Rafale and other european jets [English only]

[Hort]

Il y a 1 heure, herciv a dit :

@DrSomnath999

This one is alsoo very interresting. Around 5:30.

 

So, if i'm listening correctly, it is confirmed that Rafale has active cancellation? 

Is SPECTRA the Best Electronic defense suite existing ?

My bet is after a difficult beginning for rafale due to a massive french-bashing-propaganda, the jet is going to shine thanks to Indians who simply compared all combat systems available for their defense without letting any foreign power interfere in that process.

US and others have thrown à lot of garbage over rafale, now reality is speaking.

Modifié le 3 août 2020 par Hort
Orthographe

[herciv]

il y a 2 minutes, Hort a dit :

Is SPECTRA the Best Electronic defense suite existing ?

This is so secret that it is hard to know but F-15X et F-18ASH are claimed to be able to do active cancellation. And f-35 could have some.

[KE6gXd^6BK7&MY]

do we have any sources / research papers / proof-of-concept for active cancellation ? I've always been skeptical because phased arrays have worse gain for large deviations (https://www.radartutorial.eu/06.antennas/Phased%20Array%20Antenna.en.html) which means good covering for any incoming wave may require conformal radar arrays in several different places, which we have never seen for all of those planes. 

[Hort]

That's secret but now SPECTRA's active cancellation seems confirmed when it was a kind of fairy tale not so long ago 

Modifié le 3 août 2020 par Hort
Orthographe

[WarBird]

I have only one question

How many T/R modules does the RBE-2AA AESA radar of Rafale have?

Modifié le 3 août 2020 par WarBird

[Hort]

A lot of "petit nouveau" here 

[FATac]

il y a 4 minutes, WarBird a dit :

How many T/R modules does the RBE-2AA AESA radar of Rafale have?

To tell the truth, this data is not publicly available.

Some have counted T/R modules on demonstrator arrays shown on various pics published, but it seems that none of these are representative of the production ones.

So, the best answer is "fairly enough".

• Fairly enough to ensure reliable and consistent following on the number of tracks specified by the customers
• Fairly enough to stay efficient even after several modules deficiencies - no need to change the array up to a large amount of modules breakdowns ; performances almost constant with the aging of the antenna
• Fairly enough to ensure strong beam at ranges almost twice those of the passive scanned antenna.

[Patrick]

Il y a 4 heures, DrSomnath999 a dit :

france has been the pioneer in electronic warfare segment.It is due to france falcon 20 ecm  plane that pakistan airforce manage to shot MIG 21 down orelse it wont have happen.

Both sides have jets ,awacs but IAf didnt have any dedicated ew plane at that aerial engagement .

CHEERS

What about the SAAB 2000 Erieye? Don't these awacs have some jamming capabilities?

Also, I had no idea about this Falcon 20. Interesting, and quite mindboggling too.

Il y a 3 heures, Hort a dit :

So, if i'm listening correctly, it is confirmed that Rafale has active cancellation? 

For years this idea was floating around.

Some of us (even on this forum) got to ask questions to some professionnals in defense exhibitions. Answers were always vague, but they got hints, time and time again.

Namely, the DEDIRA program, "DÉmonstrateur de DIscrétion RAfale" "Rafale discretion demonstrator" was deemed to work "very well" as early as 2014. No one knows if it is linked to active cancellation, but we certainly think so. It may also incorporate added layers of RAM.
And you must already know the Rafale package to India went with "a stealth coating technology".
Neuron is namely using such a coating.

So to think the indian Rafale may have received a treatment of the sort, is not out of question. I personally believe so, and I'm not the only one here.

Courtesy of @bubzy:

Translate this:
http://www.portail-aviation.com/blog/2014/01/28/visite-de-le-drian-au-merignac-des/

Also in 2013 there already were hints that DEDIRA would permit the removal of the refueling probe.

Il y a 3 heures, Hort a dit :

Is SPECTRA the Best Electronic defense suite existing ?

My bet is after a difficult beginning for rafale due to a massive french-bashing-propaganda, the jet is going to shine thanks to Indians who simply compared all combat systems available for their defense without letting any foreign power interfere in that process.

