Comments by "LRRPFco52" (@LRRPFco52) on "Grid 88"
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@Jojooooooo The early production, non-deployable, fault-prone, pre-Block 3F F-35As are far more capable than the Rafale F4 or any Rafale serial upgrade will ever be. None of those are in operational squadrons and never will be, as they are only located at USAF weapons test, Flight Test Center, and fighter conversion training squadrons to teach new pilots how to fly the F-35 and manage its systems before they go to an operational unit.
There literally isn’t any aspect of the Rafale that is better, and from what I’ve seen of the Rafale, it’s the most capable of all the European 4.5 Gen Multirole Fighters.
We can look at first-look, first-shoot, AESA, integrated RF antennae suite, IR sensors, EW, human interface, Helmet-cueing, and weapons envelopes, which are the deciding factors in A2A. Every single one of those categories is dominated by the F-35, even when you put Meteor on the Rafale and an older AIM-120C5 on the F-35.
Then we can look at A2G/A2S. Rafale again is the most capable 4.5 Gen Swingrole fighter in this area because only the UK has really pushed the Typhoon as a true multirole, and Gripen is far behind them both, while Rafale F3 and F4 have excellent penetration/strike, EW, and anti-ship capabilities none of the others have.
F-35 also out-performs the Rafale in these key strength areas that the Rafale uniquely possesses because it can penetrate much easier, can get closer to threat emitters for EW and network attack them (with an AESA that is twice the size of the RBE2), and has a more powerful central computing brain that is near real-time linked via LPI data link with other JSF and compatible nodes.
On top of that, the F-35 IR sensor suite has 7 high resolution IR sensors in short, medium, and long wave IR spectrum that are not only fused with each other, but with the AESA and around a dozen RF sensors that span the RF spectrum and spherical coverage around the airframe.
Rafale has excellent sensors in these areas compared to other 4.5 Gen fighters with its Spectra integrated defensive EW suite, but it is at least a generation behind the F-35’s EW suite. One key area is that the Spectra’s SIGINT collection capability is a post-flight analysis affair for geo-locating threats that can be targeted later, according to Thales own statements on Spectra.
The F-35’s EW suite is real-time, shared with other F-35s and anyone who has receive capability with the joint services data link compliance (Link-16, etc.).
If a satellite, spy plane, or other F-35 sees signature that is a known IADS platform, for example, then pipes that imagery and geolocation to the F-35 MADL net, an F-35 4-ship flying out of a location hundreds of nautical miles away will get that data and share it with each other, without the pilots having to do anything.
There is a vast threat library constantly updated with threat signature profiles across the spectrum, so that the fused sensor network can scan those geocoordinates and cross-reference the signatures they see with the library, among each other from multiple aspects.
That is a game-changer and makes survivability of IADS platforms a dead-end affair. We know so much about the target areas before even getting within 200km of them, that multiple attack options are opened up, as well as BDA and swing-role.
If air planners dedicated an 8-ship to go conduct a DEAD mission profile, for example, while sending another 4-ship out for Offensive Counter Air, and the lead 4-ship kills all the mobile SAM launchers with ballistic profiled PGMs, the next 4-ship in that 8-ship package can swing-role to go assist with the OCA mission and really overwhelm an already-overwhelmed threat air interceptor force.
2 of those can switch to AEW&C and guide-in 4.5 Gen strikers like F-15E+, F-16C+, Rafales, Typhoons, and task-organize them on-the-fly where they’re needed, whether that be the next SEAD/DEAD mission sets, follow-on precision strike TGTs on the kill list, airfields, POL facilities, ammunition storage bunkers, C4 nodes, ISR platforms, counter-AWACS A2A missions, etc.
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@Jojooooooo I think that many of the European nations who have historically been involved in conflict due to the actions of larger empires, nations, and alliances, have a fundamental sense that something bad is brewing, and are now scrambling to get prepared after decades of neglecting their defense budgets.
5th Gen is a big part of that because the big European nations with aerospace industries, except for UK and Italy, really allowed themselves to fall behind in modern aerospace system development, while the US, UK, and Italy moved aggressively forward with JSF partnership.
