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Subject: The Rafale's First Red Flag
Phaid    9/3/2008 5:22:21 PM
This is my translation of a new article from TTU Online: hxxp://www.ttu.fr/francais/Articles/rafaleredflag.html The Rafale's First Red Flag For the armée de l'air, two years after its official entry into service at Saint Dizier, the summer of 2008 was the first opportunity to fully test the Rafale in the context of a large-scale war gaming exercise in the Nevada desert, which came at the conclusion of a long journey journey across the American continent following a crossing of the Atlantic via the Azores. Planned for a year and a half, the goal of Red Flag is to prepare the French air forces for tactical interoperability. The armée de l'air has taken part in Red Flag on a regular basis since 1981, and nearly all of its combat aircraft types have participated. This time, it was the Rafale's turn, as a prelude to the participation of the Mirage F1CT/CR this fall in Green Flag -- a CAS exercise smaller in scale than Red Flag but which prepares forces for missions currently being undertaken in Afghanistan. And so, from the 7th to the 22nd August, a detachment of four Rafales from the fighter squadron 1/7 "Provence", based in Saint-Dizier, accompanied by a C-135FR tanker, spent ten days taking part in the fourth Red Flag of 2008, certainly the most demanding -- the closest thing to real war, they say -- for a Western pilot. The detachment of 85 personnel, under the command of colonel Philippe Poireault, the team's leader, and of the lieutenant colonel Fabrice Grandclaudon, commander of the 1/7, consisted in all of fourteen pilotes, six navigators, an intelligence officer, and 39 mechanics. The detachment consisted of two teams; one for missions during the day and one for missions at night. The roster was rounded out by air commandos responsible for the security of the aircraft. Taking place immediately following a 10-day base exchange at Luke Air Force Base with F-16s and personnel of the USAF's 309th TFS, the goal of the Rafale's first Red Flag was to compare the Rafale, which the squadron has been flying for two years, with combat aircraft of the same generation (called the 4th generation): F-15Es of the USAFE, F-15Ks of the RoKAF, F-15 and F-16 Aggressors, and Su-30MKIs of the IAF. It should be noted that half of the French participants had participated in the Afghan theater in recent months. The four Rafale from the 1/7 (numbers 317, 320, 321, and 325) were all two-seaters, of the F2+ standard (and thus very recent), with a total "swing role" capability and whose simulated armament was composed of Mica IR/EM AAMs and rocket-propelled inertially guided AASM/GPS weapons. The missions were supported by the SLPRM (the SAGEM local mission planning and replay system, a mission-planning computer system). During the ten days of Red Flag, the Rafale Bs undertook a total of four sorties per day, each averaging two hours (1 day strike and 1 night strike), as part of a Blue Air strike package consisting in general of fifty to sixty aircraft. This took place in outside temperatures above 45°C, nearly identical to conditions in Kandahar, Afghanistan. These temperatures were in fact more taxing on the crews and maintainers than on the aircraft; the M88's power reserve at takeoff assuring comfortable levels of thrust at the beginnings of the missions. The aircraft were normally equipped with three large supersonic external tanks of 1200 liters to mimic a heavy war load. The primary preoccupation of the armée de l'air in coming to Nellis AFB with the Rafale was first to verify the proper integration of the aircraft and its systems in a dense and complex environment of allied aircraft, notably with the participation of EA-6B electronic warfare aircraft and F-16CJs performing SEAD. General Jean-Pierre Martin, commander of the combat air forces, who even participated in one of the last Rafale B missions over the Nellis range (which is as large as the territory of Switzerland!) during the August Red Flag, commented: "After a year and a half of preparation, the system is in operational service and has been utilised in operatiosn which demonstrates that the capabilities of the aircraft are at the desired level. The Rafale behaved itself very well and fulfilled its part of the missions, and even did so easily thanks to the combination of its sensors and its networking systems (link 16). We can say that, for the first time, in contrast to previous exercises involving Jaguars or Mirage F1s or 2000, the French flew at Red Flag on an aircraft of comparable generation which had nothing to envy those of its American, Korean, and Indian comrades." Also taking into account the mission profiles undertaken in a theater saturated with surface-to-air and air-to-air threats, the Rafale also very well demonstr5ated its capacity to penetrate enemy air defenses thanks to its very capable weapon system to which the new AASM bomb is not a stranger. In fact, if the different participants were not particula
 
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Phaid       9/3/2008 6:50:11 PM
One point of precision about the article: the term used to describe the new logistics system is "flux tendu".  This is the French term that means the same thing as the English business term "just-in-time delivery", in other words, doing manufacturing with little or no warehousing of materials, and instead relying on regular delivery of parts as they are required.
 
