the whole time
2) enemy’s fighter doesn’t change heading the whole time ( the method measures range by calculate the changing of bearing between enemy fighter and ELINT aircraft when ELINT aircraft fly side to side ” zic zack pattern” , thus it wouldn’t be possible to apply the method if enemy fighter change heading and point their nose to ELINT aircraft direction all the time)
3)enemy’s fighter will constantly emitting for the whole time needed for ELINT aircraft to measure range :
4) ELINT aircraft have to perform specific maneuver for a period of times to measure range
5) Accuracy is terrible , 20-40% error in range is very significant, at 100 km distance that is 20 – 40 km error, at 50 km distance that still 10-20 km error, that is even worse than long wave VHF radar thus not very useful for long range BVR engagement again enemy’s fighter

How to counter RWR passive ranging :
let call the aircraft carry RWR sensor : ELINT aircraft

Method 1:

To collect data for range measurement the ELINT aircraft must fly zigzag side to side to measure change in bearing , thus showing it’s side aspect RCS to enemy’s radar. And the S maneuver will only work if the enemy fighter fly straight and doesn’t change their heading, fly at constant speed.
remember that side aspect RCS of any aircraft is very high (often in the range 20-30 dBsm or 100-1000 m2) , so the ELINT aircraft if wasn’t detected by enemy radar earlier will be detected the moment it perform the S shape maneuver. Since most aircraft radar nowadays have no trouble tracking airborne target with RCS =100-1000 m2 from 300-400 km
So after detecting the ELINT aircraft, all enemy pilot have to do is changing their heading according to the heading of ELINT aircraft ( if the ELINT aircraft turn left, you turn left, if the ELINT aircraft turn right, you turn right, accelerate or decelerate to make your speed not constant)
that action will neutralise ELINT aircraft passive ranging ability

Method 2 :

alot more simple, since the ELINT aircraft take at least 15 seconds of constant receiving enemy’s radar signal to measure range with error about 25-40%, if enemy’s pilot turn their radar on and off constantly, the ELINT aircraft wont be able to measure range in that case
modern AESA take 2-3 sec to scan it’s whole FoV so you can turn radar on for 2 seconds and then off for 10 seconds then on again
and still have good tracking of target

=> to sum up, RWR cannot replace Radar in air to air BVR engagement because they are alot more time consuming, less accurate, easily be neutralise by enemy tactics

P/s : scenario above assume that RWR can detect AESA without any trouble

regarding missiles range :
here a graph of Aim-120B range

What tests would they be then? I’ve pointed out obvious physical factors affecting range, like weight and drag.

SLAMRAAM is quoted way higher than that – 33km. There are several versions of the AMRAAM, so it depends on the variant used.

I said medium altitude.

Pffft and only 15km by RAF LOL, however it’s stated at 50km here, which sounds a lot closer to the truth given the 166mm diameter. Maximum range has never been tested.

Most places also stated MICA range at 50km but it all depends on launch and target parameters. From a level intercept at 30,000ft, I suspect <30km is nearer the truth. The longest AIM-120C shot was only 21.6 miles (35km), with a stated range of >100km. The reality of real world ranges make the datalink less useful. The radar seeker of the EM version is certainly an advantage but an AMRAAM or Meteor would be used in those cases anyway, because by 30-40km they probably have more residual energy and better performance.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/europe/mica-specs.htm

At 7.8nm the missile seeker with 90deg OBS will see the aircraft as soon as it turns, no mid-course update is needed. Why try make a normal OTS shot seem spectacular?

It true that missiles range depending alot on altitude

but i disagree with your opinion that data link is not important, data link is actually very important, especially for RF guide missiles again target carry ECM system

So how come the F-35 is supposed to get storm shadow at some point in the far distance future then?

.

Cruise missiles like storm shadow will help F-35 strike from much longer distance than it’s combat radius
For example , F-35 have combat radius of about 1200 km, so with weapons like Gbu-12, SDB, SDB II, Spear it can only at ttack targets that located maximum of 1300 km from the airbase or aircraft carrier

By contrast weapon like JASSM-ER, Storm shadow allow it to strike target located 1700 – 2200 km from the airbase