Russia lagged behind during the Yeltsin years while the economy was in near free-fall, until the US bailed them out with Nunn-Lugar.
Russia’s aerospace industry was mainly kept afloat by large orders for Su-30MKI and Su-30MKK fighters to India and China during the mid 1990s through 2000s until Putin could come in and get the ship righted.
In order to make it look like they have a competitive design with the US F-22A and JSF series, Russia began work on the PAK-FA, which has not materialized into a true 5th Gen fighter, but does present problems for all the Eurocanards due to significant RCS reduction with the internal weapons bays and selective use of RAM carbon fiber from frontal RCS.
That means that any Rafale, Typhoon, or Gripen will be at a disadvantage in the first-look, first-shoot BVR realm, since the Su-57 has a much larger AESA radar and 2 side-looking AESAs in the nose. The radome-housed AESA has over 1500 TRMs (still smaller than the JSF series APG-81 with at least 1626 TRMs).
Since the Su-57 will cruise faster than any of the Eurocanards, has a large AESA, and smaller RCS, it enjoys kinematic and detection range advantages that no upgrade to 4.5 Gen airframes can overcome.
So now the UK, Sweden, and Italy are trying to generate the funs to develop a 5th Gen fighter with their combined budgets, but since so many parliaments are filled with Soviet-sympathetic democrat socialists and communists, it will be an uphill battle to get the funding.
If they do get sufficient funding to start actual development & testing, you can always count on European Parliaments to later cut the funding mid-program and drive the costs sky-high.
Then the communists/bolsheviks/digital marxists in the propaganda industry will run continuous articles about how terrible the program is, how it costs too much, and should be cut to pay for social welfare for immigrants from Africa and the Middle Easy, while Russia continues to plan its expansion and sacrifices as much of its domestic infrastructure budget for more Su-57s, attack submarines, stealth drones, cruise missiles, etc.
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@MrHistorian123 2x F-22s use passive RF sensors for almost twice the detection range of the APG-77 AESA, with IFDL connectivity and triangulation detection and tracking like an EW bird. F-22s also have IR stealth, so your 4th Gen IRSTs don’t work well against them. Cut your detection ranges by 2/3, and then try to PID, while you’ve been tracked for the past 150-200nm (278-370km). RF and IR VLO Stealth works for A2A, A2G, EW, AEW&C, and ISR. It isn’t limited to A2G. Nobody thinks that.
Also, you can use LPI radar to work around the bandwidth and sensitivity of almost every 4th Gen RWR system in the world, deceive every 4.5 Gen Digital EW Suite out there that makes it worse for them if they do see something in their threat warning system. You get to control far more aspects of the fight, starting from first-look and ending with first and only kills for you, none for the enemy.
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@CaptainDangeax Everyone in the defense aerospace industry recognizes and uses the 4th and 5th Generation terms, including pilots, air planners, and contractors, but you say it’s BS. Your relevant background is what again? The only people I haven’t heard use the term 5th Gen are politicians.
My history revision? I lived through all of this with a front-row seat at the Air Force Flight Test Center at ED AFB, as well as a brief time at the West German Flight Test Center.
The facts are, the F-35 exceeds everything that was expected of it and when it opens up new capabilities, these are listed as deficiencies by the DOT&E.
When you compare the F-35 to the Rafale, it’s better in far more areas than RF stealth.
JSF IR stealth is far superior to the Rafale, but the Rafale has the best IR stealth of all the 4.5 Gen fighters. It’s the only design that has significant IR stealth built onto it, though after the initial Rafale A design. F-35’s IR stealth designs come from the start, after generations of IR stealth research and development in the US on multiple previous programs (F-117A, Tacit Blue, ATF/F-22.....). Anyone who thinks Rafale IR signature is better than JSF is clearly not well-informed about all the JSF IR signature reduction systems. JSF will always have first-look in the IR spectrum against any current and emerging LO and VLO fighter designs.
Sensors: F-35 has far more IR and RF passive sensors. There are 4 IR sensors on the nose alone with the F-35, with 3 more DAS on the fuselage. EOTS + DAS in unparalleled with anything in the 4th Gen airframes, as you need to build an entirely new airframe to accommodate them.
