So I had a little bit of time today and looked at the impact that a new engine like the M88-4E would add to the Rafale once or if developers decide to replace the current engine with it. While the dev-server Rafale and current Rafale wouldn’t change performance in terms of fuel percentage for example 50%, the performance would increase if both the current and new engine Rafale were to take the same fuel time such as 20 minutes. This is because Rafale C with M88-4E engine would allow you to take less fuel for the same amount of time due to lower fuel consumption.
What does this look like? Here’s an example in terms of acceleration (Orange is M88-4E and blue is M88-2):
While the dev-server Rafale will offer improved flight performance, a new engine would also improve performance even further in a proper game mode such as Air RB or Sim, although the new engine wouldn’t affect dueling performances for example since that is dependent highly on fuel percentages.
The new M88-4E engine would be the equivalent of reducing the Rafale’s weight by 240kg in actual game modes on top of the already reduced weight of 400kg!
Too good for the current meta, gotta wait a bit. Hell even without it the Rafale is wrecking everything… but when we get the latest tech in game then we can get a Rafale with them mica ir
This gotta be put on the waiting list, since the weight reduction already make Rafale way even more overpowered, maybe this will be introduced when everyone finally receives their AESA-capable aircraft in the winter. And at worst, I think this would be better if it implemented in the Rafale F.4, so Gaijin can force everyone to grind it again, and makes Rafale F3-R distinctive to F4. Making Rafale F3-R futureproof is also bad as it would make the F3-R the solely capable aircraft unless we see earlier Rafale in the future as the stopgap.
But unfortunately, with how tight the Top BR now, earlier Rafale would still overpowered so much, at best it sits at 14.0, since compared to Japanese F-2, it would still retain the overpowered FM, so hopefully when the earlier Rafale come, also comes with BR Decompression, 15.0 at next summer would be good to make the Top Tier less dense again.
Yeah the Rafale was added too early tbh, but a F.1 would’ve been much less op with only a pesa radar, no irst, no hmd, no air to ground, and only 6 aam max… the F.3R was just way too modern for the game meta and it still is.
We should have the F.1 and F.2 at around 14.0/14.3 and the F.3R much higher.
Also they should’ve added the Rafale M instead of the Rafale C, it’s heavier so would be less agile and would allow the addition of all standards in the same line (since the F.1 for example was navy-only).
Having the most recent aircraft in War Thunder is insane, we used to have American/Soviet Aircraft that are the latest of the tech, and then bam, 2017 Rafale 💀
Would love to see where this new weight number has magically appeared from, the Rafale seems to get a tonne lighter every time I check this forum, is it on ozempic or something?
9800kg seems to be the figure in a lot of magazines and publications. the current empty weight in game is 9300ish kg, 9550 kg with ammo and pilot pretty sure. It’s calculated from a crash report of 2 rafales
In said report many issues are raised, being a tactical demonstration aircraft, it may have had components stripped out for weight and fuel efficiency, such as weapon ammo, helmet systems etc, which could already see a massive change in weight, it could have also lacked a radar, which would have seen a weight change of 270kg.
The report also uses weight assumptions using civilian fuel mixes, which we know for a fact differ with military aircraft, due to the way they are combusted, any additives they have in them also to prevent freezing in cold conditions and ensure constant fuel flow.
Even the fact that the report was submitted with assumptions would be an immediate no for any other aircraft.
Again there are many other factors, discrepancies in fuel amounts (as he admitted himself), discrepancies in the airframe itself, as I mentioned different systems having been removed as common in demonstration aircraft.
There simply isn’t enough information to reliably calculate the aircraft’s weight, however since he rounded it up nicely, gaijin seem to find that A okay
In many reports they’ve shown they tend to make up values to get performance closer to known numbers, so clearly they have 0 regard for any calculation, as this causes errors between data points
They did the same with the Rafales thrust, increasing it closer to uninstalled thrust than installed thrust, and magically reducing its drag mild fight, just to get it closer to a Mach 1.4 supercruise ability https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/8Dgnlk2jsPDu
And the most important point, primary sources provide a weight of 9,696 kg
if i recall correctly bad karma made a calculation that ranged from 9500 kg to 96-- something kg, that might just be the higher end estimation of that.
But that’s nowhere close to a primary source
The 9,696kg value that he got was from an old report of mine before I had known about the crash report.
The 9,696kg was a conservative estimate to figure out the Rafale C F3R and F1’s weights from secondary sources in order to report supercruise performance.
It’s just interesting for him to try and undermine an empty weight report that uses primary sources with a report that used secondary sources and also to claim my report was primary.
Leaving aside the report you made, asking the AI or Google with an random weight will always give you a more or less confirmed answer, so it’s not a valid justification.
Honestly for this, it’s already pushed the game engine so far, it had to make an adjustment so it can reach its Supercruise Speed at deck. The problem is only with the disparity. EFT also had a report for its historical Supercruise, and yet Gaijin just denied it straight away. It’s either Rafale shouldn’t had it for sake of equality between Rafale and EFT, or both should have it. The drag in this game already very simplified, like the Rafale itself even before the buff already can go super fast even in full bombs loadout which iirc, the existence of its drop tank itselves already making Rafale can’t go supersonic irl (since the drop tank we had is not meant for supersonic flight but to carry as much as fuel).
