Also, just a minor correction on that point: the "operational contract" for the French air force is to be able to deploy 70 combat aircraft for a total of 100 sorties per day for up to two months, plus maintain 10 aircraft on domestic alert.  Not 140.

 

Top of the line fighters (at least by French standards) are some 40 Mirage 2000-5Fs plus ever how many Rafales are operational.  The rest are basically good for air police and showing the flag in Djibouti.

It is astonishing to see so much hate and venom for the Dassault Rafale .

 

Well , keep underestimating the aircraft Gentlemen ...

 

Cheers .

 

 

 

I for one have no trouble believing that in those couple engagements Rafale scored 7-1 over Typhoon.  No, that does not prove much of anything about Rafale being superior to Typhoon, because it's far too few data points and we so far have basically no clue as to the conditions of those events.  However, I think it's safe to say it certainly shows that Rafale must be an excellent fighter.  I've always said so.

I think it's interesting (though not surprising) that the F-22 came out ahead in the apparently few engagements with Rafale, but again we don't know much of anything about it except for it being within visual range (and the Google translations do not seem to me to say it was necessarily limited to guns, unlike the way FS said it).  I certainly am not surprised that the only F-22 involvement was at WVR, as that appears to me to be standard for all DACT with the F-22... because otherwise the fight would be very boring and the only thing it would teach the opponent is what it feels like to be declared "dead."

 

In addition to the excellent comments by other posters regarding French Air Force numbers, don't forget that readiness rates for French Mirages historically are generally somewhere around 50%, so if you're counting 140 airframes because that's all you have, you might want to consider just how many can actually get "there" (wherever "there" happens to be at that time).

 

Dude, it's not the airplane, it's just you.  Every time you talk about the Rafale, you slag on someone else's airplane.  It's never enough for you to just say "Rafale has X capability and that is really useful against whatever target set", no, instead you say "Rafale has X capability and does it WAAAAY better than [insert allied airframe]".  You act like it's just a scorecard, you demonstrate no understanding of why some capability is good to have, you just brag about it if you think Rafale does it better than someone else.  So then it should come as no surprise when folks point and laugh -- at you -- when your bubble gets busted.

 

Nobody here (well, not me anyway) is bashing the French pilots or their airplane, they do what they are supposed to do.  Having said that, my opinions about the French military leadership are well founded, and what's sad is even though you and Strategy Guy obviously have no clue what really goes on you manage to reflect the same crap attitude.

You sound like a little baby about to cry because soemone talked badly about his favorite toy. You're pathetic. No doubt your little brains wheels are spinning and trying to think of a way you can go crying to the board operators to ban or punish someone for talking about your little toy. Yur mama must be proud of the little cry baby brat she raised. http://strategypage.com/CuteSoft_Client/CuteEditor/Images/emcry.gif" alt="" />

"LOL.  "You" don't even have 140 top of the line fighters.  And "you" can't project a whopping six aircraft to the Middle East without foreign assistance.  And "you" can't even protect your own guys on the ground from air attack by some rusty third world Frogfoot on your own."

35 M2000-5,  >80 Rafales, 85 M2000D  so ~  200 fighters (+M2000 N in case)

140 is for a 70% availability rate.

120 Rafale will be delivered by 2012 (3 first batch).

You have also to include navy planes.The new contract diminish air force part to 80 (+30 navy) readiness level but it is a minimal contract in any case and no warning.

 

I Ivory Coast our soldiers were killed because they anti-aircraft equipment stayed in France and our command did not thought that Ivorian air force could dare to shoot french .

 

for one squadron into Western Africa and NO carrier sustainment whatsoever.  Strictly a sortie from port with loaded supplies on hand, with no assurance that the carrier will not break down.

 

Your mission availability NOW is 40 aircraft of which you can deploy 12 out of area. Your mission availability sortie mission rate (less than  60%) depends on your war stocks of spare parts and munitions. By using ALL national war reserves you can operate that rump squadron out of area force 1 month. After that you are zeroed out, or as the Germans say, KAPUT.  If the Allies don't supply you, you are finis. 

 

Those are the facts.

 

Logistics are a bitch. You don't have any.

 

As to the Rafale, well that hasn't changed either. 110 kilonewton engine my ass. You'll be lucky to squeeze 90 kN  out of that SNECMA M-88 eco piece of junk with full reheat.

 

 

 

 

Of course it is DACT.

And you can be sure that Rafale (not to mention F22) has not shown all its capabilities especially on ECM or ECCM or RCS.

But if you don't win in DACT, it is more difficult to think you would win in real combat situation.

What we can be sure, is that on paper Rafale F3 win over Typhoon (like in all open competitions) and won in DACT.

you say that "of course it is DACT", but you immediately follow with a series of comments which indicate that you are actually unaware of what DACT is for.

 

there are no winners or losers.

events are scripted to generate a condition to generate a response, it can be to force blue or red to undertake a probable course of action

they're designed to artificially generate loaded circumstances

 

and again,  importantly, the weapons are simmed. the data for systems is based on performance parameters provided and accepted by the host.

 

 

 

A bit too harsh on te carrier side. Yes there's only one, meaning once it enters a heavy maintenance phase there's no replacement (like during the recent ITER). On the other hand the CdG was at sea for several months in operational conditions during the Afghanistan campaign. The French Navy does have resupply ships too, you know. Les than we'd wish in an ideal world, sure, but still.

I agree, it would be nice if we had logistics sufficient to fight World War Three on our own. The numbers you gave seem low and they are, in absolute terms. You have to keep in mind, though that A-stan isn't a life-threatening conflict for France (like, say the Fourth Reich deciding to reedit 1940 :-P ) but a far-flung, relatively low intensity (in terms of aerial combat) theater. Plus, it's a coalition affair. 

Simply said, in the current international context, and in view of financial limitations, it doesn't make sense to prepare and stockpile for WW3, and incur high maintenance costs to keep 100% of the fleet oeprational at a given moment when it's not needed, or keep huge stockpiles of ammo that won't be used in the most likely scenario yet will incur huge costs for storage and then disposal. When the most likely operations are Afghanistan-type ones, or little bushfires in Africa, the current "flux tendu" logic seems a better compromise (keeping only the necessary parts and ammo for short duration operations) as long as more can be ordered/delivered whenever they're actually needed.

It's a compromise, as always...

About the UAE report, the well-respected and informed Secret Defense blog quotes Lt-Col Fabrice Grancluadon, commander the 1/7 Provence squadron, saying "succès total" (total success, obviously) and "nous avons fait carton plein" (an idiomatic expression that basically means "we achieved everything we could want").

It's not clear however whether he was the author of the rest of the "rumors". 

Nevertheless and with all due provisions (rumors, DACT, one-sided statement... which also apply to everyone else) it is one more link in a chain of positive reports (Tiger Meets, Red Flag...). 

Some can complain or deride all of it as baseless claims from simulated data (read : but the Rafale would never perform like that "in the real world", whine, whine !). But it's the best we can get since the Taleban don't exactly have an Air Force.