F-35 is superior in speed for the reasons I mentioned. You have to strip a Rafale down to get it to reach Mach 1.8, and that means a non-capable airframe with zero combat stores. Put a normal load on the Rafale and its max V0 decreases significantly. A lot of the Rafale multirole stores configurations are subsonic. Meanwhile, F-35 can carry up to 8 bombs internal and toss them for long range ballistic arc profiles from supersonic speeds at high altitude. None of the 4.5 Gen fighters can do that because they can’t break through Mach with even 6 bombs due to parasitic drag and EFTs. Don’t look at book speeds, look at actual combat-configured speeds and performance that matters.
Maneuverability: Combat-configured, they are very similar but pilots who have flown both the Typhoon and F-35 say the F-35 has comparable or better EM diagram against a configured Typhoon. You can go argue with the few pilots who have flown both, as it’s their words, not mine. Typhoon is more maneuverable and has more excess thrust than the Rafale. F-35A and Rafale C have about the same Thrust-to-weight ratio. F-35 has yaw axis capabilities the Rafale can never have due to delta wing compromise. High yaw rate in a delta wing is bad ju-ju.
Connon efficiency? In over 40 years in the defense aerospace sector, I’ve never heard anyone use that term. Also, in 2021, anyone talking about the gun indicates they haven’t studied the history of air combat in the jet era. The gun was already barely relevant in Vietnam, on its way out. The "Last Gunfighter", the F-8 Crusader, used AIM-9 missiles for at least 15 of its 19 kills in Vietnam, one maneuvering kill where the MiG pilot ejected upon closing with the F-8.
Operating costs: India’s assessment of CTOL Rafale operating costs is projected at $20,000-$25,000 CPFH. Operational USAF F-35A squadrons are seeing $21,000 CPFH.
Reliability: F-35A squadrons have seen 72-92% readiness rates on deployment. Dassault promised India they can help India maintain a 75% readiness rate with the Rafale.
Number of Weapons: Maybe you’re confusing the EFTs for weapons. Rafale is almost always configured with 3 EFTs, which take up weapons stations. It needs EFTs when carrying weapons because of the parasitic drag caused by weapons hanging from pylons. F-35A carries 18,250lbs of internal fuel so it doesn’t need EFTs, and can use ALL of its weapons stations for carrying....weapons. F-35 also never needs to sacrifice weapons stations to carry FLIR pods because it has the EOTS already built into the nose. Rafale has to have FLIR and Recce pods attached to it if it wants those capabilities. They are already built into the F-35 airframe, so if you want to carry 18,000lbs of pure ordnance, you can. Rafale can carry over 20,000lbs of external stores, but most of that is fuel, not weapons.
Range of missiles: F-35 can separate Air-to-Air missiles at superior kinematics and NEZ profiles that the Rafale can’t even enter into. Both can carry long-range stand-off cruise missiles, but F-35 can get far closer to targets than the Rafale.
Combat missions: USMC F-35Bs, USAF F-35As, Israeli Air Force F-35Is, and UK Air Force F-35Bs have been flying combat operations for many years now, over one of the most dangerous IADS networks in the world. Israeli F-35Is have been shot at by Syrian SAMs over 100 times years ago, while destroying Syrian SAM and weapons batteries. This continues to this day. Rafale has never flown over a modern, advanced IADS network with SAMs being launched at them. Libya is a low-capability proxy war zone with some IADS platforms like the Pantsir S1, which is a common target for Turkish and Israeli drone strikes. F-35 sorties in high-threat environments exceeds the entire deployment history of the Rafale currently, not that Rafale is bad. If I was choosing any 4.5 Gen, it would be the Rafale.
The only failure here is your familiarity with any of the subject matter.
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@CaptainDangeax Forget the generation designations and just look at capabilities. Rafale doesn’t have the leaps in capabilities that the F-35 has whether looking at integrated sensors, propulsion, VLO, internal weapons, sensor interleaving with LPI data links, networked EW, a massive AESA with twice the TRM count as the Rafale’s RBE2, a vast network of passive RF sensors embedded in the airframe, prognostic systems diagnosis, and onboard maintenance, etc.
