With the Rafale as it is, every six months we carry out a ‘Poker’ exercise, which consists of simulating a nuclear raid against targets defended by SAMs and an air force. There is a classic part that involves clearing all threats on the trajectory of the aircraft carrying the nuclear weapon (SAMs, radar, AWACS, fighters, etc.) and the nuclear strike that follows. This is much more challenging than attacking bases near the Indian border. So we don't understand.
We are only going by what Vstol claimed, that Rafales were "intercepted" in some way that prevented them from carrying out their mission.
We don't even know if the rafale was lost due to a munition or due to an accident. Without any communication that's hard to know.
We also know that Some bhramos were used but we don't know if no scalp were used. At the ENd of the days Rafale and MKI were used in conjonction quite everry day. This is not a success for just one or the other. Without one or the other Pakistani could perhaps have found better effective solutions. But with so many different tactics and doctrines used together it was to hard.
The good tactic was to use use rafale and MKI together.
What have also been mastered is the high tempo of operations, just better enough so that the Pakistani were not ready in time to go in fly to intercept other incoming flights.
We are not talking about any air loss, but the potential interception of the Rafale when it operated close to the border. Vstol said MKIs bailed out intercepted Rafales. But of course, we have no idea about what actually happened. We are taking Vstol for his word here.