[Red Liner]

Originally Posted by akhil_007

There was news in the early part of the decade that Dassault,as company,might shut down due to lack of substantial business to keep it profitable. Until Egypt/Qatar order few aircrafts. Was is not a good idea for India to buy the company itself, including all patents and ip? It could still function like Tata and Jaguar.
Rafale would cost way cheaper and maybe Tejas could use some of the knowledge from aquisition

Apologies in advance if my understanding or analogy makes no sense.

The French government would never have allowed it. They would have just bought up a controlling stake in the company to safe guard their military. Just see how they control Renault. The French are extremely nationalistic.

[Raul258]

Thanks for a very detailed writeup

If the fuel consumption is 3 litre per second under dry thrust then the total flight time is just around 30 minutes with internal fuel . This means the aircraft always need an external fuel pod during air patrols.
Wonder how much the air force is shelling out as fuel costs with so many aircrafts in inventory.
Costly business

[fache89]

Originally Posted by CaptainBrijesh

4. As per the historical backgrounds with combined weapons programs, Future new weapons integrations, modifications and buying may require lengthy procedures in case of Eurofighter Typhoon as it involves many countries. (Example of F-35 Lightening-II in this case).

I disagree with the above point because France does capitulate under geopolitical pressure. One instance that comes to mind is when France reneged on its commitment to deliver a pair of amphibious assault Mistral ships to Russia citing it's intervention in Ukraine in 2014.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistra...ssian_purchase

I agree with all the other points stated by you specially the jugaad bit in Kargil. In security establishment, it is well known that a squadron of Mirage 2000-5 is kept at standby for Nuclear Warhead delivery. Rafale is the logical successor as France tends to look the other way when it comes to integrating Nuclear weapons with its platforms.

[ads11]

Originally Posted by Red Liner

The French government would never have allowed it. They would have just bought up a controlling stake in the company to safe guard their military. Just see how they control Renault. The French are extremely nationalistic.

To further this, the French tend to be like the Japanese when it comes to protectionist policies with regard to their national defence related firms. As in they're willing to pay through the nose if need be to keep an endemic capability. As fanciful as the idea might be, India would've stood a far greater chance of acquiring a meaningful stake in SAAB than it would Dassault. And the French govt isn't averse to investing in national industry to retain French control.

Originally Posted by fache89

I disagree with the above point because France does capitulate under geopolitical pressure. One instance that comes to mind is when France reneged on its commitment to deliver a pair of amphibious assault Mistral ships to Russia citing it's intervention in Ukraine in 2014.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistra...ssian_purchase

The case of the Mistral is indeed a rare occurrence of the French not honouring a contract on purely business terms but I think there's a caveat to this. As a NATO member, France was left with no choice but to respond in a meaningful way to Russian aggression in Ukraine, sure there was pressure from the rest of the NATO powers (USA, UK and Germany) but France too had to act especially given this was happening on the continent.

I suppose India by virtue of being outside the sphere of French influence, and outside the entanglement of say NATO considerations, stands far less chance of finding itself scuppered by outside factors in its links to French arms.

[Maveryq]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Jai Hind.

Attachment 2038139

Thank you Sir, for an extremely informative post.

I was wondering what is the circled item near the tail exhaust system?

[Shwet]

Originally Posted by Ford5

I don't wish to digress, but the Chinese jamming capability is something terrifying. Even the PAF with their european Saab did something audacious.

Nonetheless the Rafale is really a good addition for the IAF barring the cost ofcourse and giving the best of the best of the IAF a shot at it will soothe frayed nerves in due course.

To an extent you are right regarding MIG's and Sukhois.

The Chinese or for that matter any jamming capability works if the avionics and the jammers on the plane are not up to date. The problem came in sharp focus during 27th Feb 2019 when Abhinandan's plane just could not get the message from ground control to come back. The messages were evidently blocked due to the archaic jammers on the MIG 21. Subsequently these were urgently ordered from Israel.

That's what i mean when we talk about sensor fusion, the entire IAF equipment is so diverse and vast that it becomes difficult to integrate all of these into one cohesive unit. So the Israeli jammers came in but integrating them would require Russian source codes and it becomes a logistical nightmare.

The Rafale doesn't suffer from such glaring lacunae, all the parts are french , apart from the MBDA Meteor and that has been integrated on Typhoon and Gripen as well. Consequently this platform brings in sensor fusion and cohesiveness beautifully and that should have been done much earlier.

One of the advantages of AESA radars are that they are resistant to jamming and all the talk of Chinese or others Jamming it are typical Global Times Hogwash. Even a functional AESA radar is extremely difficult to Jam let alone a Thales AESA (On the Rafale). The Rafale also has the Spectra Countermeasures suite.

[akhil_007]

Originally Posted by Ford5

I don't wish to digress, but the Chinese jamming capability is something terrifying. Even the PAF with their european Saab did something audacious.

You stirred the curiosity in me. Could you please elaborate more on this along with any instances. Would love to read up on this.