I am aware of the Rafale’s deployments to both OEF and Libya. It is an admirable system, so don’t misunderstand me. I recognize and appreciate the Rafale as being better than other 4.5 Gen systems because Dassault and Thales actually got a lot of systems integration worked into the Rafale C and M. I can make a better argument for the Rafale than any of its fans due to my background.
Royal Netherland Air Force, USMC, and USAF pilots and commanders have already briefly discussed how they use the F-35 to perform offensive electronic warfare in ways that could not be done by the EF-111A and EA-6B or EA-18G. The JSF series has far superior capabilities over the Rafale C and M in this area due to VLO, a massive AESA that is better than the RBE2, more RF sensors embedded throughout the airframe like EW birds have, fused with 7 IR sensors for far more passive detection and cooperative geo-locating.
The Rafale C and M are great because they have the SPECTRA antennae added to the basic Rafale airframe, to include the wingtip ECM/ECCM pylons integrated with missile rails (which SAAB copied for the Gripen E). That’s an old approach to distributing EW sensors and antennae on the airframe-innovative for the last generation, but still out-classed by JSF and ATF antennae architecture. You can’t see where all the JSF antennae are because they are embedded into the LEFs, vertical stabs, wings, fuselage, H-stabs, along with a network of LPI data link portals for line-of-sight transmission with extremely high throughput that included video real-time capability, let alone high-resolution imagery.
It cost the same or more to develop the Rafale, something like $30 billion. That includes the Rafale A, B, C, and M. The RDT&E budget for JSF-A/B/C is about the same, but they got a STOVL model as well. Overall procurement and operations costs are far more for JSF because there will be thousands of them, not a few hundred like Rafale. If you see a source that says the Rafale cost 100 times less than the F-35 to develop, go ahead and erase that media from your feed because they are wildly incorrect.
There are currently 620 JSF variants delivered, vs 250 Rafales. By the end of 2021, there will be over 700 JSF.
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@CaptainDangeax F-35A is +9/-3g aircraft.
F-35A's gun is 25mm rotary barreled/181 rounds with a recycle feature. Nobody cares.
No Rafale will ever fly anywhere close to Mach 1.8 with weapons. Let that number fade away from your references because it isn't real.
JSF was not designed to destroy European aerospace industry because a huge impetus and contribution to JSF comes from the UK.
UK RN and RAF started working quietly with USMC, USAF, McDonald Douglas,, and DARPA on a Supersonic STOVL Fighter in 1983 because they knew they would need a replacement for the Harrier down the road.
USAF knew they would eventually need to replace the F-16, and USN/USMC knew they would need to replace the Hornet.
USAF already had a black program at the time with F-117A, and wanted those VLO technologies integrated into future combat airframes, but with integrated IR, Radar, and RF sensors that the -117 didn't have.
The main driving requirements were Soviet IADS threats, basing and take-off, and F-16/Hornet performance capabilities.
The US has helped the French fighter development programs multiple times, to include examples on the Rafale (engines, AESA TRMs, Link-16 protocol sharing, weapons, etc.).
The French & German parliaments didn't fund Airbus, Dassault, MBDA, Safran, and Thales to work on France's own 5th Gen fighter quick enough because of budget. Now there's an FCAS mock-up made out of wood, but the R&D has barely started. Mock-up looks like a cross between F-22 & F-35. Shocker
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@CaptainDangeax I don’t have difficulties with numbers, especially related to this topic. It’s literally why I learned my advanced math.
Russians fear the F-35 more than any other tactical system, because it has so many strategic consequences. It makes their fighters and IADS nets into nothing but targets, while providing a coalition common networked data interface across nations with implications for widespread theater sensor detection of pretty much anything they do.
There are a dozen plus reasons why they’re trying to copy the F-35 avionics architecture on the Su-57, as well as interoperability between Su-57, Su-35S, Su-30SM2, and Su-27SM3.
