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Subject: Rafale Thread
Softwar    3/9/2009 9:47:25 AM
Started with hope that BW will limit his comments here instead of in every other Fighter thread. I'll start off with: 1 - no export sales 2 - no laser designator 3 - no AESA 4 - overpriced 4th gen fighter
 
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Softwar       3/10/2009 10:57:01 AM
The Curtiss P-40 was used by the air forces of 28 nations during World War II. By November 1944, when production of the P-40 ceased, 13,738 had been built.
The Rafale is currently in service in one nation and having a very very hard time finding #2.  Its current production rate has been slowed to about 1/2 an airplane a month and total production run is supposed to be about 280.
 
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JFKY    Softwar   3/10/2009 11:04:16 AM
Well good points, but it is less about numbers and more about capability...the P-40 was a GOOD plane, just as Rafale is a GOOD plane, neither was or is a great plane....but they'll do their job, as long as "the job" doesn't involve extended combat with GREAT planes, in roles the Rafale is not suited for.
 
I'm just trying to get, I know hopeless, BW and others to place the Rafale in a context where it needn't be "all that" or a piece of Sh*te...and the P-40 seemed one of those contexts.  It was a very important a/c in a number of theatres, just not dominant like other a/c were.
 
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HERALD1357    The Mig 21......    3/10/2009 11:31:22 AM

Well good points, but it is less about numbers and more about capability...the P-40 was a GOOD plane, just as Rafale is a GOOD plane, neither was or is a great plane....but they'll do their job, as long as "the job" doesn't involve extended combat with GREAT planes, in roles the Rafale is not suited for.

 

I'm just trying to get, I know hopeless, BW and others to place the Rafale in a context where it needn't be "all that" or a piece of Sh*te...and the P-40 seemed one of those contexts.  It was a very important a/c in a number of theatres, just not dominant like other a/c were.

has a better track record in its role than the Rafale has in its. The Mig-21 was a badly flawed plane-is a badly flawed plane, but it can claim something the Rafale cannot..........victory.

 
 
 
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JFKY    Isn't this odd...   3/10/2009 11:42:08 AM
A thread about the Rafale that has turned AWAY from the Rafale...
No flame war intended, would you call the MiG-21 flawed or limited?  I certainly would call it an influential plane.  Yeah, it had instability problems and a bad gun sight, IIRC, but it was a very good daylight interceptor/fighter, at higher altitudes...I mean it did its job, and well.  It was limited in what it could do, but as long as you didn't try to make it do what it wasn't designed for, A2G, or low-altitude work it was a good performer.  Was it likely the Soviets would have been able to improve it, at a reasonable cost?  Would the improvements have been cost-beneficial?
 
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HERALD1357    Herald TRAP. MiG-21 example had a purpose.......   3/10/2009 12:07:33 PM

A thread about the Rafale that has turned AWAY from the Rafale...

No flame war intended, would you call the MiG-21 flawed or limited?  I certainly would call it an influential plane.  Yeah, it had instability problems and a bad gun sight, IIRC, but it was a very good daylight interceptor/fighter, at higher altitudes...I mean it did its job, and well.  It was limited in what it could do, but as long as you didn't try to make it do what it wasn't designed for, A2G, or low-altitude work it was a good performer.  Was it likely the Soviets would have been able to improve it, at a reasonable cost?  Would the improvements have been cost-beneficial?

Apply THAT OBJECTIVE ANALYSIS you used on the MiG-21 to the Rafale and tell me why the Rafale is a half-realized half-failed tactical bomb truck. I elsewhere compared it, the Rafale, to a THUD. Why did I do that?

Herald
 
 

 
 
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JFKY    Herald    3/10/2009 12:24:52 PM
I think the F-105 was a SUPERALATIVE A/c, but then I love the P-47...power over elegance, in my house....
Are you saying you think the Rafale is the Thud, at low altitude and as a bomb-carrier?
 
The F-105 might have been something of a mistake, the goal to make TAC a mini-SAC...and so develop a nuclear-capable fighter-bomber.  But in practice it just seems such an amazing a/c.  Not a bad fighter, a few A2A victories, a lot of bombs, and a good Wild Weasel a/c...certainly not the F-4, but not bad.
 
And I certainly see that most folks here reject BlueWings, not the Rafale...It would seem the Rafale is decent a/c...I just cannot see the MICA as what BW says it is, just from a theory PoV.  A system that is both a "Dessert AND a Floor Wax"?  I don't think so, people have AIM-9 and AIM-120 for a reason, generally what works in one field isn't a shoe-in in another field.
 
