bies Posted January 30 Posted January 30 (edited) "French pilots [on Rafale] regularly confronting fifth-generation fighters [such as the American F35] in inter-allied exercises note that the mismatch between stealth fighters is unavoidable in terms of the current level of sensors." "In the event of a combat alongside its Western allies in a high-intensity conflict, the French fighter could be confined to the role of supporting fifth-generation fighters." https://www.lopinion.fr/international/en-combat-air-air-laviation-de-chasse-francaise-tiendrait-trois-jours Edited February 8 by bies 2
Rick50 Posted February 1 Posted February 1 Well, sure... I guess that's not the biggest surprise, considering the high importance of stealth and sensor capability in modern air combat these days (no pun intended... or maybe yes, intended!). On the other hand, a Rafale is STILL a Rafale, and that still means an amazing jet in it's own right! In a world where there are still a few active duty F-4 Phantom's doing training missions, a Dasault Rafale or Eurofighter are amazing! Come to think of it, it's also amazing the Phantom still has a few users... first flight in 1958... Turkey intends to operate them until 2030 !!! 3
Dragon1-1 Posted February 1 Posted February 1 Given the economics, though, I'd rather expect a scenario where a pair of 5th gens will support a larger formation of older jets. The problem with stealth, sensors and all is that they're expensive. So, you'll probably get best bang for buck by using the two F-35s to find and lock the enemy, and then 12 Rafales to shoot missiles at him. Could also work with Loyal Wingman drones, but a manned fighter has the advantage of being able to fight individually. 1
bies Posted February 1 Author Posted February 1 8 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said: Given the economics, though, I'd rather expect a scenario where a pair of 5th gens will support a larger formation of older jets. The problem with stealth, sensors and all is that they're expensive. So, you'll probably get best bang for buck by using the two F-35s to find and lock the enemy, and then 12 Rafales to shoot missiles at him. Could also work with Loyal Wingman drones, but a manned fighter has the advantage of being able to fight individually. F-35 is very affordable, it's cheaper to buy then Rafale due to massive econimy of scale. It would be rather 12 F-35 against 10 Rafale, money wise. 2
Dragon1-1 Posted February 1 Posted February 1 The difference is, of course, that the French don't really need to buy any more Rafales. Both of those fighters are way too expensive to buy very many of. The point is to make use of existing arsenal, that is, 4th and 4th+ gen fighters, and enhance their capabilities by throwing a few 5th gens into the mix. The Rafale might not be quite as capable as the F-35, but it can hold its own, especially with sensor capabilities of the F-35 being able to be shared with other fighters via datalink. It can carry the same or better missiles (Meteor) and shoot them at datalinked contacts. Carriers could probably use an all F-35 wing because they're quite limited in number of aircraft that can be up at a time, but for land bases, mixing in stealth with older fighters is going to remain an economical solution for quite a while. 1
Pilotasso Posted February 2 Posted February 2 This was predictable to happen since the 1990's. Not a surprise. However since the F-35 was getting a lot of unfair bad rep back in the day, the public opinion basically dissmissed it. A 5th gen fighter is still comming (FCAS) but they need to get their act together. 1 .
Kalasnkova74 Posted February 5 Posted February 5 The Rafale’s biggest advantage is that it’s not an F-35. One of the dangers of standardization is you also standardize the enemy’s ability to stop you. If a flaw is exploited in the F-35 fleet- or its crippled by a cyberattack- the Rafale will have to carry the load until the problem is solved.
Pilotasso Posted February 6 Posted February 6 (edited) I think it's the other way around. Standardizing a counter for the rafale would be easier to achieve than the F-35, so it would be better to have F-35's in addition to rafale (or any other eurocanard or F-1X). Also, it seems clear that those operators that had developed expendable combat drones as spearheads of their maned fighter complement are going to be more effective than the above. Specially if all of them have the added layer of defense of stealth. Edited February 6 by Pilotasso .
Dragon1-1 Posted February 7 Posted February 7 Note that drones, if enough of them are used, could allow the F-35's stealth to be nullified. The radar energy that hits it doesn't disappear (except what is absorbed by the RAM coating), it just gets bounced in another direction. If you put radar receivers on drones spread around the airspace, you may catch a radar wave that's been reflected off the F-35. Since the drones would be datalinked anyway for control, using them as distributed radar receivers is a logical evolution. Combined with a missile that would use a visible light/near-IR camera combined with some sort of AI image recognition algorithm (possibly located on the launch platform), this could be a very effective way of handling stealth fighters.
Rick50 Posted March 9 Posted March 9 Meteor has test flown on the F-35 for integration. This is NOT operational at this time, and likely not for at least a year or more. However, it's an interesting development that could be seen for future users. https://www.twz.com/air/f-35b-has-flown-with-meteor-long-range-air-to-air-missile It occurs to me that maybe the Meteor might be worth considering to add to the NASAMS system, to help spread the production and availability?
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