as for acoustic weapons, sound is spread through the air at a given speed. An aircraft flying at a high subsonic speed will be detected almost overhead, while a supersonic one will be leaving the area by the time it’s detected… too late for an intercept most of the times, IMHO

RWR at 200km is in effective against long range search radars that likely to see bomb laden or ET Rafale from 400 to 500km. and those radars will alert other mobile radars and sam tels to move around or deploy dummy tels.
Your only looking at tiny AESA of Rafale but not the advances made in ground based radars which are not inhibited by nose size or engine power.
6 AASM cannot knock out even a single mobile TEL with experianced crew let alone a a sam site.

You can see 75% of sorties related to electronics done by US. and rest 25% does not mean that Rafale alone did. and nor those 25% missions equal 25% effectivness. Rafale has only minor role to play except for droping bombs that any one can do when 75% of work is done by some one else.

JSR (and BW btw)

an rwr, by the simple fact that it is passive, has no “range” per se. if a radar illuminate it, it can detect it. For a radar to see an aircraft @ 400km, it is necessary to radiate enough power so that the echo (a small fraction of the waves hittiing the target) can bounce all the way back to the radar. that means that if its searching the skies for potential targets, its waves will be detectable at a way longer range than 400km. SPECTRA, or any other modern RWR for that matter, will, therefore, know that a threat is in this or that direction way before that threat may be able to detect it.

@ JSR

the euro was even lower in 2006 (not to speak about early 2000’s when the euro was even lower than the dollar), yet, no sales at the time

besides, with the time the negotiations take, basing them on an immediate drop in a currency value (which can very well get back high at the time the negotiations end) would be a sign of a serious lack of vision.

again, the detection depends on the contrast, not size.

If you have a laser beam arriving in the dark of the night, even if the beam itself occupies less than one pixel of width, and hits a single pixel on the sensor, the pixel that will receive it will get a very high amount of energy (contrasting with the background and also noise on the picture) and get iluminated (detect it) or even burn out if it can’t handle it

again, matter of contrast… not size…

a good illustration is a sky photography. When you make a picture of the sky, if it’s well focused, stars will mostly appear as points of light, occupying a pixel or two at most, while, in reality, their “body” is much smaller than 1 pixel of width at the distances we see them. what makes them visible is the fact that they are in very high contrast against the background (and it’s also why you get much better pictures in the middle of the desert than in the city – less light pollution, better contrast, better the sensor of the camera can detect the faintest stars… it’s not because the stars suddenly became bigger 😉

size has to be higher than one pixel (much higher in fact) if you want to get any sort of identification of the source rather than a single point of light in order to have a picture of the object

@Scorpion:

it is not about defending this or that particular piece of kit, it’s simply teaching a couple of guys (believeing they know everything) a sense of a simple term:

“OMNI” = “all”

one reference among others:

http://www.yawiktionary.com/o/1148368243225.html

therefore, “OMNIROLE” = “ALL ROLES” (or in the case of an aircraft, “all missions capable” )

you don’t like it? your problem, but it’s all I’m saying. It has nothing with the fact that it replaces all aircraft in the inventory, but with the fact that it is capable of doing so. Replacing all aircraft is a (desired) effect of the onmirole capability. As Jackonicko said (for once I agree with him), if omnirole meant “replacing all aircraft”, then, indeed, the rafale couldn’t claim to be it, since it keeps operating besides other types as we speak

Opit:

I don’t need a translation, and it’s clear enough that I don’t agree. The “omnirole” capability enables some fancy stuff, not the other way around. What you stated above is a by-product of a versatile aircraft, not a definition of it. What makes a truck a useful thing is its capability to bring stuff here or there, not the crates that are loaded on it. Keep that in mind.

that’s pretty much what I was saying, the difference being that the truck just carries stuff while a combat aircraft uses it. Versatile aircraft types are numerous, but what differentiate them is the span of that versatility.

if I may, to be “omnirole”, the aircraft has to be able to perform all missions (not just a few among others) that one may expect from the combat aircraft of its size (hence, it can effectively replace all the other types), which also means that its range of weapons needs to cover all its needs.

to be able to perform multiple types of tasks in the same mission, and considering that the number of stations is limited, having a range of versatile weapons is a necessity, which is where the AASM comes into play, allowing it to do various strike tasks, as well as the MICA which combines quite a good combination of BVR and WVR capabilities. Add a recce pod under the centerline pylon, and, combined with SPECTRA’s ELINT capabilities (even if it’s not as advanced as teh Transall Gabriel for example) you have a single aircraft that can go above hostile territory gathering information (recce + ELINT, at his level), and handle more or less any type of target (vehicles, buldings, radars, SAM sites, aircraft, etc…) that it may come across during its flight, be it on the ground or in the air (and yes, I know that it will never go alone, but at least in a pair, but combine that level of versatility of two rafales together, and you have in that single pair the capabilities of a whole small air force)

the “6” means the minimum required performance level

as for the SA, all three fighters have data link (NATO compatible as far as typhoon and rafale are concerned, probably gripen too, but I’m not sure about that one, maybe it’s just swedish-specific system). thing is, the swiss have their own system in which, obviously, none of the contenters can’t compete, since it’s a matter of national security and only the winner will get to integrate their system.

What they evaluated is the level at which the aircraft perform individually, and once they had that data, they could evaluate how they can use that individual capacity once it’s integrated into their system