@Mulatu_Astatke Correction, from what ARES gathered up the first post New IRST been introduced with F4.1
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I believe F3R and/or pre production F4 (from F3 airframe) did equip them, since the deliveries started in 2019 and more than 100 have already been delivered to the French air forces.
F4 isn’t anywhere near those numbers.
As much as I respect Ares’s work and most of its informations that are completely correct, I would still take informations on first introduction dates with a grain of salts. I am not going to go back to the 8 MICA debacle, but just as in game, between test beds, pre-production, things being added and removed for technical and economical reasons, real life Rafales are as much of a Frankenstein plane as what we have in war thunder.
Well, there is a BIG difference anyway between the Rafale and the Eurofighter that is for sure, eurofighter should more be classified as a 4.25 plane (like some other planes too that are doing worse than it) or something than 4.5:
In 4v4, Rafale won against typhoon in downgraded doing scores from 4 to 0 and from 3 to 1 (Even as a french speaker it’s not full clear what it meant but with the use the expression “mettre des tôles” it sounds like fight was still not fair at all for the eurofighter with how rafale won this hard. And i’m not sure for the translation i tried to make it short)
Link to a book that someone translated about the same exercises if i remember correctly, you can choose to not trust what this guy wrote, i don’t have the book after all. :
Spoiler
the full transcript of the translated(it’s big) :
Spoiler
The Rafale makes the buzz.
Concurrently, the Rafale shown one’s claws. At the end of the last autumn was held on the Al-Dhafra air base, the annual edition of ATLC (Advanced Tactical Leadership Course). Organized since 2000 by the UAE Air Warfare Center, ATLC aims to help air forces pilots of the Arabian Peninsula to improve their tactics and techniques by confronting them to the pilots of major Western air forces. For this particular case, the Rafale from the Air Force take the opportunity to confront their main competitors on the international scene. Especially since , in parallel , stood the Dubai airshow, which could be used as a sounding board for results obtained during the exercise.
The AdA has shipped on site for five weeks, from November 8 year December 12, not less than 6 Rafale and 3 Mirage 2000-5E. A detachment served by only 125 people and which required only 60 tons of material. The availability rate of the Rafale, which have accumulated 220 flight-hours in 148 missions, while shotting down - virtually meant - not less than 61 hostile fighters, was 97% for the entire period. And no missions has been canceled . According to Lt. Colonel Fabrice Grandclaudon, squadron leader of the EC 1/7 in Saint-Dizier and commander of the detachment," the weapon system Rafale, taking its place in COMAO (raids) of thirty different combat aircrafts, made at the ATLC the demonstration of his extraordinary flexibility. And to cite the case of this mission on November 29 during which a Rafale pilot, has launched, in barely 66 seconds, 3 Mica on 3 enemy planes (two virtually destroyed) and six AASM bombs on as many targets, some 48 km far . All destroyed!
Versatility is not an empty word.
Better yet, december 7, a pair of Rafale which protected a SAR combat device shot down 10 incoming hostile fighters while dropping six AASM on 6 different land targets forty km far , everything without leaving their CAP racetrack.In addition, the Rafale OSF allowed the positive identification of hostile fighters forty kilometers far. And, December 6, a MICA has been assigned its target - indeed virtually destroyed - only with the SPECTRA system. SPECTRA which was also capable, twice, to detect and classify - and to propose flight path changes to the pilot to avoid detection-specific envelope - some air defense systems (SA-6) that even the American F-16 CJ specialized in the SEAD mission (suppression of air defense opponents), yet also in flight, were not able to collect… Certainly, the F-16 CJ in question had not been equipped during the flights with their common SEAD equipment, namely the HTS pod (HARM Targeting System), while their threats library had not been refreshed to integrate some of the air defense radars in the area. SEAD was not their daily mission. But it was not either the case for the Rafale. And yet, the Spectra, with no other equipment than those onboard daily, has done better than the F-16 CJ which, however, are specialized in the SEAD mission. That’s the difference between multirole who need to return to land on its base to switch from one type to another mission and versatility that allows flight operations at the same time in different roles. It also demonstrates, incidentally, the ability of the AdA to quickly take advantage of “hostile” ground-radar records tunes operated the day before and to integrate them into the rafale SPECTRA library. This allowed the Rafale to classify them without any difficulty. In short, the performance was moderately appreciated by our American allies! Especially since the six F-22 Raptor deployed there by the 27th FW Langley FS/1st proved incapable of giving the beating promised to the Rafale. Of the six dofights - gun limited - which pitted the two types of aircraft in the Emirians skies in late 2009, only two saw the virtual destruction of a Rafale. Other meetings were concluded without a winner. A “performance” for the Rafale against the most modern [and most expensive] fighter in the world, presented as particularly agile thanks to its steering nozzles and moreover stealthy. Because the Rafale was, according to the lieutenant-colonel Grandclaudon, "a serious challenger in matter of maneuverability " And the french pilot to regret that his USAF colleagues had not allowed the simulated employment of MICA missiles during these confrontations.
The Typhoon were inferiors.