This adds a little bit of context to those Indian comments about Rafale's availability problems.  I would imagine that, while it is on the whole more efficient to ship parts only when you need them, rather than carrying a massive supply with you, it would lead to longer downtimes if you happened not to have a critical spare on hand. Of course, they had four aircraft, and only needed to generate two sorties twice a day, so they had a lot of slack if an aircraft was down.
 
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ArtyEngineer    logistics   9/3/2008 7:39:31 PM
The "Just in time" philosphy "Just doesnt work" if you ask me for military systems.  Im heavily in that "world" at the minute and i feel physically sick thinking about the mess the just in time approach can get you into. 
 
Im not going to go into to much detail as it would be a total thread hijack on what is actually a pretty informative artical about the Rafale.
 
So briefly here are my thoughts:
 
You absolutely need to deploy with a "Considerable Support Package" capable of handling the highest convievable Op Tempo and the inevitable "Oh Sh!t" maintenance nightmare which WILL happen.
 
Military Hardware suffers greatly from "Long Lead Time" issues for reasons such as extremely high levels of "Quality Control, Acceptance Testing and general Complexity" of components.
 
Small quantity procurement of itmes as needed is scarily expensive!!!
 
Military electronics can run into "Obsolesence" issues.  If you didnt do a lifetime buy at the time of the production run you may not be able to get components 5 years down the line without having to foot production line startup costs all over again.
 
There loads more reasons, but as I stated dont want to hijack!!!!!
 
 
 
 
 
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neiyold       9/3/2008 9:54:59 PM
Arty
 
All system level designs and deployments face the same issue.  On the industrial side, we can usually get reliable support for 5 to 7 years.  And the excellent vendors will help to develop plans for 10+ years.  But that is dependent upon effort put into the forecasting, and obsolescence risk management done at the *beginning* of a project or program.  Some clients look for a guaranteed 15 year life cycle support, and we have to slowly and gently manage that.  But no matter who the vendors / suppliers and no matter how good the planning, when a system shuts down, there has to be ample parts to get the system back online immediately.  Just in time, or overnight UPS is also, just not good enough!
 
About the Rafale, that is great to hear the French are very pleased with their fighter.  Love it, despise it, or impartial, it is good to hear someone pleased with their latest purchase.  Very interesting comments on the "swing role" being less enthusiastically noted than its excellent work in the precision AtG role.  I can the see Air Dominance / DEAD roles becoming synonomous with F22 type fighters because of their inherent focus on absolute, but specific performance.  Whilst other fighters accept a more limited air to air role, but proving to be excellent for the fast, flexible and precise AtG roles as demonstrated here.  Since Air Dominance / DEAD is likely to be *primarily* (but not necessarily exclusively) by the US in joint operations, it would make more sense for other countries to focus the bulk of their limited defense dollars on the Rafale / F35 roles.  The UK seems to be doing this as well with the Typhoon / F35 combination. 

 
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DarthAmerica    AE reply   9/4/2008 1:59:26 AM

The "Just in time" philosphy "Just doesnt work" if you ask me for military systems.  Im heavily in that "world" at the minute and i feel physically sick thinking about the mess the just in time approach can get you into.

Yeah I have to say that my experience showed me that "Just in Time" only works when you have excess capacity to deal with the threat. In other words, if the FAF need 4 aircraft to do the mission out of 8 total planes available then they can afford to have 2 down due to maintenance awaiting parts. But once the OPTEMPO pushes things to capacity and demand for item x exceeds the ability to rapidly supply that item you will be in a world of hurt from an OR point of view. Thats from direct experience with platforms much less maintenance intensive than a fighter. Moreover, you have to have the capability to secure the supply chain end to end or you will be creating critical nodes of vulnerability for those who have the ability to reach out and touch things far away. And don't assume reach out and touch has to be physical. These days a virtual reaching out and touch could have the same or even greater effect.
 