US and others have thrown à lot of garbage over rafale, now reality is speaking.

Now there's "active cancellation" and there is DRFM. Arguably, DRFM isn't something that new, many aircrafts are featuring such capabilities nowadays, or marketting them. F-15X with DEWS. Eurofighter with the latest PRAETORIAN suite. The new Gripen-E also arguably features some.

Yet there is a catch:

To achieve active cancellation, you must have either a very stealthy airframe, or dedicated spots around the aircraft with a wide field of view. Rafale was built with this in mind. Others? Not so much. 

Il y a 3 heures, KE6gXd^6BK7&MY a dit :

do we have any sources / research papers / proof-of-concept for active cancellation ?

The best proof is the fact it is now marketted by other aircraft manufacturers.

Il y a 3 heures, KE6gXd^6BK7&MY a dit :

I've always been skeptical because phased arrays have worse gain for large deviations (https://www.radartutorial.eu/06.antennas/Phased%20Array%20Antenna.en.html) which means good covering for any incoming wave may require conformal radar arrays in several different places,

Yes.

Il y a 3 heures, KE6gXd^6BK7&MY a dit :

which we have never seen for all of those planes. 

Except on Rafale.
Take a look at some pictures, look at Spectra panels around the fuselage and vertical fin tail, and distributed antennas. Consider a +/-60° field of view for each of them, emitters and receivers, and you'll see the vast coverage allowed by Spectra.

Il y a 3 heures, WarBird a dit :

I have only one question

How many T/R modules does the RBE-2AA AESA radar of Rafale have?

Official figure: "around a thousand".

You may see a montage picture floating around the internet since a long time ago, with an AESA antenna protruding from a Rafale nose.

This is a photoshop that was done back then to show what it would look like. You can't open the nose of the Rafale this way anyway.

And the radar pictured was the demonstrator shown in defense exhibitions and salons, superimposed over a picture of a Rafale from the front.
This radar was composed of 840 modules. Except these were US-made. The production RBE2 AA ("Antenne Active") use european-made modules which are smaller, even if this fact may anger some americans...

So yeah, despite its "small nose", the Rafale has lots of T/R modules. Spectra panels are now using them too, and they're now using GaN, reportedly.

 

We also have strong hints regarding the presence of side-looking arrays in the side of the nose, with new traps/doors not present on french Rafale, on each side of the nose.
I speculated a lot about these. And I'm inclined to believe these are the side looking arrays planned for the F4.2 standard. 

[wagdoox]

il y a 37 minutes, Patrick a dit :

Namely, the DEDIRA program, "DÉmonstrateur de DIscrétion RAfale" "Rafale discretion demonstrator" was deemed to work "very well" as early as 2014. No one knows if it is linked to active cancellation, but we certainly think so

hi, 
as I understand it DEDIRA is a hardware kit made to reduce RCS and therefore making active cancellation even more efficient, the lower RCS the less eco spectra has to counter. Is it also your understanding ?

Modifié le 3 août 2020 par wagdoox

[Patrick]

il y a 26 minutes, wagdoox a dit :

hi, 
as I understand it DEDIRA is a hardware kit made to reduce RCS and therefore making active cancellation even more efficient, the lower RCS the less eco spectra has to counter. Is it also your understanding ?

It may be, partially, but probably not as a "kit".
I believe it consists into an application of more RAM on several parts of the jet, which can be retroactively done on any aircraft, making Spectra even more efficient.

The parallel with Neuron comes into mind: it is indeed quite possible the coating applied on the skin of Neuron could be used on Rafale. At least there are hints this was added to the indian specific enhancements.

 

[DrSomnath999]

2 hours ago, Patrick said:

What about the SAAB 2000 Erieye? Don't these awacs have some jamming capabilities?

Also, I had no idea about this Falcon 20. Interesting, and quite mindboggling too.

 

FALCON 20 ecm was a dedicated platform for EW . The PAF had upgraded it with french help .It payed off for them .If this platform was nt there Mig 21 kill wouldnt have been possible . It almost blinded Mig 21 as it was in EMCON mode totally relying on su 30mki and ground unit SAMs radar for target location .

