In 2014/15, the US alone conducted 70% of air strikes in Iraq and 95% in Syria so i highly doubt your claim.

True. I confused with Lybia. *Inherent resolve effort is around 10%

http://www.lepoint.fr/societe/l-arme…2023978_23.php

Alright, its the Air Force (Navy not included) that cant deploy more than 20 combat aircraft but still thats hardly impressive. Heck the BAF managed to deploy 12 F-16s on two theatres of operation (Afghanistan and Libya) back in 2011 despite having less than 1/3 of the fighter strength of the French AF. Embarassing.

It is 20 on a very long run. And numbers are wrong (sry Jean). BAF deplys 12 F-16 half of the time (the rest being NL). But also E3F, KC135, Atlantique2 (navy), some reapers, C130, 160, A400, C160 Gabriel ELINT etc. Composante Air is highly respected force. But they do not react like you. (and due to sheer size and diferentf political will do not intend to be compared to AdA).

My guess is that a mature 4.5 gen fighter like Rafale F4 can fly with a bigger distance between the planes compared to the traditional 4. gen fighters, but still need to fly much closer than what the F-35 is capable of. And the lack of stealth must be compensated for by a combination of stand-off weapons and jamming. This is why I think the F4 will be important to turn the Rafale into a “decent” SEAD platform. It’s probably not there yet.

Agree. F4 will be a very important step for Rafale.

virtually without any advanced capabilities

uh?

That comples game (there is a pro version) Command Modern Air/Naval Operations. But i was 3/4 kidding

The logical fallacy is your initial claim that the offer is better than LM.

How could any of us, including the Belgians, even know that given only LM and Airbus, yes toocool via their government channels, answered the RFT. France/Dassault didn’t except for a piece of paper and a few media releases. The irony of the situation is the tender was very clear and simple to understand and I have no doubt some of the Rafale folkhere could have made a good go at a response, but France/dassault didn’t.

As for the claim it is biased to the F-35, that is simply false. Would you like the Belgians to reduce the threat even further to allow more airframes to compete? They have a responsibility to their citizens and their military personnel to get the platform that will best meet the expected threat through the lifetime of service, nothing more and nothing less.

Pure blah blah. (especially the last sentence). Oh incidentally there is atm a belgian government team discussing the french offer details atm in Paris…