While the Growler is said to be more powerful, it did lack AESA jammers for a long time. The Rafale makes up for the lack of power through AESA jammers which provides directional beams to jam specific radars and missiles. This capability was not there for the Growler until just this past December with the NGJ pods implying that Growlers without NGJ pods lack specific capabilities.
not only its not that silly, it’s very practical because dedicated sead aircrafts are not always available, so it’s strategically a very powerful advantage
What’s so good about the all-Rafale strategy of France is as long as they have a fighter, they can have an interceptor, an air superiority fighter, a reconnaissance aircraft, a sead aircraft, a bomber/attacker, a nuclear deterrent, a small tanker, etc etc
They just need to have the needed weaponry available, which is easier to have than a whole aircraft
Because while it is very capable it cannot hide. You could not fly a Rafale to Moscow and ignore all the Russian Radar and SAMs. No EW suite has that power
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