CHEERS

 

 

Modifié le 3 août 2020 par DrSomnath999

[activestealth]

Sorry for username change, email adress issue.

I'm wondering about coverage, because given the very precise needs of the problem, a bearing being covered by your antenna beamforming abilities might not be enough, you need to be able to match an amplitude, phase and frequency at that bearing. Distance between phased array elements is directly related to the frequency range it can emit in, can the SPECTRA arrays meet the frequency agility of modern fire control radar ? I'm not implying it's any kind of engineering oversight, just that fighters are inherently limited in their jamming abilities because of power and antenna size.

Active stealth has huge accuracy requirements on the estimation of the incoming signal, and there are hard limits on interferometry based on array design (azimuth resolution is related to gain, which is in turn related to array size). AFAIK, SPECTRA's azimuth resolution is about .5 degrees, which is excellent, but that's about 1.5km uncertainty at 30km distance : Is it enough to meet the accuracy requirements of active cancellation ? You need to minimize amplitude error, frequency error, and phase error to accurately cancel the incoming signal, to exactly reproduce the extremely complex incoming signal, then phase-shift it and hope that your antennas allow (gain-wise / frequency-range-wise) you to match the frequency / phase / amplitude everywhere around the plane, without producing any unwanted interferences that would increase the radar return instead of decreasing it.

Modern radars use LPI techniques : modern radars will use frequency-hopping, mode-hopping (simultaneous SAR / air search) etc. To do active cancellation, you will need an extremely precise model of the emitting threat, by nature a very moving threat, especially with modern, digital radars that are intended to easily integrate new signal processing software. Is this threat library available in all relevant cases ? Is it even possible to keep  up to date ? You are not always going to get an intelligence edge on your adversary's radar capabilities, and what is your active cancellation going to look like if suddenly, a software update changed the way your target radar hops around frequency wise ? It also raises the export question, because threat libraries are usually not exported AFAIK. So you need to model the incoming signal *very* accurately, but the emitting device is by nature shrouded in secrecy, which makes it even more difficult.

ultimately, this message is not a statement on the skill of french EW engineers : I'm not thinking that Thales couldn't do it because they aren't competent, I have big doubts on the technical feasability of the solution on any plane. The fact that most countries with an ability to design aircraft seem to take some form of passive stealth as a given (NGAD, SCAF, J20, Tempest for the relatively recent and future projects), even with the huge engineering tradeoffs associated (you pay in aerodynamics for reduced RCS), points to the fact that it seems to be the direction everybody is taking for evading radars.

with regard to other manufacturers marketing it : ultimately, the wording is very vague (https://www.baesystems.com/en-fi/article/stealth-master ) : "digitally hide its signature, becoming invisible to radar, or to digitally create a complex and confusing picture (noise) for a threat operator" which is basically a broad definition of active EW. For the Gripen, even with the hype around it's EW suite, SAAB did not dare to say that it implemented any form of active cancellation (at least I did not find any, I'm of course very open to being proved wrong).

Modifié le 3 août 2020 par activestealth

[Patrick]

il y a une heure, DrSomnath999 a dit :

FALCON 20 ecm was a dedicated platform for EW . The PAF had upgraded it with french help

When was this? Not after 2002 I hope!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Karachi_bus_bombing#:~:text=On May 8%2C 2002%2C a,submarine for the Pakistani Navy.

 

il y a 4 minutes, activestealth a dit :

Sorry for username change, email adress issue.

I'm wondering about coverage, because given the very precise needs of the problem, a bearing being covered by your antenna beamforming abilities might not be enough, you need to be able to match an amplitude, phase and frequency at that bearing. Distance between phased array elements is directly related to the frequency range it can emit in, can the SPECTRA arrays meet the frequency agility of modern fire control radar ?

To give you a specific example, there was an event during NATO exercice MACE XIII in 2010, in Slovakia, during which a Rafale was capable of jamming the (only) slovakian S-300 system. They never got a firing solution, Rafale kept spamming it with false returns. Some people say it is "simply" DRFM in action, some others believe it is a more complex form of EW.

