1st situation: similar performance but with the Rafale coming slightly ahead on KD simply because the meta is furballs and the MICA is goated in furballs. Essentially Eurofighter BVR king, Rafale furball king.
2nd situation: Eurofighter gets ahead. Better BVR performance thanks to C5s and then equally capable in furballs, because of missiles with HOBS capability
Not particularly, the best. Due to lacking their Bespoke A2A missile fit, and instead are stuck with Sidewinder / AMRAAM, in place of the proper ASRAAM / IRIS-T & Meteor. And so would struggle against the MICA since the AIM-9 / AIM-120 are pretty well the yardstick that other missiles compare very favorably against.
So in effect it’s gong to be at very least better than the corresponding Teen series airframes performance wise and the difference in Radar Specs are likely to be academic due to sub-par & curated stores options.
Rafale will still be better, because missiles are harder to notch and Rafale has better high altitude high speed manouverability.
you will not be able to use full horizontal radar coverage because of bad Amraams.
In the first case: I’d still say that the Rafale will be superior, simply because having HOBS missiles is such a massive advantage to have over 9Ms and AMRAAMs in WT.
For the second: I’d say they’re equals, with the EF having the slight edge of being able to carry more and more varied missiles. MICAs will still have their advantages (namely range and Time to target (over IRIS-T)), plus the Rafale will still have more HOBS missiles available than the EF
Rafale still Better, but Is at least considerably reduced
Depends how they model IR seeker for new missiles
ASRAAM AIM-9X would have more gimbal then MICA IR
But MICA has more range than both of those
The only thing to have more range than MICA IR would be the R27ET, which could be really good with the improved seeker
Rafales still winning 9/10 fights. The MICA and FM advantage the Rafale enjoy are much too large to be made up for by just having a good radar. Radar has much less of an impact in RB where most players play anyways. In sim though, the ECRS coupled with the EFT’s HMD should/will give it a massive situational awareness advantage over all aircrafts.
Even then though, the MICA+FM advantage of the Rafale remains hard to ignore, as the EFT knowing where the Rafale is effectively at all times wont change the fact that there is functionnaly no engagement short of a close range tail on engagement where it holds the advantage. The RBE2-AA + RWR + TDL HMD the Rafale also gets also functionally neutralize the EFT’s situational awareness advantage, as to gain that situational awareness, the radar must be on, and the Rafales RBE2-AA has fantastic vertical coverage, so its unlikely the fight wont begin neutral anyways.
Tougher question. I’m not actually sure how that’d go tbh.
In a game where both sides have HOBS options, and assuming them to be very resistant to flares, I think it more or less comes down to who enters the NEZ of the opposing missile first, but I’m not sure who would have the NEZ advantage between the brits and the french, I know for a fact it wont be Germany or Italy though, which kinda makes them DOA relative to the Rafale and British Typhoon, and as such should sit 1 BR step lower (example, Rafale and TeaFT to 15.7/16.0, suckerPhoons at 15.3/15.7)
ASRAAM would have the HOBS advantage (60 vs 90 deg) assuming LOBL only, but this would further degrade its NEZ, on the other hand, Rafale has the better energy conservation above M1.0 at relevant combat altitudes (5000/10000m) which I think are important to note due to my theory that NEZ will be everything in these fights, and both aircrafts have sufficiently good sensors to prevent getting belly stabbed reliably. 5000m because its around as high as you can go without risking the cons iirc, 10000m because its about as high most players go in-game cuz the maps are too small.
Theres also the whole missile load X-factor:
Along with the question of how reliable will IR missiles be at missile interceptions, seeing as munition interception in GFRB for the IRIS-T seems to be up to the radar offering IOG until impact, and rarely actually the IRIS-T seeker doing its job. If the IR missiles can be relied on to intercept incoming missiles, the EFT would have the edge purely on having the superior missile load imo.
The kind of funny part to me though is that its basically what the gameplay of ARH BVR combat should be if it was modelled properly, and once again, the community and gaijin are squandering the opportunity for “gradual” progression towards the next type of missiles and are just planning to hail marry it I guess.
If we’re talking equal pilot skill, then I think it evens the fight in a lot of areas but doesn’t address the complete lack of HOBS capability, so you’d still be at a disadvantage in those engagements. The biggest improvement in performance will likely come from the reduced workload for less experienced players when handling the radar.
A key factor, and arguably one of the most important, is pilot workload. The Typhoon’s workload is mixed, with both good and bad aspects. In terms of sensor fusion, it’s excellent. The MAW/RWR/LWR combination reduces workload for threat management and limits the need for visual identification of incoming missiles. For example, during a terminal approach, missiles tracked by the MAW allow you to correct your notch with high precision as a last-ditch defence.
Where the workload becomes high is in radar operation, and since that directly affects weapons employment, it has a much greater impact on pilot performance. The Typhoon’s toolkit is currently geared toward BVR engagements, ease of notching aside. Using it effectively requires mastering TWS at range. If a player feels they can’t manage that reliably, they’ll tend to move toward closer engagements by default, and that’s where the Rafale with MICA gains an advantage. Under 19 km, radar performance between them is irrelevant since STT should be the standard mode, and CAPTOR-M handles STT with no issues.
In simulator battles, the new radar combined with the Striker HMD provides unparalleled situational awareness. While other systems are close in capability and the Rafale’s HMD is far from weak, the Striker still stands above the rest. There’s no real contest in that regard.
I’m not entirely sure how the IIR meta will unfold once it finally arrives (Gaijin please), but I can see several possibilities depending on how Gaijin decides to implement IIR.
If they opt for more realistic IIR mechanics, then countermeasure count and effectiveness will become significantly more important. MAW/RWR sensor fusion would also become a major advantage in this environment. Missiles will be faster, approach from unexpected angles, and likely be more persistent. Referring back to pilot workload, you can see how just a few meta changes could dramatically alter what the average pilot needs to manage.
If they implement robust IIR mechanics and also fix BOL, then the Typhoon will be in a very strong position.
Real question is how would gaijin implement ECRS? There’s no mechanics for a swashplate to my knowledge and i’m about half certain the current code would have a stroke trying to comprehend a gimballed AESA
Different scan patterns can have different scan speeds in game already, so you have one scan speed for areas that are only ES, and a different speed for Mech+ES sized volumes.
so +/-60° or less area is full speed ES, great than +/-60° you have a slower speed.
just moving the scan zone, and slower scan speed while using very wide mode.
What is ecrs
Abriviation for:
Eurpoean Common Radar System
It is the aesa radar for the EF
Is it worth creating a bug report for spice 250 for eurofighter, or is this a suggestion? Would be nice to have
Oh ok
Currently the only gimaled esa in the game doesn’t have any scans bigger than its electronic scans zone, kinda doubt we’re gonna get scan zones that are bigger than what the electronic portion of the scan can see on all gimbaled esa planes.
(Btw how would it keep track of say something at + 100 degrees and then swivel back to something at say -100 degrees, wouldn’t it be too slow?)
Honestly, if the introduce proper IIR seekers, fixed BOL would likely be the only potential method of non-kinetic missile defeat, since afaik its the only spatially distributed flare out there, and from the papers I’ve read, point flares (even spectral ones) are functionally useless vs IIR.
This leads to an interesting conundrum:
Do they fix BOL to allow players a potential method of IIR defeat that isnt purealy kinematic? If so, will they unrealistically buff jets that dont use it by providing them with spatially distributed flares they dont appear to have irl?