Its called election butter, with sugger on top..
He won due the the large unreast and unplaoyment rate.

Stuff like 75% tax, will never fall through.

False, he won because he got the voices of all the people who milk the system. And they are legion.

Nic

Nic

Dont even say that, here in Portugal things have been hard enough, i can only imagine what the Greeks are passing. Believe me you dont even want to think on it.

Well on the other hand, we better think on it, and plan on it, because it’s what will happen.

Nic

As it is, as of now, Typhoon has a better LDP than Rafale (and more experience of using LDPs)

So much experience indeed that at the beginning of the Libyan campaign, there was not a chance to find a pilot qualified for using the LDP & LGBs :rolleyes:

The too big bombs thing is an irrelevance. Where they needed less Net Explosive Effect they just used part-filled or inert warheads.

I doubt they can be part filled, since it would change the flying characteristics. But that’s just to nitpick. Anyway drag & weight penalties are rather huge compared to 250kg weapons.

Mitterand had it easy because the world economy was doing much better in the mid-1980s.

We will have to wait and see if easing of austerity measure will create more economic growth or if France becomes another Greece. If the Eurozone collapses due to the later, then I see many European cooperative military projects collapsing too.

France becomes another greece around december. Mark my words.

Nic

You’re wrong.

The difference between Paveway II and Paveway IV is huge.

It is a game changer. It’s not a matter of a ‘few improvements’.

One jet with PWIV can attack multiple targets from multiple directions, with multiple impact angles, all from one bomb run and one ‘pickle’. Paveway II can’t do that.

You can bury a PW IV under a truck, putting the bomb in from any direction, with a delayed action fuse, and destroy the truck while passers by remain unscathed, only a few yards away.

You can’t to that with a Paveway II.

The RAF Tornado no longer uses PW II or Enhanced PW II at all, since PW IV represents such a seismic shift in capability.

And all for far, far less than the cost of AASM. And while AASM is a great weapon, there are things that PWIV can do that AASM cannot.

And Rafale hasn’t even got GBU-49 (Enhanced Paveway II) in frontline operational service yet, as the RAF prepares to replace EPWII (the same weapon) on Typhoon.

While GBU-12 and GBU-22 are not even Enhanced Paveways – they have laser guidance only, with no dual mode capability. Again, that’s a massive difference, as we learned in Kosovo.

In this small area, Rafale is years behind.

And that’s without going into the superiority of Litening over Damocles and the value of the helmet sight/display system in air to ground ops.

There aren’t many air to ground role areas where Typhoon has an edge over Rafale, but this is one of them. Accept it. Get over it. Move on.

Stop your whining. The Rafale isn’t behind because it didn’t integrate PWIV. If a customer really wanted the PWIV it could integrate it easily, just like any other US/Israeli or whatever other LGB.

The fact that France doesn’t want the PWIV is totally irrelevant. French Rafales can do much more things than Typhoons can even with PWIV. Use AASM when a PWII/EPWII won’t do and that’s it.

Anwyay that’s totally irrelated to the airplane capability.

Nic

Besides, I don’t think current military planners and governments want “a fair fight”. Go explain to your public that, unfortunately, some of our pilots died in combat against a theoretically significantly inferior enemy because we wanted to give the other side a fighting chance… 😮

Besides, people accept that we go fight some other countries under false pretexts because we can keep the body count to a minimum. I don’t think any of our leaders give a damn about the life of pilots or ground troops, but they sure do give a damn about their public image, and how it would be damaged if they sent too many of our countrymen to die for their own profit.

Nic

@Nic
I suppose you mean US supplied AMRAAM… There have been claims to the contrary by the Greek as far as range performance is concerned, but it also depends on which AMRAAM variants we are talking about. Excluding the launch parameters which may differ from platform to platform the MICA might enjoy an edge over the earlier AMRAAM variants (A-C4). However, the C5 is a different beast with longer range and better electronics as opposed to older AMRAAMs and was said to be a longer ranging weapon than MICA in an article. IIRC this was acknowledged by the French themselves. The C6/C7 are yet even better, albeit these variants aren’t available to the Typhoon as You obviously are comparing the BVR missiles of the two types.

Well the HAF uses older B model AMRAAMs, but also C5 model AMRAAMs. Besides, it’s not only about the range, there is also the agility and g capability, which is important to increase your NEZ. Anyway I doubt the difference is significant enough to decide the outcome of an air battle.

Nic