Know Your 'Rafale'

[LDev]

Engine improvement is a possibility but this aircraft is not a success story. Scope of improvements is only in the armaments area where USAF investments into BVR combined with stealth will make it a potent stand off aircraft. It will become cheaper possibly as more units are built. It was conceptualized in a different era where US thought it would be the only super power and wont have tech competition. Would have worked if it did not run into so many issues. Now its the strategies that will supersede this plane rather than the plan and its tech defining strategies. I still prefer F-22 over this but bastards stopped producing it.

I think that rapid improvements in networked AD systems by Russia, passed on to China have made stealth just one of the many arrows in the F-35s quiver, it is no longer the sole calling card of the aircraft and while low frequency radar may be able to roughly detect it, targeting is using FCR is another matter altogether. So long as the F-35 can get within range to deploy it's weapons before it is detected it has won the battle. Having said that the teaser renderings of the NGAD fighter for the USAF/USN show a flying wing shaped concept pretty much like the B-2 and B-21 which provides better broadband stealth protection.

 

[omaebakabaka]

I think that rapid improvements in networked AD systems by Russia, passed on to China have made stealth just one of the many arrows in the F-35s quiver, it is no longer the sole calling card of the aircraft and while low frequency radar may be able to roughly detect it, targeting is using FCR is another matter altogether. So long as the F-35 can get within range to deploy it's weapons before it is detected it has won the battle. Having said that the teaser renderings of the NGAD fighter for the USAF/USN show a flying wing shaped concept pretty much like the B-2 and B-21 which provides better broadband stealth protection.

Problem with the US is now there are systemic dysfunctionality and their ability to read, perceive and analyze opponents and threats to keep their superiority is declining day by day. This is true in general for all Western countries, what this means their ability to deliver mind blowing superior products is not a given anymore. Big companies like FB, Twitter, Google are controlling peoples voice and politicians are afraid to even say something that is objective. So NGAD and all other stuff that you are talking are not a given. Financially also ever more deficit and it will be hard to fund those programs. There is still hope especially if Trump wins but....coming back to current planes.....F-22's and F-35's always operate under F-15 umbrella against a peer class enemy as part of strategy to make up for some downsides.

 

[no smoking]

What is the problem with Taiwan? French gvt decided not to sale new affensive wepons. But since the M2000 are supported without restriction.

The only problem is, according to Taiwanese report, after these weapons were sold, French made a big show specifically for Chinese. Since then, all these M2k were put into second line deployment.

About Israel nearly the same : we decided not to sale new weapons, but supported the previous one.

These are high tech weapons, not the TV or refrigerator in your home, you need to use, train, maintain on daily basis. For a country was at de facto war status all the time, no re-supply is a serious problem.

 

[BON PLAN]

Since then, all these M2k were put into second line deployment.

Hillarious !

 

[Tactical Frog]

The only problem is, according to Taiwanese report, after these weapons were sold, French made a big show specifically for Chinese. Since then, all these M2k were put into second line deployment.

I don’t think Taiwan has the strategic depth needed for any second line deployment.

 

[Manticore]

Per wikipedia

Taiwan
In response to mainland China's purchase of the Su-27, the Republic of China (Taiwan) entered into talks with the US and France about the possible purchase of new fighters. While the US would oppose Taiwan's acquisition of the Mirage 2000 and instead pressure it to procure the F-16, in November 1992, the Republic of China Air Force became the first customer for the Mirage 2000-5. The order for 48 single-seat Mirage 2000-5EIs and 12 Mirage 2000-5DI trainers was condemned by China. The aircraft order also included 480 Magic short-range air-to-air missiles, 960 MICA intermediate-range air-to-air missiles, auxiliary fuel tanks, ground support equipment, and monitoring equipment; total costs amounted to US$4.9 billion, of which $2.6 billion was for the aircraft.[91] The MICA missile provides the Mirage with a degree of BVR capability needed for its role as front-line interceptor. In addition, a set of ASTAC electronic intelligence (ELINT) pods was ordered.[citation needed] A number of centerline twin gun pods with DEFA 554 cannons were also acquired and fitted on the two-seaters, as they do not have an internal gun armament.