Concurrently, November 16, the Rafale gave, according to the french pilot, a memorable beating to the RAF Typhoon - the most recent version - which were also deployed in the UAE for the ATLC. To put it bluntly, Lieutenant-Colonel Grandclaudon said the two air battles - battles with IR-guided missile and cannon - which opposed Rafale and Typhoon gave a score of 7 wins for the first and 0 for the second, the only Rafale considered as having been destroyed flew below the allowed flight floor ! Obviously this statement has immediately raised an outcry among British pilots, relayed by the media and the Anglo-Saxon specialized blogosphere, including claims that the Typhoon did not fly as such during the fighting, but simulated “red” attackers, MiG-29 and Su-27 in that case. So, the 1/7 Provence squadron leader made a point to recall that 2 of his Rafale were also"red chest" (MiG-29 index “Charlie”) when they shot down 4 “blue” Typhoon - flying as Typhoon - while being reduced to use virtual russians AA-10C missiles to be guided by the Rafale until the impact on their target, which forbade to shoot multiple targets at once . For Fabrice Grandclaudon, the limitations of the “red” plastron role don’t prevent a weapons system to show its real capabilities, because the pilots are taking advantage of the real human-machine interfaces and sensors on board, one of the Rafale has benefited from a refresh of its tactical situation by his teammate via Link-16. In other words, even if some of them simluated Su-27, the British pilots virtually shoot down were using the sensors and the avionics of their Typhoon and not those of a Su-27! And the french pilot to recognize, with great sportsmanship, that the Typhoon pilots who had been opposed to the Rafale the week preceding the ATLC were young and relatively inexperienced, as the French already benefits from lessons learned from 3 operational detachments in Afghanistan (one year of presence in all) and 4 of its pilots had participated in Red Flag 2008.
Some advantages that make the difference.
However, he heavily emphasized the performance of the french system in the field of arms data fusion, from his point of view the main reason of the superiority obtained. Instead of each sensor to display its studs (aircraft detected) on a specific screen, forcing the Typhoon pilot to operate an intellectual gymnastics , annoying in combat stress, to check if the plot of its corresponding screen of electronic warfare was or was not the one visible on the radar screen or IRST, the Rafale’s systems present to the pilot a single plot on a screen, the system automatically compares the plots provided by the various sensors on board and decides if it is or not the same plane. The french pilots have also appreciated the agility of the antenna of the electronic RBE2 radar - The Typhoon has for now only a mechanical antenna - allowing to refresh the situation in the whole volume monitored. But they insist, for close combat, on the perfect controllability of their Rafale, thanks to the excellence of FBW, to the extreme limits of the flight envelope… To point the nose toward the target and to design it to the weapons system in the absence of a viewfinder-HMD while operating at very low speed. What are not necessarily capable of the main opponents of the Rafale …
Well obviously, one should not rejoice in excess. The extremely positive results of these meetings have been obtained in special circumstances. The pilots had been set specific roles by the commander of the COMAO device and were therefore not free to exploit in depth all the potentials of their weapons system. The results have been different perhaps in other circumstances (nevertheless, some time ago, another meeting between Typhoon and Rafale, in Corsica, was also turned into “massacre” at the expense of the first 8 losses to 0 ). But, simply put, the EC 1 / 7 pilots are particularly satisfied with their stay in UAE. Their demonstration has , aptly, made a strong buzz [noise] among the aviators of the region and troubled the Anglo-Saxons until now convinced of the utter superiority of their planes. A disturbance also compounded by the loss - virtual of course - of an F-22 gun shot by an UAE Mirage 2000-9 flown, this time, by a French experimented pilot. Really, when everything goes wrong … P
In short 7-0 for the Rafale and doing great in Sead against F16CJ (?) and some time ago in Corsica it was 8-0 against the typhoon.
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From what I have gathered, the F16CJ is a SEAD focused variant of the F16C. During SEAS exercices, the rafale apparently did better than the F16CJ, although I have no further informations on the what and how
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It wasn’t…
(Yes, early F.3 didn’t had them for budget reasons, but thats not a dummy from start to just recently)
Honestly y’all crying over whether Rafale or the EFT is better, my response is simple
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Is that the Phantom skin?
No, Frisian Flag 2008 exercise ;)
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From what I’ve heard the IR channel got removed in the F.3 standard because it really didn’t work very well, and so was deemed not worth keeping. The fact that Eurofighter pilots seem to very much like PIRATE, would suggest it didn’t have the same issues as the OSF IR channel, and isn’t as obsolete as you like to make out.
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And can we please not start the whole X is better than Y debate that just wont lead to anything but another 1000 posts of unnecessary discussion and probably some insults again ?
The new IRST can be clearly seen on F.4; it has a clean glass (no tint) and wider FoV technically. The very same IRST can be seen on Indian Rafale, one of the features that makes clear its not a standard F.3R.
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I do think that EF-2000 took longer than expected to incorporate an AESA radar, while its counterparts have done that sooner, but other than that it is still one of the top fighter platforms currently in service.
Both Eurofighter and Rafale have their advantages and disadvantages.
Comparing the radars, current RBE2-AA looks considerably worse than current Captor E. But I expect this will swing back to Rafales favor with F5
Please stay on topic.
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Back to Rafale anyway. METEOR MLU
Personally, some day gajin might add Rafale B F4 (F4.1) for france tech tree
But french Rafale F3-R old IRST ? 🤔
Honestly i’d rather have only C variants of Rafale but if B variants are labelled attackers then why not.
I kinda want them to strap an Aster-30 under a Rafale wing, just to see the speed it can reach when fired high and fast
For science purposes only of course
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@MightyBaozi Could you please comment on this ‘forum moderation’? Because it has become ridiculous. Here I was having a perfectly valid conversation about how different spectral bands perform in various atmospheric conditions (with supporting evidence, mind you), and it has now been removed. In what way did the last two posts not fit forum guidelines?
Well, start off by messaging them in DM not by continuing potentially off topic behavior