F-35s working with Typhoons, Rafales, F-16C+/MLU+s, F-15Es, F/A-18Cs, etc. make all the other aircraft far more lethal and capable than they are alone. This is straight out of the mouths of the pilots flying the other types of fighters.
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@CaptainDangeax F-22As and Luftwaffe Typhoons did BFM in Red Flag Alaska, then Luftwaffe pilots went back to Germany talking trash about Raptor Salad, when they had been dominated by the Raptor.
Guess what? Typhoons from RAF, Luftwaffe, Spanish, and Saudi Arabia have been attending Red Flags almost every year, sometimes twice a year.
You can watch Typhoon HUD vids of them getting a few guns kills against the F-22 in BFM.
These are sidebar BFM exercises, not anywhere near the main focus of Red Flag. Red Flag is about getting multiple units to work together in campaigns against a large Red Air force with ground-based SAMs and threat radar nets, CSAR, maintenance under combat conditions, etc.
There are also similar exercises done in Europe, but without the vast Red Air or ground threat simulators.
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@CaptainDangeax John McStain had more time under a T-10 parachute than behind the stick (common joke in US pilot community). He crashed so many planes well before the Vietnam War, that he should have been removed from flights status multiple times, but his dad was an Admiral, so he got special treatment. His comments and observations on US aerospace defense as a member of the Senate Arms Services committee are some of the stupidest I’ve ever heard from a politician in DC, and he really should have known better.
None of the experienced pilots who have flown both 4th Gen and F-35s agree with anything you’ve claimed. We now have scores of examples of their personal experience, including a lot of foreign pilots from UK, Israel, Norway, Netherlands, Australia, Italy, etc.
You’re still not learning.
F-35A is a 9g airframe. No sure why you keep mentioning 7g. Even when it was 7g, if you had watched the video I linked, you would see that it out-performs the slick MiG-35.
Nobody cares though, because you aren’t ever going to need 9g.
Amateurs look at maximum speed values, because pilots and air planners know that you are never going to go anywhere near those speeds in a combat configuration.
You have been extremely resistant to accepting that fact. Rafale will never go Mach 1.8 with stores. F-15 has never gone anywhere near Mach 2.5. F-16s don’t fly Mach 2, and Hornets don’t fly Mach 1.8.
Is there some particular reason why you don’t understand this? It’s basic aerodynamics of parasitic drag. Fatter, draggier birds with all this equipment hanging off of them can’t reach their maximum speeds.
Even if they could, they will burn so much fuel that an immediate return to base is required. That was true in the 3rd Generation as well (F-4, MiG-23, etc.).
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@mikkihintikka7273 The whole point of ATF and JSF is to create such an unfair advantage, that even new pilots are able to outperform very experienced pilots and IADS crews. Russia has always struggled with taking US and European designs, dumbing them down for the older Russian manufacturing industries, and mass-producing them.
Their engineering community bears the burden of reverse-engineering first, while their own designs are not given funding because they can’t afford the RDT&E budget like the US can, so it’s only affordable for them to copy Western tech that politicians/traitors sell or give them.
Their workers in the manufacturing sector live and work in substandard environments where basic things we take for granted in the West simply don’t exist. Their electronics are scoffed at by the Chinese.
So no matter what they do, they will only be a threat to regional neighbors with much smaller armies if and when there is weakness in the US White House, where Russia has a puppet there (Biden, Clintons, Obama, etc.).
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@ivanlagrossemoule Yes. It gives air planners so many more options.
During Desert Storm, only F-117As could fly into the ADZ/MEZ over Baghdad.
We also had at least 13 different Tacair airframes with their own specific jobs, which made setting up strike packages quite complicated.
F-15Cs for escort/OCA, EF-111As for EW, F-4Gs for SEAD, F-15Es and F-111Fs for strike just to hit 1 TGT area.
F-16s. A-10s, AV-8Bs did most of the strikes into Kuwait since they were shorter distances.
F-35s don't need escort, do their own EW, are better at S/DEAD, can go downtown like an F-117A, service their targets, then pivot to A2A, AEW&C, ISR with their extra station time since they have so much internal fuel.