Taiwanese Air Force Mirage 2000-5EI
Taiwanese Mirage 2000s were delivered from May 1997 to November 1998, and are based at Hsinchu AB.[citation needed] The RoCAF's Mirages have suffered from low operational readiness and high maintenance costs; the harsh environment and high operational tempo had caused higher-than-expected wear and tear. After the presence of cracks in the blades of the aircraft's engines were detected in 2009, Dassault worked with Taiwanese authorities to successfully rectify the issue and provided compensation for the engine damage. By the following year, normal training hours of 15 per month had resumed and the fleet's operational readiness had been restored, after having reportedly dropped to 6 hours per month because of the engine troubles.[92][93] In addition, there were considerations of mothballing the entire Mirage fleet because of its high maintenance costs.[94] Although the aircraft's maintenance supplies cost more than those of the Republic's AIDC F-CK-1 Ching-kuo and the Lockheed F-16 Fighting Falcon, the fleet was reportedly[citation needed] still being maintained adequately because of its popularity. Yet plans to upgrade the fleet had not been carried out as costs for doing so in France would be very high.[95]

 

[omaebakabaka]

Most people don't know what they talk about. Rafale is nowhere close to F 35. F 35 will see first & shoot first even if you put F 35 radar on Rafale.
Detection range is proportional to 4th root of RCS....so if rafale has a RCS of 1m2 & F 35 have a marble ball size RCS ( 0.0001m2 ).
Than corresponding smaller RCS will result in 10 time's smaller detection range.
So Rafale radar need to have 10 time Greater range than F 35 own radar to see F 35 first.

Indian fanboys should talk about Rafale only in indian context or south asia in general... It is good for indian needs but there are far better western planes available in form of F 15EX & F 18 blk 3 in market.

Marble size? Theoretically it might be 4th root, but practically stealth never works that way, case in point F-114 (I think) was shotdown by a 1960's AD by Serbs. There are lots of conditions and boundary layers where it can be detected especially Awacs/OTH and other ground radars but I do agree F-35 has advantage to shoot first in one on one.

 

[omaebakabaka]

F 117A shot down was poor lazy tactic on US part & luck on Serbian part. F 117A used to operate on fixed corridors & serbs had intercepted NATO communications. They exactly knew as war progress that F 117A is in a bombing run & Serbian commanders knew from where it will come from. Even then they were operating there VHF radar at there lowest frequency could only see it at around 23km & needed an S band radar to guide those SAM to shoot it down.

That is correct, so stealth is not some wonder.....the more they fly the more their signatures will be exploted and software tweaked to identify and track them. Reason why US did not expose F-22 for a long time and when they do like they did in UAE, they turned on reflectors to hide the true signature. Iran also said they tracked them but not sure I trust them that much, they claim a lot of things. Especially with OTH and other radars, there are reports of F-35's being tracked already by Germany, Russia. They add a huge advantage over 99% of the worlds airforces though.

 

[omaebakabaka]

Yes...most stealth planes use reflectors to hide there true RCS. But basic laws of physics state that you can not make anything totally invisible but make them very very low observable. Stealth is a wonder , it is the future. 4th generation fighter jets relying on jamming techniques , will be facing day of Reckoning when quantum radars arrives at scene in near future. If they haven't already secretly of course. only one surviving the future air war are the one with stealth fighter jet.

Ha ha, initial leaders that sport a stealth product will have that advantage. Nature of evolution both man and machine says stealth will be broken. There is fundamentally nothing about it that is truly not solvable, its just an equation that involves powerful radars, background signatures that require more computing power and some other parameters input into precise algorithms but the leaders will move on to next best tech and importers will be left with an avg plane. I like both F-35 and F-22, I just do not like how much it bankrupted the US taxpayer.

 

[Assassin 2.0]

9:05

 

[Sridhar_TN]

what do u doubt a F-35 in clean configuration always gets First look First shot capability against Rafale. F-35 is also geared towards passive scanning no way 35 comes in Rafale lock first.

The f35 gets a good first look because of its networked systems. It’s essentially data sharing that allows it to look farther. That’s all. If there’s an asset in place that can already monitor and track incoming bogies, only then does it work well. That’s is the basis for the f35. It’s meant to work amongs to work set of ground based and air based systems.

If you have the F35 flying by itself with not other assets in the theater, it more or less brings the same capability as a rafale .