 
As AE said, I don't want to thread jack and this is certainly a quality Rafale post. However, my opinion of the Rafale's maintenance situation is that it's fine it we are talking about CAS sorties during COIN. But maybe not so good in a high intensity conflict especially in the precense of those who can strike back through a variety of means and it gets worse the further down the supply chain they can go and regardless of how.
 
-DA

 
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Bluewings12       9/7/2008 5:15:45 PM
I am glad that the FAF is trying to push the  Rafale hard . More we learn about the aircraft and how to use it the best possible way , better the FAF will be . I imagine that the French Pilots had a great time with the people and the world class facilities of Red Flag . Kudos again and always to the USA and the USAF for providing such an outstanding exercise .
 
I hope that the USAF will listen a bit more the French AF in the futur , especially regarding A-Stan where we both need a bit more trust and understanding regarding the ROE . 6 months ago , we were still not 'allowed' to use the AASM and we had to fire it in anger twice to show you that it was a weapon to be accounted for . Red Flag has obviously changed your mind , AASM kick butts .
 
Other things I would like to comment :
""Also taking into account the mission profiles undertaken in a theater saturated with surface-to-air and air-to-air threats, the Rafale also very well demonstrated its capacity to penetrate enemy air defenses""
 
In an exercise like Red Flag , it is probably the best comment I 've ever heard about a swing-role Fighter .
It takes into account basically everything :
-RCS
-EM sig
- Sensors
- Man-machine interface
- Flight control and Doctrine
- Weapon system
- and most of all , the skill of our Pilots .
 
I feel very proud .
 
""it is undeniably the precision of the Rafale's sensors and its standoff air-to-ground armament which impressed the gallery""
 
The SUs , Typhoon and Sup Hornet are outclassed WITHOUT the need of a LGB pod . The Damoclès pod will only bring the needed 2nd capability (as I always said) .
 
""On the Rafale, sensor fusion is an extraordinary concept and very successfully implemented. There were never any disagreements between the different sensors""
 
The Rafale is the only Fighter with the F-22 and the F-35 to use a "God eye view" HUD . That means that the Fighter is in the middle of the screen with the world around it , which is in fact a 360deg EM "managed" bubble (EMCOM) .
This is what we call a 4.5gen Fighter . The 5thgen being stealth and EMCOM (very hard to beat in all scenarios) . 
 
""In the course of "self escort" and "organic escort" missions, the Rafale/F2+ was able to present the full complement of its aerial capabilities of this new aircraft.........""
 
Very telling ...

""the Spectra which has proven itself a very rich detection system functioning in complement with the RBE2 radar. The OSF, for its part, was unanimously praised by pilots for its great usefulness in aerial combat. "It's a sensor we will no longer be able to do without in the future", remarked one captain, "because it gives us such a discreet advantage over the adversary""
 
Notice about the OSF the "was unanimously praised by pilots for its great usefulness in aerial combat"" , which clearly demonstrate what I said earlier on to Phaid and Dwight about the usefullness of the OSF regarding the its long range detection and identification capability . We now have an answer and the case is closed but is still open to friendly talk ;-)
 
""The Americans, during the "mass debriefs", lauded the precision of the AASM. Each Rafale can today engage six targets at a time over an extended area, each 250kg bomb having its own ballistics and target coordinates""
 
As I said .
Our AASMs and you JDAMs (while inferiors) will smack the Talibans for the foreseeable futur . (where is the Eurofighter when we need it ?)
.......................................
Besides the fact that I did win some points :-) , I would like to say that Red Flag can only bring us (USA-France) closer and this is the main thing as long as we share the same values (which is not always the case) .
Btw , my vote (if I had one) would go for B. Obama .
McCain will only give us the Third World War .
None of us needs or deserves a WW3 ...
 
Cheers .
 
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warpig       9/7/2008 8:02:54 PM
"Notice about the OSF the "was unanimously praised by pilots for its great usefulness in aerial combat"" , which clearly demonstrate what I said earlier on to Phaid and Dwight about the usefullness of the OSF regarding the its long range detection and identification capability ."
 
 
What it clearly demonstrates is exactly what Phaid has said all along:  When Rafale pilots receive cuing from their own radar or from another radar via Link16, the pilot can use the OSF to confirm the identity of the target and thus safely engage even at BVR ranges.  It continues to remain your unsupported assertion that the OSF is used independent of any radar data, from either the onboard radar or passed to it from another radar via Link16, to find targets.
 
