Dassault Rafale - Variants, Characteristics, Armament and Performance

Even being honest, the Mirage 2000-5F is still competitive in the top tier, in simulation it is still one of the most fun planes to play (in my opinion).

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Mostly the range I’m thinking of, but unlike the IRCCM of the Magic 2 back in the days, there is no way to tell wether it’s being intentionally kept as is for balance reasons or if it’s a technical issue.
Bis repetita for the R-77, and with a similar situation where fixing both the missile and the plane that carries it would have made it good enough to not push out the Su-30 so early.

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Totally agree, a well-modeled Mica and Magic 2 would have made it an aircraft completely fit for the current top tier (even if some wouldn’t agree).

For the Mica, I must admit that it’s currently quite problematic. During my last simulation with the plane, the missile started to vibrate and make circles (like an SRAAM would on the Harrier Gr1 at low speed) while aiming at a target 10km in front of me. As a result, I overtook the missile after 5 seconds because it no longer had any energy.

tiny-violin-frame

Though the argument could be made, they are already in game, they are just left underperforming so singificantly that they arent really competitive at the moment.

I would consider the EFT with ECRS Mk1 to be its proper counterpart with EFT ECRS Mk2 using GaN technology being comparable moreso to Rafale F4.2 which got its radar and jamming systems upgraded with GaN and is due to come to service later this year.

Spoiler

GaN

and I’d consider CAPTOR-M good enough to at least keep the Typhoon in the fight against a Rafale, if it were modeled. I dont even think CAPTOR-E is needed for the Typhoon to be competitive in a BVR fight against a Rafale. Then there is always CEASER if absolutely desperate.

But to keep it on the Rafale. Its pretty clear the Rafale has gotten multiple buffs it did not strictly speaking need, at least not yet and it got a number of buffs that have been denied for other aircraft in the past.

Even little things, like the recent buffs to the Gate width IR missiles or the improved seeker for the MICA created unnecessary Assymetry. having all ARH missiles with the same seeker created some form of balance, now the MICA, which was already a potent and dangerous missile before, is now an incredible threat.

The Captor-M should at the very least be functional. As of right now it is one of if not the best radar in-game in terms of radar range and should in theory be the best radar in-game if RBE2 remains “unmodeled” in most aspects but it is not currently so it is screwed in that regards.

Many of the Rafale’s buffs were a side-effect of buffs that the Russians really needed and that the French happened to have. ESA technology for example, with the Russians needing a better radar translated to a buffed RBE2. The gate-width missiles needing a buff for the Russians/Chinese translated to the French benefitting as well with the Magic 2 having similar mechanisms. France does benefit from having technologies/mechanisms that are found on both the western countries and eastern countries as of right now. For instance a buff to seeker shut-off mechanism or even implementation of flare rate bias (found on AIM-9M) would also benefit the Magic 2 once it gets those since those are what it uses as well.

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Perhaps, I still think the MICA EM buffs though were unncessary, at least without also adding unique seeker performance to everyone else. I do wonder by how much other ARH are underperforming but information hasnt been found to buff them up.

For magic 2 the one that benefits the most of this buff is mirage 4000, otherwise for rafale it’s totally situationnal and i don’t see the point anyway, it’s better to go for full mica loadout.

As far as i get this did not change much for people that tested it.

Having the best range in the game doesn’t really mean anything when it can’t maintain a tracks properly at any range.

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Given Aim-9M for example still doesnt even gets its IRL lock ranges where Seeker Shutoff would be most useful, its just a tad annoying that R-73 and Magic II got a buff,

I have found that MICA are notably hard to defeat than they were before, though I am also defending with BOL (which is horrifically nerfed at the moment) so that doesnt help eitehr

I’m pretty sure BOL on eurofighter are modeled as normal flares and not small calibre flares

I think they weren’t but do now say “BOL” in the Tooltip, so im not so sure, and they feel the same as they do in other BOL carriers when defending against an ARH/SARH threat, so Im reasonably confident they are these days

I don’t wish to go off topic, but for now given they still do not seem to want to fully buff the radar for various reasons including information, limitations etc. I think for now CAESAR fixed array might be a good option, given it was tested like Rafale’s MICA’s, HMD etc and really it doesn’t giga buff the plane but just brings the radar up to scratch with a few other nations.

Then again, we don’t have loads of info on CAESAR with which to model it.

Apologies for going off topic here but I mentioned it when we first had the radar issues, and its seemingly only being continuously vindicated as a good option.

Spoiler

CAESAR - Radartutorial

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this is the rafale thread.

In my defence, I didn’t bring it up and prominent members here also entertained the discussion, but I agree, if its going to be discussed further, it needs to move thread.

and we were discussing the state of the Rafale and its current state/performance vs other top tier aircraft and whether some of the buffs it has received were necessary, such as the MICA EM buff.

That cannot be done without mentioning other nations, especially the Rafales direct equal, who is suffering quite a bit at the moment with a number of strange decisions gaijin has made regarding its radar.

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so when I do it, thread gets nuked, but youre ok.

yeah whatever.

Stock rafale is not fun at all.

Had a better experience in the stock Su-33 against 14.0 than stock Rafale.