 

[Sridhar_TN]

Most people don't know what they talk about. Rafale is nowhere close to F 35. F 35 will see first & shoot first even if you put F 35 radar on Rafale.
Detection range is proportional to 4th root of RCS , so if rafale has a RCS of 1m2 & F 35 have a marble ball size RCS ( 0.0001m2 ).
Than corresponding smaller RCS of F 35 will result in 10 time's smaller detection range.
So Rafale radar need to have 10 time Greater range than F 35 own radar to see F 35 first.

Indian fanboys should talk about Rafale only in indian context or south asia in general. It is good for indian needs but there are far better western planes available in form of F 15EX & F 18 blk 3 in market.

Lol

 

[LDev]

Lol

The F-35 Distributed Aperture System (DAS) using FLIR & IRST has been tested to detect ballistic missiles 1300 km away. It can therefore get very good SA without turning on it's radar and also use the DAS targeting to fire RF missiles which can be guided by a distant AWACS. So the enemy will never know it was around as it will never ever turn on it's radar. And as you state all of this SA and battle picture can be linked to other forces in the field. And it is being further upgraded for Block 4 F-35s. I would not compare this with what the Rafale has. The Rafale will only get a 2 way data link capability with the F4 standard which will be available in 2024.

 

[no smoking]

I don’t think Taiwan has the strategic depth needed for any second line deployment.

They don't have strategic depth geologically, but militarily, once PLAAF is coming, IDF will be the first batch taking off to get time for F-16 who will be the major force of fighting J-10/11, M2k will be the one aiding.

 

[Fonck83]

And what does it proof ? You can see the sun millions km away. Have you a better eyes than the f-35 ?
Have you only an idea of the parameters to use to know if an IRST is good or not ?
- angular resolution
- dynamic
- sensibility
- bandwidth
- bandwidth resolution
- Zoom power
- processing agility
Do you have only a small idea of the difference between Rafale and F-35 ? Of course not.

 

[Fonck83]

The F-35 Distributed Aperture System (DAS) using FLIR & IRST has been tested to detect ballistic missiles 1300 km away.

 

[BON PLAN]

so if rafale has a RCS of 1m2 & F 35 have a marble ball size RCS ( 0.0001m2 ).

Rafale has a far lower RCS than that.
1m² is the M2000 RCS.

F35? Maybe be. Maybe not.

 

[Fonck83]

Most people don't know what they talk about. Rafale is nowhere close to F 35. F 35 will see first & shoot first even if you put F 35 radar on Rafale.
Detection range is proportional to 4th root of RCS , so if rafale has a RCS of 1m2 & F 35 have a marble ball size RCS ( 0.0001m2 ).
Than corresponding smaller RCS of F 35 will result in 10 time's smaller detection range.
So Rafale radar need to have 10 time Greater range than F 35 own radar to see F 35 first.

Indian fanboys should talk about Rafale only in indian context or south asia in general. It is good for indian needs but there are far better western planes available in form of F 15EX & F 18 blk 3 in market.

The F-35 Distributed Aperture System (DAS) using FLIR & IRST has been tested to detect ballistic missiles 1300 km away.

If you use RCS parameters only then both plane have to turn on their aesa radar and both would be detected far away than their missiles ranges because of their own emission.
If you want to stay stealth the RCS of you oponnent is useless.
Spectra is well know for its extreme sensibility considering radar interception ...

 

[Fonck83]

Spectra capability is nothing new.
ASQ-239 EW on F 35 can do everything spectra can do. as i said we should talk about Rafale capabilities only in south Asian context.

1 - Spectra capability and ASQ-239 capability are totally secret. Then you can not tell which are the most capable.
2 - Spectra capability is on constant evolution. You can perhaps compare ASQ-239 and SPECTRA from 2015 but what do you know from the last SPECTRA evolution ?

 

[Fonck83]

@Thermonuclear
What I tell you for IRST is actually the same for the passive part of SPECTRA :

Have you only an idea of the parameters to use to know if passive detection system is good or not ?
- angular resolution
- dynamic
- dynamic resolution
- sensibility
- bandwidth
- bandwidth resolution
- Zoom power
- processing agility
Do you have only a small idea of the difference between Rafale and F-35 ? Of course not. Then You can always say that F-35 is better. I can also say that Rafale or spitfire or X-WING are better than F-35 in this regard since none of us know the real values.