 
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Das Kardinal       9/7/2008 8:59:33 PM

"Notice about the OSF the "was unanimously praised by pilots for its great usefulness in aerial combat"" , which clearly demonstrate what I said earlier on to Phaid and Dwight about the usefullness of the OSF regarding the its long range detection and identification capability ."

 

 

What it clearly demonstrates is exactly what Phaid has said all along:  When Rafale pilots receive cuing from their own radar or from another radar via Link16, the pilot can use the OSF to confirm the identity of the target and thus safely engage even at BVR ranges.  It continues to remain your unsupported assertion that the OSF is used independent of any radar data, from either the onboard radar or passed to it from another radar via Link16, to find targets.


I don't see how such a general comment as "was unanimously praised by pilots for its great usefulness in aerial combat" can be extrapolated into what both of you wrote... It merely says that it's greatly useful and gives a clear advantage over other platforms, it doesn't say anything about needing cueing by other sensors.

 



 
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Bluewings12       9/8/2008 9:05:33 AM
Well , I think that a little lesson on IR imagery , FLIRs and IRSTs is needed .
 
Since you think that the OSF is mostly (exclusively ?) used for Identification after the target has been detected by the RBE2 or the SPECTRA suite , I am forced to tell you that you 're wrong .
The OSF is an IRST (Infra Red Search and Track) and its main purpose is to scan ahead in the IR bands for target of opportunity .
 
""Infrared search and track (IRST) devices are used on aircraft and ships to detect hostile aircraft. An IRST does not use imagery, but rather looks for a warmer spot target against a cold background. It sweeps a large angular area with an IR sensor array as shown in Figure 4.24. It detects IR targets while rapidly covering its angular range. Then, it develops the necessary data to hand off target tracking information to sensors. ""
 
""In this approach,the area near the target is observed by a two-dimensional IR array operating in the far-IR region. You will recall that objects at moderate temperatures emit in this region, so the array can observe the contrast between the warmer aircraft and the colder sky. A processor will observe the shape of a number of pixels from the array that show the proper contrast (see Figure 4.23). It will then determine that this pixel distribution qualifies as the target .Only a few pixels are required to determine the general size and shape of a target""
 
""The optronic systems include the Thales/SAGEM OSF infrared search and track system, installed in the nose of the aircraft. The optronic suite carries out search, target identification, telemetry and automatic target discrimination and tracking.""
*********************
Is it clear enough now ?
 
Cheers .
 

 
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Phaid       9/8/2008 9:57:41 AM
Yes, BW, it's perfectly clear.  As the French commander at the oft-quoted Tiger Meet stated:
 
"The forward sector optronics (FSO) system was particularly popular with the aircrews, who were impressed by its performance: 'By cueing the FSO with the tracks provided by his radar or by another aircraft via Link 16, a pilot can easily identify an aggressor force at a range of several tens of nautical miles. For example, he can pick up two Tornados and an F/A-18 preparing to penetrate at 20,000ft and the three other F/A-18s, easy to identify with their twin tails, protecting them at 40,000ft.'"
 
The Rafales were operating as one element in a total sortie of over fifty aircraft.  They were working in concert with EW aircraft, SEAD aircraft, top cover fighters, other strikers, etc.  Your comments continue to show your naive and myopic lack of understanding of anything to do with aerial warfare whatsoever.
 
For the rest of your nonsense, as usual, just because someone says something about Rafale, does not mean other aircraft don't have the exact same capability.  Rafale is far from the only aircraft to have a Horizontal Situation Display (what you call the god's eye view), every modern fighter has that.  Ditto for all your other "points". 
 
The only thing Rafale brought to the table that was exceptional was the (simulated) AASMs.  That's great and all, but in the end it's nothing more than a less-accurate JDAM with a rocket on the back.  And you should perhaps read more about the AASM's performance in Afghanistan -- it was far from 100%, and on at least one occasion the failure of an AASM required that another aircraft strike the target with an LGB -- something that the Rafale still could not do for itself.
 
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Bluewings12       9/8/2008 11:19:56 AM
Now Phaid , you show a pure bad faith , I mean C 'Mon !
It is not because the French Commander was talking about one of the numerous use of the OSF that is it the only one !
You know as well as I do what a good IRST can do , it 's not like if it was a new technology .
 
You really have something against the French aircraft , haven 't you ? You become partial , you loose your objectivity and you end up writing nonsenses .
 
Cheers .

 
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