What's to be noticed too is that Spectra is evolving and its Emitters/Receivers panels are becoming multifunction as well as going GaN. They also operate on a much wider bandwidth nowadays, and will again in the future. At least in the case of the indian Rafale, and with the F4 standard in 2024.

il y a 4 minutes, activestealth a dit :

I'm not implying it's any kind of engineering oversight, just that fighters are inherently limited in their jamming abilities because of power and antenna size.

Which is true. No one even here among french biased people have any reason to believe a Rafale could achieve the level of force protection of an F-18 Growler, for example. We're only speaking about self-protection in the case of an individual Rafale fighter.

il y a 4 minutes, activestealth a dit :

Active stealth has huge accuracy requirements on the estimation of the incoming signal, and there are hard limits on interferometry based on array design (azimuth resolution is related to gain, which is in turn related to array size). AFAIK, SPECTRA's azimuth resolution is about .5 degrees, which is excellent, but that's about 1.5km uncertainty at 30km distance : Is it enough to meet the accuracy requirements of active cancellation ?

That's a good question, yet these figures may be relatively outdated, they have been out since the early 2000's.

Spectra can passively track and provide target designations to the combat system of the Rafale, including for BVR shots, not just for self-defense at close range (which was the case in 2007) for instance. The angular precision needed for this must be relatively good. At least you probably need much less than half a degree for that.

Here's an annecdote, reported by a pilot of a Rafale prototype in the early 90's, to quote it from memory: "Spectra is quite something, you're flying above Cazeaux (near Bordeaux) and the system tells you "hey a Mirage 2000-5 just took off from Dijon and activated its radar".
Welp. There are 500+km between Cazeaux and Dijon. And since the uncertainty would be 25km in this case, it is roughly comparable with your example, Dijon was the only air base in the region back then.

So you're on the money with 0.5°, but this was 25 years ago.

il y a 4 minutes, activestealth a dit :

You need to minimize amplitude error, frequency error, and phase error to accurately cancel the incoming signal, to exactly reproduce the extremely complex incoming signal, then phase-shift it and hope that your antennas allow (gain-wise / frequency-range-wise) you to match the frequency / phase / amplitude everywhere around the plane, without producing any unwanted interferences that would increase the radar return instead of decreasing it.

Modern radars use LPI techniques : modern radars will use frequency-hopping, mode-hopping (simultaneous SAR / air search) etc. To do active cancellation, you will need an extremely precise model of the emitting threat, by nature a very moving threat, especially with modern, digital radars that are intended to easily integrate new signal processing software. Is this threat library available in all relevant cases ? Is it even possible to keep  up to date ? You are not always going to get an intelligence edge on your adversary's radar capabilities, and what is your active cancellation going to look like if suddenly, a software update changed the way your target radar hops around frequency wise ?

These are also very good questions, but I believe @Picdelamirand-oil could answer you more specifically on this (if he wants to, and I hope so).

About threat libraries, there are reports of a particular Red Flag during which the Rafale was capable of adapting its behavior against F-16s between a day and the next one. This is apparently what sparked a controversy about "the french spying on everyone" during this particular red flag. We still hear about it nowadays.

il y a 4 minutes, activestealth a dit :

It also raises the export question, because threat libraries are usually not exported AFAIK. So you need to model the incoming signal *very* accurately, but the emitting device is by nature shrouded in secrecy, which makes it even more difficult.

About export, France is, well, quite "opened" about this topic.
Remember we did not put any restriction on the Mirage 2000 and Rafale to be used as nuclear capable platforms when sold to India for example. Which for US-made aircraft has always been a big "no".
Could this be an indication of what we're selling? As a reminder France and India signed a strategic partnership, it's not just a G2G sale.
And France conducts regularly some "sniffing" campaigns. In Syria against Su-33s. In south China sea againt a J-11 a few years ago. And, well, in international exercices as well, but everybody does that.

il y a 4 minutes, activestealth a dit :

ultimately, this message is not a statement on the skill of french EW engineers : I'm not thinking that Thales couldn't do it because they aren't competent, I have big doubts on the technical feasability of the solution on any plane.

