And also is the only rafale to operate the Exocet
I mean, there is no reason we can’t have exocet on other rafales variants no ? It’s just that marine nationale needs it since they operate in a maritime environment. So we would most likely end up with all the rafale able to use it as those would be compatible.
Just if gaijin does more specific gamemode with like spawn on carrier a rafale m would make more sense.
Only the Rafale M operates the Exocet in the French Air Force. I don’t know if the other rafales have been qualified to use it.
Also, the Rafale M only has one central hard point, while the other rafales have 2 (but only the main one is used for fuel tank or large weapon)
All Rafale can use AM.39 post F.3.
I hope they do! I want cold war era Naval conflict so badly!
Indian one might get BRAHMOS, Tejas is undergoing configurement
No idea how credible the integration of astra mk1 is but at least seems like that rafale’s fuselage will be built in india with the new contract as lot of articles are mentionning it.
A good amount of things are planned, like SPICE bomb series (I assume mainly 2000), ASRAAM/NGCCM, which is a B6 ASRAAM (just locally made), and as you already said the Astra
Rafale getting ASRAAM before UK would be peak Gaijin ha ha
No need we have our domestic IIR missile why geting ASRAAM. Would be as stupid as UK getting the Indian Rafale while they have the Typhoon which is an equivalent of Rafale. Gaijin said they’d put Indian vehicles to fill gaps there is no gap to fill at top tier. Especially when you know LOAL is bound to come to the game(Which will benefit the Brimstones)one day since they promised integration of long range Anti-Air systems which would require for LOAL armament to properly counter these new systems.
Off topic, but the design of the QE doesn’t really allow it to handle aircraft without STOL capabilities with the ski-jump and no catapult. So either you get EF-2000N(aval) that ends up flying off with bugger all fuel and payload, or the RN has to go and build a brand new, way larger carrier to give their Sea Typhoons a place to roost. Easier and cheaper just to run Sea Harriers and then F-35B.
QE class was built with the idea to add catapults, it just was not done for economical reasons. They wanted to build cheap, and ended up buying expensive and foreign tech
The Navalised Typhoon was considered before the carrier design was concepted
The plan was EMALS as they had experience of having to sacrifice fuel and payload with the ski jump system.
Harriers could barely take off in hotter climates.
I have a question regarding the Thales Scorpion. Is the one used in the Rafale still a monacal
HMD or is it projected onto the visor?
Monocal
interesting
Scorpion afaik is only monocular for all platforms that use it. I don’t see why they would have changed it for a full projection HMD just for Rafale.
i assumed as much, was just curious :)
This is slightly off topic so I’ve foldered it and if we wish to discuss further we can bring it to an appropriate thread.
@BeautifulTai_wan @vizender
Spoiler
The QE class design due to the amount of indecision by the UK MoD was redesigned 3 times to arrive at the final configuration, this configuration is based on the 2nd revision which allowed for UK-US co-developed EMALS Cats and Traps. The point being that configuration 3 (current one) can be remade into configuration 2 if the need arises.
More likely imo that the UK simply uses larger aircraft or different aircraft with an F-35C purchase. Navalised Typhoon is an option. The QE class is an 80,000 tonne class design, ships of that size operated F-14’s in US service so larger jets like KF-21 EX could be a possibility if the UK really did not want F-35 given SK is also reportedly interested in licensing the UK’s QE carrier design. However for better or for worse (I would argue it’s a mix of the two) the UK is tied in with F-35 and won’t move away from it though switching to C’s and A’s could be a thing (ideally just C’s).
This is half true/misses out a big portion of the situation; the UK could afford EMALS, the carriers have a relatively low unit price. The issue was A. EMALS was unproven and the UK did not have pre-existing steam catapult carriers to rely upon in case EMALS didn’t work and B. the F-35B’s V/STOL capabilities offered a capability the UK was very familiar with and had patented, and given Rolls-Royce’s partnership with the B variant specifically it was to help them out. C. Thirdly, as the programme did not use the F136 engine to replace F135 for which RR was a primary designer, this also helped them out.
F-35B is comparably priced to the Rafale or Eurofighter for the UK when you consider economic partnerships and their regains and also the Rafale’s not subsidies but the heavy economic involvement of the French banks in the Rafale’s pricing. Secondly, I object to foreign, its more of a joint project given BAE has an estimated 35% stake. It just sucks that the US has as of recent become a horrendous partner to work with.
Would give France a decent IR missile though 😜