Yeah I think the sentiment was, France doesn’t need a dedicated SEAD aircraft, not that it doesn’t need SEAD. The US needs Growler to cover several aircrafts at a time while the Rafale each can take care of themselves if that makes sense.
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I think you misunderstand the conversation around the rafale and SEAD. France does not use SEAD specific planes, just like most nations in the world, because it’s not cost effective. When you have only around 360 combat planes (air and naval forces combined), and who knows how many can actually fly (while other are in maintenance, upgrade work…), you can’t spare airframes to do just SEAD, Air superiority…
The Rafale tries to do the second best option : do about everything, and do it good. Best ? Certainly not. As seen previously, dedicated American EW planes are much more powerful because they have to protect EW deficient jets. But the rafale just has to take care of itself, so that’s not a big downside to not have that capability. Is it the most manoeuvrable ? No, but it can defend itself against most jets. Does it have the most powerful radar (AESA included) ? No, again. And the list goes on.
However, a very large effort was made in integrating and fusing a large array of systems, so that, even if they are not the best individually (and sometimes might be the best), they create an overall system that is about as good as other dedicated systems used by other countries.
So, thanks to the fusion between RWR, OSF and weapon systems, the rafale is able to geolocate an enemy radar emission and destroy it with minimal effort with non SEAD specific weaponry about just as good as dedicated SEAD aircrafts for exemple (see for exemple red flag exercise where the Rafale was apparently able to perform SEAD specific missions just as well as the F16CJ, which is apprarently a SEAD specific aircraft) :
So no, it’s not “You don’t need SEAD aircraft”, it’s “You don’t need SEAD specific aircraft”, and I don’t think it’s that silly if you are not the US or China, and actually have a limited amont of ressources
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The Rafale due to not being Stealth in the conventional way or 5th gen needs to really rely on its ECM suite. The dedicated SEAD aircraft is very much a thing of the past. The sensor fusion the Rafale, Typhoon and F-35 have demonstrated means you can undertake the task with a singular airframe type.
Best way to kill a long range SAM like an S-400 is to use a long range missile like a SCALP/LRASM/TAURUS
Only really US that has dedicated ECM Airframes and Germany. The rest integrate these capabilities into the aircraft.
no aircraft would be able to do such a thing tbh, even stealth ones (assuming the defenders place their radars wisely)
ground based radars used for detection are usually low frequency, far more capable at detecting stealth jets.
While they probably can’t give a solid track at longer ranges, that would already be enough to send in a patrol and cause issues
First impressions on the Rafale cockpit in sim (for me who doesnt use the in-game radar/RWR overlays unless strictly necessary due to a major bug or the likes);
The Rafale cockpit feels like a downgrade to the M2K5F’s.
First off, Rafales radar MFD is a mixed bag for me. Having the working radar profile is wonderful, and really does a great job at illustrating just how massive the vertical search zone for the RBE2-AA is. The PPI display on the other hand, I’m on the fence about. I can work with it, but it really compresses close targets, and I just generally prefer B-scopes for radar. the PPI indicator is great on an RWR display like on the EFT, as it allows you to point your radar in azimuth towards a threat, but B-scope is just more comfortable for actual acquisition imo. Having other colors than just green is great though, and helps a lot with covering for the general cockpit layout issue.
RWR display doesn’t really need any detailing, nothing of real note there imo. Inferior to the EFT’s DASS display, but marginally superior to most other RWR’s displays in-game.
HUD seems rather similar to the M2K’s. has most of the same stuff in most of the same spots, they moved a few things around and added a couple things. Biggest upgrade imo is the fact it displays your selected weapon but there’s 2 problems with it:
- Doesn’t display the remaining number of selected weapon
- Is not visible without zooming in due to the pilots head position (works fine in VR, but that’s because you can dictate your pilots default head position, as well as where your head is at anytime in VR)
There is also the fact the Rafale HUD has done away with the digital clock from the M2K’s HUD. Extremely disappointed in this, the clock was great to have.
Biggest issues I have with the cockpit though;
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2 of 3 MFD’s are placed very far away from the pilot. This is much more obvious in VR where you have depth perception, but setting aside how jarring it is to look at, it means you have to choose between either your radar or RWR as your “visible/detailed” MFD. Personally, I find the RWR has to be set as the middle MFD simply due to the fact that if its not, you just cant properly see the actual RWR contact info while flying the plane in a heads up fashion, which is not conducive to evading missiles. This is somewhat mitigated by the radar display having colours, as you can at a glance tell what’s hostile and what isn’t (or at least I think so, I haven’t gotten to test the Rafale with friendlies around yet) even when the radar display is set to being one of the far ones, but its still tragic to have to put aside the nicest display the Rafale has simply due to need of functionality.
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The canopy bow feels horrendously thick. Its not actually that thick at all, but its also quite far forward, limiting forward visibility and making it feel intrusive/thick.
Overall, not the worst cockpit out there, but unfortunately def not the best one either, pretty disappointed in it atm, but still looking forward to flying the plane. Hopefully the cockpit will grow on me a bit.
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For the position of the MFDs I quite agree with you to say that they are quite barely visible on the sides. However, having had the chance to board a Rafale I can tell you that it is quite similar to what I have seen. The only difference is that IRL, the pilot is closer and higher which gives him a little more visibility towards these screens.
Otherwise for the HUD, many elements are missing at the moment
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I’ve been playing around with manual radar controls right. Does anyone know how I can stop the radar from “sliding” around like this after I stop pressing the button to adjust the axis? Also, does the vertical axis just not do anything? It doesn’t seem to move at all.
Sliding
Turn relative control off on the axes and in your options turn “Constant elevation of Radar antenna” off
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The first part worked, thanks, but I still cant manually adjust the radar elevation.
They are SEAD specific, but are replaced by F-35
Look at China’s J-16D. Dedicated EW jets are still very important
I believe there is a third axis to bind, not just the two cue control ones. Constant elevation option has to be off. I’m not at my PC at the moment so I can’t look.
The Growler still plays a major role as well.
yeah it plays a major role in the american fleet because it’s able to defend itself and others aircraft, most of which are not able to completely protect themselves. The Rafale however is the only (modern) aircraft in the french fleet, so protecting itself is enough. It’s just about choice, americans have a large variety of aircraft so they opted for specialized SEAD while the french have a single airframe so they didn’t need to have a specialized plateform
Sensor fusion could be apocalyptic it’d allow Rafale to make shots on aircrafts that are on it’s tail
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EF guys like…Yo Rafales want to share some of that sensor fusion?..
Cries in CRAPTUR-M
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We will have to see how they implement it.
It could range from being negligible to outright gamechanger.
We’ll see what they do
Although DASS doesn’t care if the M or E are installed, both radars get sensor fusion - it was installed on the T1 block 3. Radar doesn’t really matter. The EW system manages it, taking in all sensors and compiling them.
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They do but we have a barely functioning Radar and DASS.
It would be a massive boot to the baws if Gaijin increase Rafales sensor fusion while leaving the Typhoon in it’s current state.