Well I do believe the AN/ASQ-239 is capable of active cancellation on the F-35. At least the US ones. Maybe I'm wrong but I always saw the EW suites of stealth US fighters as the corner stones of their capabilities. Passive stealth can't evolve much, as jets are not shape shifting (yet). As you mention, EW can be modulated in a variety of ways and stay unpredictable. And the best way to actively cancel would be to have the lowest RCS possible to lower the calculations needed to provide accurate and efficient false returns in the most efficient manner.

I also believe, without proofs of course but thanks to a specific "hint", these modes allowing active cancellation are not provided to export customers of the F-35, or only with lower capabilities. Why? Well, a certain member of our forum had a discussion with a french pilot of his knowledge who recently practiced against norweggian F-35s. Yet this pilot also had the opportunity to do the same against US ones prior. His verdict was it was "way more difficult to operate against US F-35s than european ones". Food for thought.

The jets are the same, the form factor, coating, are the same. And before you ask, Luneberg lenses were apparently out of the equation. Either because they were present in both case, either because they were not. No specifics about it. These sorts of testimonies are mindboggling.

il y a 4 minutes, activestealth a dit :

The fact that most countries with an ability to design aircraft seem to take some form of passive stealth as a given (NGAD, SCAF, J20, Tempest for the relatively recent and future projects), even with the huge engineering tradeoffs associated (you pay in aerodynamics for reduced RCS), points to the fact that it seems to be the direction everybody is taking for evading radars.

True, but remember in 2002 during the evaluation in the Netherlands, a virtual Rafale F4 ended up with a 6.95 score against a virtual F-35 block 3 which scored 6.97.
A huge emphasis was put on survivability in these tests, and stealth was back then not considered as an absolute silver bullet yet.

Also, we firmly believe the frontal RCS of the Rafale, without external carry, is quite low, lower than 0.1 sq. meters and probably around 0.06. Way bigger than the alleged 0.001 of the F-35, but still infinitely smaller than those of many other fighters.

il y a 4 minutes, activestealth a dit :

with regard to other manufacturers marketing it : ultimately, the wording is very vague (https://www.baesystems.com/en-fi/article/stealth-master ) : "digitally hide its signature, becoming invisible to radar, or to digitally create a complex and confusing picture (noise) for a threat operator" which is basically a broad definition of active EW. For the Gripen, even with the hype around it's EW suite, SAAB did not dare to say that it implemented any form of active cancellation (at least I did not find any, I'm of course very open to being proved wrong).

They market a DRFM capability at least. And added huge computing capabilties to the E, which must be for a reason, not simply battle space management. They went the MDPU way just like Rafale did 20 years ago. believe this huge surge in computational power is used for EW primarily.

Again, in France, the only ones who are openly talking about "active cancellation" are us fanboys and forumers. And even those among us with, well, some credentials, can't be absolutely certain about it. There are strong hints, there are rumors, but nothing else.

[DrSomnath999]

8 hours ago, Patrick said:

When was this? Not after 2002 I hope!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Karachi_bus_bombing#:~:text=On May 8%2C 2002%2C a,submarine for the Pakistani Navy.

 

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._24_Squadron_(Pakistan_Air_Force)

[Patrick]

il y a 15 minutes, DrSomnath999 a dit :

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._24_Squadron_(Pakistan_Air_Force)

Well, some people in the late Chirac government really lacked a vision regarding the indian market it seems...
Or maybe they did not believe at all in the chances of the Rafale.

Hopefully the indian medias were not able to discover this and spin it to make France the responsible of the downing of Wing Commander Abhinandan... This would have been a crushing blow.

[DrSomnath999]

8 hours ago, Patrick said:

 

Hopefully the indian medias were not able to discover this and spin it to make France the responsible of the downing of Wing Commander Abhinandan... This would have been a crushing blow.

i dont think that way . 

