Not like it matters much, because if we exclude the manufacturing countries, Rafale exported more than EF (163 EF - 273 RFL)
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It still matters, there’s a reason like Indonesia can’t buy Su-35 so it can replace its aging Flankers, it’s due to CAATSA intimidating Indonesia if they buy Flankers then expect embargo from the US.
Politics matter so much, Indonesia choosing Rafale was also of Indonesia’s choice to be actual non bloc power like in the old days, so I’d think it’s matter and Rafale export numbers being better than EFT it’s just a bonus for me.
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I mean not that many are interested in the EFT either lol.
What in the cope is this comment? Except for the british Typhoon production line every other has healthy domestic orders for new EFs and with germany finally giving up its export blockade Saudi Arabia and Turkey seem to be done deals as well. Tranche 5 is probably coming in autumn as well. Sure Dassault can go french only but if you believe the confidential status report of the german MOD in may 21 then the “strong French positioning” would lead to “the objective of developing a 6th-generation fighter aircraft being missed,” and the project instead becoming a “Rafale-plus approach financed with German and Spanish budgetary funds.” And most of all France is broke af, theres no way that they can finance a 6th gen program on their own.
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That’s very cool and all, but the opinion of the german MOD on how Dassault handles its business is of little interest to me. If SCAF is indeed dropped, it will in fact delay the production of a 6th gen fighter in France, which will have to rely on Rafale F5 for a little longer.
It is however of my opinion that it is better to rely on yourself, even with tools that may be a bit less effective than having to cope with the german industry who wants to access IP where it shouldn’t.
Can’t work anyway. germans think french steal their money, french think germans steal their IP (basically helping a potential future competitor)
Better part ways, as it’s the case often
Yeah they said that for Rafale too. France is in fact broke, but for entirely different reason i won’t get into. And a fighter program (even 6th gen) isn’t going to change that in any drastic way.
I would also remind you that the EF program more or less cost the same per country than the Rafale program, and considering how the SCAF is currently managed, you can bet it’s going into the same direction.
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You will notice that there were quite the problems irl between France and Turkey, France was never ever selling any aircraft to them and is in an alliance with a country that Turkey keep being aggressive towards it.
That must be why that including the rare operators that bought eurofighter one is in trial against airbus, the others are a group of countries that does not care that much about capabilities but care only about diplomacy with one of them having both rafale and eurofighter and having american jets that fill the same gap as eurofighter too.
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Maybe it should matter more to you. The MOD which finances the program and needs to actually order the plane out of its own budget will for sure be more critical and honest about it than the CEO who only cares about the bottom line of his company.
Yeah man the germans and the spanish should just finance dassault with taxpayer money and not gain anything from it, that sounds fair.
Imagine thinking that a 6th gen program is the same ballpark as a 4th gen (especially when europe skipped 5th gen)
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Going from the principle i want the program to fail, i will reiterate that i don’t really care
Didn’t say it was fair. However if you take Dassault’s shoes for 2 minutes here, you’d have to admit that sacrificing your IP even for some tens of billions is pretty stupid, especially if you sell that IP to your main competitor.
So, if everyone has good reason to not like the project the way it goes, better stop. Who’s wrong and right does not matter (i think both countries have good resons to disagree tbh)
Estimated cost alone of SCAF is currently 80 billions, against Rafale 40 billions in the 1990s (which didn’t increase that much, because of course it doesn’t when you have a competent industry and solid governance)
I’ll let you check by how much the defense Budget of France increased since then and arrive to your own conclusions (i’ll give you a clue : it was 3% of a 3x smaller GDP than today, and is now at 2%, you do the maths)
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In fairness they are currently looking to buy carrier capable jets for their navy, so obviously Eurofighter wouldn’t be a contender for that.
729 Eurofighters have currently been ordered, not 690.
Eurofighter production is currently planned to continue until at least 2035 IIRC.
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If i remember well France was too ““broke”” for Rafale program too and told the major companies participating to put more money in lol.
Rafale f5 is literally develloping 6th gen technology minus engine which safran will work on something similar ~ for India and there are many countries that bought rafale that could be transformed into customers for FCAS too including the neuron drones.
And right now Dassault, Safran got/are on a verge of getting big contracts with India, and thales is doing great anyway so they will most likely have no problems putting more like they did and reusing some of the technologies they are using
Otherwise the 80% that get claimed from time to time is horribly wrong.
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They bought the rafale m, now they are looking to finalize the 110+ rafale contracts that dassault won twice.