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HERALD1357    Mission profiles-how did/do the aircraft fly and deliver ordnance?    3/10/2009 12:32:12 PM

I think the F-105 was a SUPERALATIVE A/c, but then I love the P-47...power over elegance, in my house....

Are you saying you think the Rafale is the Thud, at low altitude and as a bomb-carrier?

 

The F-105 might have been something of a mistake, the goal to make TAC a mini-SAC...and so develop a nuclear-capable fighter-bomber.  But in practice it just seems such an amazing a/c.  Not a bad fighter, a few A2A victories, a lot of bombs, and a good Wild Weasel a/c...certainly not the F-4, but not bad.

 

And I certainly see that most folks here reject BlueWings, not the Rafale...It would seem the Rafale is decent a/c...I just cannot see the MICA as what BW says it is, just from a theory PoV.  A system that is both a "Dessert AND a Floor Wax"?  I don't think so, people have AIM-9 and AIM-120 for a reason, generally what works in one field isn't a shoe-in in another field.


Lo-Hi-Lo dash against a fixed target, with a lob toss at the end.
 
Herald
 
 
 
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leroy       3/10/2009 5:07:20 PM
"And please, stop talking about how Capability "X" could be added in a matter of hours...even I don't buy that...so you could add an ASEA radar in a matter of hours...so you have dozens of them just sitting around, uninstalled...but you could retrofit and upgrade your entire force in just a matter of hours?  I had a foreman once who liked to say, "Tell lies small enough that you'll believe'em."  Really no one is likely to believe that France has dozens of radars, designating pods, or ECM sets just sitting around, lacking on the impetus to mount them.  It just cannot be...."
 
Of course it isn't true, just like most of the stupid stuff the fanboy posts isn't.
 
Not only does France not have stockpiles of AESAs, targeting pods, standoff jammers, etc just sitting around, they don't even have any serious plans to procure these items.
 
Take for example their AESA, certainly one of the highest priority upgrades.  It is not currently available, and even when it does finally arrive it will only be on new build Rafales.  France has no plans to upgrade its existing Rafale fleet.  That means the AESA will only be produced in the same tiny numbers as the Rafale itself(around a dozen a year), guaranteeing high prices per unit and other issues. 
 
The Rafale is simply a program France can't afford to finish.  They don't have the money to do it themselves, and they can't find anyone to buy it until they finish it.  It is a catch-22.  Instead they are building aircraft in tiny numbers to various different specifications, driving up costs.  Some have link-16, some don't.  Some have an IRST, others don't.  Soon a few will have AESAs, while the rest of the fleet will not.   This is one reason why France mothballed some of its earlier Rafales rather than try to upgrade them to the current standard. 
 
 
 
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JFKY    Lob Toss   3/10/2009 5:25:58 PM
That's not the most accurate ordnance delivery mode is it?  Unless they are delivering JDAMS, or nuclear weapons.
 
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RockyMTNClimber    Rafale v. P40   3/10/2009 5:29:44 PM
...one way to view the Rafale, from this not expert view, is to think of it as the P-40, Warhawk.<JFKY
 
Well that clearly is not fair to the Curtis P40. The P40 was sold to many international buyers before WWII even started. Nobody wants the Rafale because it will deliver what the F16 delivers at twice the price with half the options. The P40 was competitive with every theater it flew. Allied air forces employing the Warhawk/Kittyhawk had an even to superior kill ratio against all comers from Dec. 7 to the end of the war. In fact rookie US pilots fighting Luftwaffe veterans ran up a 10-1 kill ratio against the bad guys even though none of them had ever been in combat (Google: Checkertail Gang/P40). Neither the Zero or the BF-109 were better than the P40 in any critical examination of its performance characteristics. The P40 was faster than both in level flight and could run away and hide from either in even a shallow dive. The P40 had superior maneuverability compared to the -109 (Nothing on the planet could turn with a A6M not even the vaunted Spitfire). It had better armament than either. The Rafale is comparable in it's flight envelope to any number of fighters from 20 years ago, nothing like that could be said of the P40 which was state of the art when it was introduced and stayed competitive to the end of the war.
 
If you ever critically examine a Curtis Warhawk you will find incredible functionality, workmanship, and quality right down to the smallest component. The same is true of its contemporaries the A6M and the Messerschmidt -109/-110. I have seen close-ups of the Rafale that would make a high school shop teacher cringe at. Their workmanship is simply sloppy (we have many pictures here on Strategy Page to support that view and I'm happy to reproduce them here for any who'd like to argue the point).
 
The Warhawk in its day has it all over the Rafale anytime.
 
Check Six
 
Rocky
 
 
 
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