PAF had tried hands on rafale before plus they were planning to use french avionics and mica missiles for JF 17 . It didnt work out .Plus they were shown to be trained with rafale

https://www.timesnownews.com/india/article/report-claims-pakistan-air-force-pilots-have-got-access-to-rafale-fighter-jets-india-denies/494291

 

See rafale's speciality is that it doesnt need a specific ECM plane to cover it up .That why IAF chief said that had they got rafale ,the scenario would have been totally different.

Rafale has incredible passive detection ability with IRST / spectra ESM suite with towed decoys and impoved MAWS . So it is ready to go in high electronic warfare areas without

getting blinded .Plus  THales and saab are both quite good in electronic warfare segment.

 

CHEERS

[FATac]

il y a 9 minutes, DrSomnath999 a dit :

PAF had tried hands on rafale before plus [...] they were shown to be trained with rafale

https://www.timesnownews.com/india/article/report-claims-pakistan-air-force-pilots-have-got-access-to-rafale-fighter-jets-india-denies/494291

If I remember well, it have been proved baseless. No Pakistani nor Pakistani linked Qatari personnal have been approved to be trained on Rafale.

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/were-pakistani-pilots-trained-to-fly-rafale-fighters-in-qatar-2021283

[Patrick]

il y a 2 minutes, DrSomnath999 a dit :

PAF had tried hands on rafale before plus they were planning to use french avionics and mica missiles for JF 17 . It didnt work out .Plus they were shown to be trained with rafale

https://www.timesnownews.com/india/article/report-claims-pakistan-air-force-pilots-have-got-access-to-rafale-fighter-jets-india-denies/494291

This story was absolute bullshit. The idea going from 12 Mirage to 24 Rafale would require pakistanis to get involved was extremely stupid. Even if Qatar is a very small country.

400 qatari were formed here in total, for 36 jets. Compared to the numbers needed for their 12 Mirage 2000, the effort wasn't that important.

Just for your information, french secret services vetted EVERY SINGLE qatari pilot, mechanic, specialist, before they got trained in France on the Rafale. They may do some mistakes sometimes, as every service does, but not these kind of mistakes.

Turns out this story emanated from Jon Lake, a "journalist" and BAE propagandist who published this "information" in AINonline.

This story got debunked, and it's even thanks to a certain forumer from over here, that AINonline removed this passage from the article.
...Tells you a lot about the "validity" of the statements, right? 

It was all part of the big campaign of lies designated to destroy the french reputation. We seen it for submarines, apparently germans trying to tell the tale of "plans" of the Scorpene being "leaked" because they were butthurt their subs didn't win the competition. We seen it with the "Rafale flown by pakistanis" narrative. We seen it with "Reliance was forced upon Dassault by Modi" narrative, when Dassault started to work with Reliance in 2011...

Meanwhile many pakistani flew on the Eurofighter, including the commander of the PAF, on british RAF eurofighters, and Saudi Arabia, which was known to use pakistani pilots, is using the type!
...But no claims of pakistani knowing the aircraft type in negociations for the sale of Eurofighters to India? Lol. 

 

You have to understand all of this happened for a reason, and that's to undermine the french exports. Period.

Thanks to Parikrama who predicted all of this before he disappeared from the internet, we saw it all coming at least.

 

[DrSomnath999]

24 minutes ago, FATac said:

If I remember well, it have been proved baseless. No Pakistani nor Pakistani linked Qatari personnal have been approved to be trained on Rafale.

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/were-pakistani-pilots-trained-to-fly-rafale-fighters-in-qatar-2021283

https://www.timesnownews.com/india/article/report-claims-pakistan-air-force-pilots-have-got-access-to-rafale-fighter-jets-india-denies/494291

the article  source which i posted above in my prevoius post  itself states IAF chief claims it to be baseless .So what new thing your posting i dont know

 

[FATac]

IAF Chief claims it to be baseless.

French Ambassador in India, speaking for French State, claims it to be baseless.

We have both sides of the coin and no place for any other assumption.

So, it's baseless enough to be irrelevant and it doesn't need to be raised (and debunked) again.