The USMC and USN JSF-B/C are more capable that Hornets, Shornets, D Cats, and A-6Es.
There isn't another airframe on earth that can do all these things. F-22A is the closest, but doesn't have EOTS/DAS or 2000lb JDAM capability and of course is limited to CTOL, no Naval variants.
You end up accomplishing more targets being serviced in a very compressed window of time, even compared to the breathtaking pace of Desert Storm.
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@jingorooroad2559 Rafales have relatively huge RCS, so they show up at extreme BVR long ranges. They also have omnidirectional data link emissions, which advertises their position to anyone with the ability to sniff and triangulate.
Once you combat-configure a Super Hornet, Rafale, or HAVE GLASS Viper, they have terrible RCS that is easily detected at very long range with modern AESAs.
LPI AESAs don't trigger threat warning either. On top of that, if a flight of JSF are only operating in passive mode, they see contacts already at extreme ranges together without emitting any RF energy from their AESAs.
Part of stealth/VLO includes IR signature reduction. F-35s have substantial efforts towards this aspect of stealth, to the extent that IRST detection ranges are basically cut to 1/3 or less against subsonic F-35s. Effectively, the OSF won't see F-35s until on the edge of visual range, which is about 200nm/370km too late in the BVR timeline from which Rafales are already being tracked.
There isn't anything you can do to make a 4.5 Gen overcome any of this.
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@miketheman4341 I'm talking Army SF when I say SF, not Wikipedia answers for kids who have never served in or with any of these units.
Every guy from Ranger Regiment who goes to SFAS gets selected unless they were injured, which is very few and far between. SFAS is business-as-usual for an E-4 or E-5 from Ranger Regiment, more like a vacation from the training cycle in Battalion.
For JSOC, most guys come from Ranger Regiment, not SF, and it has been that way for generations. A guy from Ranger Regiment has a much higher probability of being successful in Unit Selection because the PT standards are so much higher in Battalion than SF. SF has very low standards, technically big army APFT standards, which are a joke.
Ranger elements deploy alongside the others in certain JSOTFs, you just don't hear about it.
SF is a major let-down if you've ever been embedded with them. Lots of fat guys who are broken, marking time until retirement. They suck at SUTs, whereas Batt Boys are always doing SUTs, live-fires, flat range work, demo, breaching, weapons squad work, mortars, rotary wing cycle, and fixed wing airborne ops.
There aren't places for senior NCOs to park themselves and ride it out in Ranger Regiment. SF has ODAs where half the Team could be doing that. I saw this firsthand. Before we deployed, it was like someone tossed an admin grenade into the Team, and none of our critical 18 series MOS guys could go.
Both 18Ds...non-deployable (medical profile from civilian skydiving injuries and the other's wife was on bed rest/high risk pregnancy)
18Es...non-deployable (SOTIC & Golden Knights try-outs)
An ODA is Non-Mission-Capable with at least 1x 18E and 1x 18D. We had to borrow 1 of each from 143 & 145 (Mountain & SCUBA Teams in the Company).
Then the 18F was off to SCUBA School at Key West without even clearing it with the Team Sergeant. I'd never seen anything like it.
Senior 18B was off to SF ANCOC, hadn't even done time on Team, just skipped past the junior B into senior slot. He was a senior E-6 from 2/75 who made E-7 just prior to going SF.
So we had only a handful of dudes to deploy with from an almost-full 11-man ODA.
Something like that would be unimaginable in Ranger Regiment. That was a specialty ODA as well, the paid Level 1 MFF Team.
So I chuckle when dudes who never even served, never caught a glimpse of the Bn area of any of these units try to pontificate about what they do, who they are, and what the culture is like.
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Read about PLAAF exercises against Royal Thai Air Force, Falcon Strike. A Chinese test pilot said that because of the RTAF Gripen low RCS and longer reach AIM-120, the Su-27SK got killed 44 to 2 in BVR, but was opposite in WVR against the under-powered Gripen, and had the helmet-cued R-73 or Chinese copy of the Python-3.