[RaviK]

Originally Posted by CaptainBrijesh

....
3. Another thing which infuenced our decision to buy a Multi-Role Fighter is "The era of Beyond Visual Range Warfare" is diminishing the clear cut separate requirements of Air Dominance Fighters. As most of the War will be fought between fighters outside the visual ranges of Pilots, no point in buying aircraft with Air-Dominance & Dog-fight capabilities. Rather than its better to opt for an All Rounder Package. (Another advantage is that Rafale is no lesser in delivery of Beyond Visual Range Weapons, Win-Win Situation)...

A noob question - unless the target is static, how accurate are beyond visual range techniques? For a moving target, even a 5 second gap would mean its fairly safe from the strike. Is the missile constantly fed the coordinates during its travel to target ? If yes, wouldn't a good jamming mechanism make it much less effective, even if it initially locked on the target ?
Sorry, if it sounds too basic a query, just curious to understand

[styx71]

Excellent write-up and pics!! Thank you.

Any idea how does the Meteor stacks up against the Russian R77? I believe the IAF ordered more of these (along with the R73) after the Balakot incident. If the data on the Wikipedia is anything to by, the range is equivalent to the Meteor and some versions are twice as much!

[DrPriyankT]

Excellent write up as usual Narayan Sir. The Rafale is surely a game changer for the capabilities of the IAF. It will be a quantum jump for the air force, especially in terms of avionics. However, IMHO we should urgently order at least 72 more, as we have the ground infrastructure ready for the same (I have been shouting about this from the rooftops, in multiple threads on this forum). Even our Navy is eying them for their carriers.

However, we should not allow our Su-30MKI upgrade go on the backburner, as we have 272 of them, and having them functioning with old avionics would be a strategic blunder. They form the heavy weight category of our fleet, and they are our premier heavyweight air dominance fighter, and hence they very well deserve a deep upgrade. They along with the Tejas and Rafale would be a deadly trio.

[DirtyDan]

This isn't a sports car nor does this aircraft's good looks mean it's functional. It ain't. It's an obsolete expensive aircraft.

India is quite capable of building its own STEALTH pilotless fighters in massive inexpensive numbers. This is where world air defense is going. This is where the Indian Air Force should go.

You all are getting real excited about 1980s technology. This is 2020 and what is needed is
STEALTH fighter jets. Forget the sports car "Top Gun" mentality. Pilotless stealth aircraft are the future, like it or not.

[VijayAnand1]

One of those simple, gem of a thread, that you would want to read, re-read and keep reading. Just lovely rudimental facts cleanly laid out for layman. Please do add more.

Cheers!
VJ

[CaptainBrijesh]

Originally Posted by RaviK

A noob question - unless the target is static, how accurate are beyond visual range techniques? For a moving target, even a 5 second gap would mean its fairly safe from the strike. Is the missile constantly fed the coordinates during its travel to target ? If yes, wouldn't a good jamming mechanism make it much less effective, even if it initially locked on the target ?
Sorry, if it sounds too basic a query, just curious to understand

Beyond Visual Range Weapons are pretty accurate. For example Rafale's METEOR missile can engage targets from more than 100 kms. You would be surprised to know that it has no escape zone of 60 kms. i.e. if pilot fires the missile when target is in the range of 60 kms, target won't be able to dodge the missile most probably. All this happens because missiles have capability to find targets on their own like Radar, infrared homing etc etc.

MICA and METEOR has fire & forget capability. They can find the target after deployment also.

In addition to that, untill the missile destroy the target, it sends all the environmental data back to the cockpit. I mean the missiles work as pack of different sensors for the cockpit from that far away.

Technologies beyond we can even think about.

[Shome]

Originally Posted by DirtyDan

This isn't a sports car nor does this aircraft's good looks mean it's functional. It ain't. It's an obsolete expensive aircraft.

India is quite capable of building its own STEALTH pilotless fighters in massive inexpensive numbers. This is where world air defense is going. This is where the Indian Air Force should go.

You all are getting real excited about 1980s technology. This is 2020 and what is needed is
STEALTH fighter jets. Forget the sports car "Top Gun" mentality. Pilotless stealth aircraft are the future, like it or not.

I'm now intrigued, can you please help me understand the following:

1. Which stealth pilotless fighters (I believe they are called UCAVs, I may be wrong) are currently in service in the world?
2. How much has India invested to develop our own UCAVs/fighter aircrafts in terms of knowledge and resources in the past?
3. What other alternatives did we have other than the Rafale?
4. How should the IAF have addressed the dwindling squadron strength with currently available technology/planes in the market?
5. Also, if you could just let me know all the 1980's tech that's there in the Rafale

Cheers

[DirtyDan]

Originally Posted by Shome

I'm now intrigued, can you please help me understand the following:

1. Which stealth pilotless fighters (I believe they are called UCAVs, I may be wrong) are currently in service in the world?
2. How much has India invested to develop our own UCAVs/fighter aircrafts in terms of knowledge and resources in the past?
3. What other alternatives did we have other than the Rafale?
4. How should the IAF have addressed the dwindling squadron strength with currently available technology/planes in the market?
5. Also, if you could just let me know all the 1980's tech that's there in the Rafale

Cheers

I see that you are a knee-jerk "current" technology affecionado. Your favorite word is "current". I suggest you look to the future instead of dwelling in the obsolete. India is capable of going to Mars. It is capable of building its own superior Air Force in house.