Nope, they apparently want to directly skip the MRFA competition to go government to government talks for 60-114 Rafales. They decided that after the unfortunate encounter with the PL15
The carrier Rafales were a 25ish plane deal and afaik it’s already been signed
Agreed
The “generation” thing is a buzzword anyway, you can perfectly develop drone and smart weaponry datalinks and clouds and not have a stealth fighter. So you got 6th gen features on a plane that is 4th. Now what ? Is that 5th gen, still 4.5 ? 5.5 ? It’s starting to sound like a “9-3/4 platform” situation.
Not like Dassault starts from 0 on stealth anyway, Rafale gets some, and Neuron is a state of the art stealth drone
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Its called cooperating, i know its a bit of a foreign concept for Dassault but most of europe does that all the time.
And ill let you check how much the french debt increased in the same time and you give me your conclusions how france will afford a 6th gen program, a new aircraft carrier and new SSBNs without cooperation or cutting other spending.
Im gonna let a frenchman do the rest for me
Léo Péria-Peigné is a defense expert at the Institut Français des Relations Internationales (IFRI) in Paris. His assessment in an interview with loyal:
“Dassault’s reference to the Neuron project – which it led as architect – as a best practice and model for FCAS, I consider inconsistent. Neuron was an experiment, not an industrial project involving the distribution of multi-billion-euro production shares.”
For the defense specialist, the architect model promoted by Dassault does, in principle, make sense.
“However, in that case the architect side – meaning France – would also have to bear the majority of the costs, which is not the case. Therefore Germany and Spain will never agree,” says Péria-Peigné.
“Dassault wants to dominate the core of FCAS, the Next Generation Fighter, where most of the value creation lies. It could also implement this technologically on its own. But France cannot finance such a solo effort. We cannot raise those 80 billion euros or more. Germany, however, is not defenseless. It possesses the technological capability to develop a Next Generation Fighter, albeit with great effort – but with the loosening of its defense spending limits, it has the financial means.”
german article translatet with GPT
Ah fair enough. But still a follow up Rafale order isn’t surprising as operating a mixed fleet of Rafale + something else would vastly complicate pilot training, logistics, etc.
I keep seeing that arguement made, but never with sources. I’m a little sceptical only because comparisons like that are infamously hard to make accurately. There are countless different methods used to calculate total programme cost, and different sources are often less than clear about what method they used.
For example IIRC the programme cost quoted by the UK National Audit Office for Eurofighter includes the development and production of the aircraft along with the cost for all maintenance, spare parts, and upgrades for the entire 40-year service life of the aircraft. If you were to unknowingly compare that to a program cost for Rafale which only counted development and production costs, you would obviously have a very unfair comparison.
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The model for “german cooperation” seems more oriented on buying US or Israeli stuff and integrating them into their own solution, or in other words, getting dependant on countries far away who may or may not have aligned interests with you.
Cooperation can work (See Aster or RJ-10 missiles) but you don’t give all your know-how and data to anyone just because it’s slighlty more effective or slightly cheaper.
It’s in order, but that’s politics, so off topic
That “expert” :
- suggested France to buy K2 MBTs to Korea right after stating that Leclerc MBT architecture was trash, while K2 quite franklly is based on the same layout and architecture, no seriously, you can’t make that one up.
- Stated german ground doctrine was based on faster and lighter vehicles compared to the french one (lmao ?)
He’s basically an expert in expertise and him saying anything is a non-event. At this point any french main on that forum has more expertise than him in pure vehicles specs
He has also never worked in the defense industry, just IFRI. Quite different know-hows and jobs
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That’s a fair point, number can date and can often be mixed up, especially on programs that big.
Still, Rafale did not exactly ruin France in any meaningful way, while it was already considered “impossible” at the time
And Frances model for cooperation is not cooperating and thats somehow better?
Well then its good that in the parts i linked he says nothing about specs but rather about financial capabilites and the fact that Neuron is not the same as FCAS
No, you cooperate with respect of IP, on things that are non vital or on simple things. But yes, if you want a tool (by tool i mean weapon) that you can 100% rest on to align with your interests, you should limit your cooperation to niche cases, and certainly not buy an aircraft dependant on regular updates that you can’t fly if the manufacturer decides against it, while you are sitting in a critical situation (follow my gaze)
These values come from the 2 figures :
- a french senate reported a R&D cost for the rafale of 5.7 billion euros
- that same (French) senate report estimated the equivalent R&D cost of the EFT to be 21.6 billion euros.
Developed by 3 countries would give 7.2 billion euros, so more expensive per country than the rafale.
Some caviats to note :
- the report is solely French, values for the EFT are probably only estimates
- the report only mentions R&D cost, it does not count the cost of airframes, logistics…
Edit : link to the report : L'industrie de défense dans la perspective du Livre blanc - Sénat
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