Then they sent J-10s down to even out the odds, especially the later J-10C with DSI inlet and really low RCS, with much longer range PL-15 BVRAAM. PLAAF also did internal tactical exploitation of all its fighters against each other and even the Su-35S did not fair well against the J-10C. Why? Lower RCS and AESA in J-10C equals first-look. PL-15 equals first-shoot.
F-35 has a lower RCS 3 decimal places lower than J-10C, a bigger, superior AESA, and IR stealth. So no matter the distance, the F-35 is superior to any Flanker variant, and there isn’t anything you can do to change that.
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@divoulos5758 4th Gen fighters have been avoiding going anywhere near the merge for over 20 years now because of real improvements in Radars, data-link networks, and HOBS missiles with improved seekers like Python-4/5, R-73, IRIS-T, and AIM-9X.
Multiple senior Fighter Weapons School instructors have been saying dog-fighting is dead, and has been for a long time. The US/NATO still train for it more than anyone else, with more dissimilar aggressor aircraft to that end, but the primary emphasis is on managing a networked BVR Timeline cooperatively.
5th Gen operates with a different set of rules above that, with unique options for EW, deception, closing into NEZ, and other things that no 4.5 Gen fighter formation have.
Su-35 is way behind the power curve even against US/NATO fighters with AESA and AIM-120C7 or D. Pilots are talking in the open like 1950s-1960s comms in the US, without brevity codes. They're an embarrassment.
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@DeepJazzful My mentioning of the F404 in the first Rafales was in response to people trying to compare the development budget for the Rafale to JSF.
The most expensive system in any fighter is the engine.
If someone can find a reputable, accurate accounting of the Rafale development budget (which the French parliament screwed over by delaying it for so long), that would be one place to start.
Then look at the fact that multiple new technologies were being developed for the JSF series, and that there are 3 airframes with major differences, and the JSF RDT&E budget makes perfect sense.
It would have been far worse to have 3 separate tracks for propulsion, radars, RF antennae suites, cockpits, environmental and electrical systems, flight controls, etc.
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@Prasenjit Bist Rafale per unit cost is high because it has 2 modern, high quality engines, an AESA, composite and alloy airframe, modern sensors, an advanced EW suite, cockpit with multiple displays, and application of radar absorbent materials.
There is a French documentary that mentioned a €120 million price years ago for the latest Rafale, well before the Indian deal. 2 engines plus AESA puts any modern fighter over the $100 million mark, except for the Super Hornet and MiG-35. I have major questions about Russia's capacity to even deliver AESA radars for FMS market since they can't meet the demand for their own Su-57 radars, and their semiconductor company went bankrupt in Dec, 2019.
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@user-jo7dd2jn5s My maternal grandfather and my great uncles fought the Russians when Stalin invaded Finland in 1939, while nobody was on Finland’s side. During the Continuation War, they even saw Russian soldiers with US supplies, which really hurt. “Why is the US supporting Stalin, who invaded us without provocation?”
Then after the War, Finland was ordered to pay war reparations to Russia to the tune of $300 million dollars. At least they still had most of their country, though 400,000 Karelians lost their homeland to the Russians.
My great aunt Irma and one of my great uncles, Lenni, were lost. Irma was actually kidnapped by the Germans and thrown into the sea. Lenni disappeared during the war, was never seen again.
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@yohann8517 2/3 of the Wermacht was dedicated to the Eastern Front in Ukraine and Russia for sure.
Don’t forget about Lend-Lease. Very few Russians are aware of it, but it was substantial in the logistics effort to prop-up the Soviet Union. 30% of all Russia’s fighters and bombers were built in the US and England, and if it hadn’t been for US-built trucks (428,000 of them), Russia’s logistics would have been almost non-existent and vulnerable to what limited transportation it had after German attacks on key hubs and rails.
The US supplied 9,456 fighters like the Bell P-39 and Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, hundreds of thousands of tons of aluminum and copper, aviation fuel, 14,793,000 pairs of boots, 35 000 radio stations, 380,000 field telephones, and 956,000 miles of telephone cable. Food, medical supplies, uniforms, ammunition, explosives, trains, etc. It was the largest transfer of war material from one Nation to another in history.
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