[DrSomnath999]

 

36 minutes ago, Patrick said:

 

 

You have to understand all of this happened for a reason, and that's to undermine the french exports. Period.

 

 

thats why i posted that source to convince you that nobody in india except Congressi thugs pays shit to what indian media  claims.

Your prevoius post about french hand in abhindham shooting would have been taken in the same way .

French mirage were also involved in that strike ,then had it shoot down IAF planes or bomb the targets in India .Will it paid any impact on rafale deal 

Absolutely NO.

 

 

CHEERS

2 minutes ago, FATac said:

IAF Chief claims it to be baseless.

French Ambassador in India, speaking for French State, claims it to be baseless.

We have both sides of the coin and no place for any other assumption.

So, it's baseless enough to be irrelevant and it doesn't need to be raised (and debunked) again.

see patrick's prevoius post related to mine .That's why i posted it . who is asking to debunk it .It is alraedy a debunked thing

 

CHEERS

Modifié le 4 août 2020 par DrSomnath999

[DrSomnath999]

Re-Engineered Meteor BVRAAM On The Works For IAF

 

http://trishul-trident.blogspot.com/2020/02/re-engineered-meteor-bvraam-on-works.html

Modifié le 5 août 2020 par DrSomnath999

[DrSomnath999]

China Warns India’s Rafale Fighters ‘Have No Chance’ Against Chinese Stealth Jets

Michael PeckContributor

 

Chinese and Indian fighters are engaging in vicious dogfights.

Not in the air, but over the airwaves, where both nations are claiming that their newest jets are superior to those of their rival.

Last week, former Indian Air Force chief B.S. Dhanoa claimed that China’s new J-20 stealth fighter “doesn’t come close” to India’s new French-made Rafale fighters. Dhanoa boasted the Rafale’s “top-of-the-line electronic warfare suite, Meteor beyond-visual-range [air-to-air] missile and Scalp air-to-ground weapon with its terrain following capability outguns any threat that the Chinese Air Force produces,” according to the Hindustan Times.

It’s China’s surface-to-air missiles – not its jet fighters — that are the biggest threat, Dhanoa said. He also suggested that Chinese military technology is so poor that even Beijing’s ally Pakistan, which operates Chinese warplanes and tanks, has little faith in it. Dhanoa claimed that during air clashes with India in 2019, the Pakistani Air Force relied on American-made F-16s and French-made Mirages, while its JF-17 fighters – a joint China-Pakistan design – only played a minor role. “Why does Pakistan use Swedish early air warning platforms up north [near the disputed border with India] and keep its Chinese AWACS in the south? Why is Pakistan mounting a European radar and Turkish targeting pod on the Chinese JF-17? The answer is quite evident.”

Dhanoa extolled the Rafale as a “game changer.” India has deployed the first five Rafales, which arrived last week, to the Ladakh area of the Himalayas, where China and India fought border clashes in June. India is slated to receive 36 Rafales, which are flown by the French Air Force and Navy, as well as Egypt and Qatar.           

 

Considering how much prestige China has invested in its newest high-tech jets and warships, there was no chance that Beijing was going to let those jibes pass without a response.

“Chinese experts said that the Rafale is only a third-plus generation fighter jet, and does not stand much of a chance against a stealth, fourth-generation one like the J-20,” replied China’s state-owned Global Times.

 

Chinese military experts claim the Rafale is only marginally better than India’s existing Russian-designed Su-30 MKI fighters. “In some combat performance areas, the Rafale is superior to the Su-30 MKI fighter jets, which are in service in the Indian air force in large batches, but it is only about one-fourth of a generation more advanced and does not yield a significant qualitative change,” Global Times said.

“Thanks to its AESA radar, advanced weapons and limited stealth technologies, the Rafale is comparable to other third-plus generation fighter jets used by other countries, but it will find it very difficult to confront a stealth-capable fourth generation fighter jet,” said Global Times.

Actually, the 10-ton Rafale is generally considered a 4.5-generation fighter, with some moderate stealth capability to avoid radar and infrared detection, though less than fifth-generation aircraft like the U.S. F-35. On the other hand, it is far more maneuverable in a close-range dogfight than an F-35. The twin-engine Rafale can also use “supercruise” to fly at supersonic speed without gulping fuel as older jets do.

Against Chinese fighters, the Rafale’s most deadly weapon is the Meteor, a ramjet-powered, radar-guided, beyond visual range (BVR) air-to-air missile with an estimated range of more than 50 miles. Using its AESA radar and Meteor missiles, it might be able to pick off Chinese jets at long range.

Much less is known about the J-20, of which China has around 50. Weighing in at 21 tons, it is bigger and heavier than the Rafale. While the Rafale looks a bit like the nimble U.S. F-16, the J-20 resembles larger aircraft like the U.S. F-22 and Russian Su-57 stealth fighters. There has been some debate in Western circles as to whether the J-20 is a heavy interceptor designed to engage targets at long range, or whether it’s also a capable dogfighter. The latest J-20B version reportedly will be equipped with thrust vector control, while allow engine nozzles to be tilted for better maneuverability.

The J-20’s primary weapon is the PL-15, a radar-guided, very-long-range air-to-air missile which may be able to hit aircraft up to 200 kilometers [124 miles] away, outranging weapons like the Meteor U.S. AIM-120 missile. If the PL-15 indeed has the capability to pick off Indian aircraft at that distance – and that’s a big if – then it would give the J-20 an edge should China and India fight for air superiority over Ladakh.

But super-missiles or not, like Russia from whom it licensed or copied so many aircraft, the weak point of Chinese fighters has been their jet engines, which are less powerful and reliable than Western designs. J-20 production has stalled as China equipped the fighter with Russian AL-31 engines while attempting to develop the more powerful, domestically-produced WS-15 engine for the J-20B. But the J-20B has entered mass production amid expectations that the WS-15 will be ready in a year or two, the South China Morning Post reported in July 2020.

So is the Rafale or the J-20 the better fighter? First, neither aircraft has really been tested in battle. The J-20 has yet to see action, so its capabilities – such as whether it’s really stealthy enough to avoid radar detection – remains to be seen. The Rafale has seen some combat, but only bombing poorly defended targets in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Syria. Neither plane has been pitted against opponents with advanced fighters and anti-aircraft missiles, so their strengths and weaknesses have yet to be revealed.

More important, as I’ve said before, is that any conflict between nuclear-armed nations like China and India would be small and carefully controlled to avoid escalation. Any battle between Rafales and J-20s would depend less on factors like aircraft maneuverability, and more on factors like pilot quality, and the presence of ground radar, anti-aircraft missiles, well-integrated command networks, aerial tankers to replenish fuel-hungry fighters, and how far each side’s airbases are from the battlefield.

For example, Chinese airbases in Ladakh have limited capacity, while larger airfields in Xinjiang and Tibet are up to 600 miles away. India’s Ambala’s airbase, where the Rafales will be based, is just 300 miles from the disputed area.

Barring some unrevealed technical breakthrough in stealth, sensors or missiles – or some hidden flaw in aircraft design – it seems unlikely that the capabilities of the J-20 or Rafale alone will decide who rules Himalayan skies.

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpeck/2020/08/05/china-warns-indias-rafale-fighters-have-no-chance-against-chinese-stealth-jets/#58c7c3c36e4c

 

[Lordtemplar]

According to that article Meteor has 50 mile range and China calls Rafale gen 3+!?  LMAO. 

Otherwise i agree that such an encounter between 2 nuke capable countries would be limited to a localized conflict/incident, and many other factors would come into play such as pilot training, ground radar and air defenses.  The question is which army has done better planning.

[FATac]

Il y a 2 heures, Lordtemplar a dit :

According to that article Meteor has 50 mile range and China calls Rafale gen 3+!?

These figures may be consistant with the chinese point of view :

• Stealth features on the J-20 may reduce her RCS and furthermore the range of missiles shot at her up to 50 miles
• Chinese jet generations don't follow the US jet generations. There are a shift of one generation. J-20 is a gen 4 (sn) fighter. So, our gen 4+ fighter from some point of view may become a gen 3+ (sn) fighter.