yeah now all our problems will be solved from past, present & future. I hope we bargained for free fuel for the next 1 month as well , that would make us even more happy. Damn the home built stuff who cares whether they take to the skies or not when all that we spent is peanuts on them.
Rafale DH/EH of Indian Air Force : News and Discussions
- Thread starter Herciv
- Start date
-
- Tags
- indian defence forum
Its utterly shameful that Rafale was given more importance and air time than New education policy
Importing expensive stuff comes with a huge political risk. A single scandal can destroy your reputation and take power from you (Ask Rajiv). Why do you think we couldn't procure artillery guns for three decades? The ghosts of bofors made sure we will be underequipped in this regard against even pakistan.
Politicians are under no obligation to buy any weapons. Army men can fight with their bayonets!. Politicians job is to win the next election.
During UPA, Sonia gave the critical but scandalous portfolio of Defence to the 'clean guy' Antony. He mostly did his job, buy not taking any risks (Aka not signing any deals). During that time a single anonymous letter was enough to derail a ten plus year procurement process. (Even he failed to detect the AW101 scam).
It's very hard to keep a purchase like a fighter without questions. In 1996, when Narasimha Rao government signed the Su-30 MKI deal similar questions were raised. Rao, Vajpayee, Jaswant Singh and Mulayam Singh Yadav communicate across party lines and buried it before allegations started.
Every right reform, every right procurement should be appreciated. You can always ask what about this and that. But let them have their moment.
Whenever i see a man in uniform, irrespective of armed force and country, i think of them ready for torture and death under hostile forces and crowd.
It increases my respect for any personnel wearing a uniform.
I can't imagine a job where life is on the line.
I respect all armed forces of all nations.
Will hold my tongue on the reception but if the RM takes jhoola in the 2 seater rafale, all bets are off.
Since qatar already has the rafales , do countries ever enter a contract to exchange planes or spares or armaments, etc , during a emergency situation ? Without a nato type pact.
A limit can be set so that only a small percentage of reserves are effected , like 20 % ?
A accessible pool can reduce our inventory since probability of qatar and India having conflict at the same time is remote.
Since qatar already has the rafales , do countries ever enter a contract to exchange planes or spares or armaments, etc , during a emergency situation ? Without a nato type pact.
A limit can be set so that only a small percentage of reserves are effected , like 20 % ?
A accessible pool can reduce our inventory since probability of qatar and India having conflict at the same time is remote.
Tata has benefited the most from the inspector raj and subsequent to liberalization, they decided that British tea, British steel ,jaguar, etc deserved 100000s crores of investment, rather than the Indian economy . Already lost most of their investment in uk and pumping in more money to keep the Brits pension funds running .
Where is tata investment in India except for the wooly idea of nano ? They are nowhere in the sunshine industries like telecom, electronics , chips manufacturing, etc.
Ratan invests piecemeal, he has no practical vision. Good example of nepotism over professionalism.
They have now tepidly entered the EV market but again half heartedly . Buying the battery and motor from china. Lack of vision.
No major investments in defense even after so much opening up. Just a few tie ups with Boeing.
The Rafale is a very important upgrade. It will completely change the way the air force fights.
It's a fighter jet, EW aircraft and ISR aircraft, all combined into one. It makes all our currently operating EW and ISR aircraft look like a joke.
The F4.2 will also combine AWACS with the fighter jet and ISR combination, to the point where all support aircraft, like our Phalcon, upcoming Sentinel etc, can be permanently eliminated.
Even the Rafale F3R doesn't require AWACS, EW or ISR support. It's an all-in-one aircraft. Although, since it lacks 360 deg radar capability, it will need a ground radar or an aerostat contributing to its radar coverage, but once the F4.2 shows up, it will be a self-contained fighting system, a key requirement for a system of systems, which will then allow even an individual fighter pilot to become a key decision-maker within the air-sea/air-land combat cloud.
So the media coverage is definitely well-deserved, although I have to admit our media do go over the top. But media maturity is heavily dependent on consumer maturity as well. The target audience is largely uninformed about this subject, but this is also a good thing, since we need more and more people to be involved in military matters and make it a personal quest to see a more capable military in the future. Every idiot in India knows the importance of education, but very few know the importance of security. So this is going to be a good thing in the long run.
I disagree. No "weapon" can be more important than the national education policy which came after 34 years , first in the 22st century
Some don't realize that Rafale is the best deal we got from the all that was in offer.
Instead take it on those who are responsible for domestic fault, they are doing it against the best going deal.
Last edited:
The Rafale F3R doesn't need AWACS because the data dissemination and decision making will be slower than what the Rafale itself can do on its own. When it comes to ISR, its hardware is as good or better than what we already have. And with its ability to operate closer to the target, it's a superior ISR platform. The biggest advantage is the Rafale's intelligence is actionable in real time. Our current assets's ability to create actionable intelligence and mission tasking moves at a snail's pace in comparison.
The Rafale F4.2 won't need AWACS at all because the AWACS will be inferior to the Rafale in every aspect, including detection range, number of targets tracked etc. For example, a Phalcon radar will operate 100Km inside our own territory and look at stuff 400-500Km away, effectively giving it a range of 300-400Km inside enemy territory. Otoh, Rafale F4.2 should be able to see the same targets from 600Km away when flying 10Km inside our airspace.
Basically, even if you upgrade the AWACS with the same hardware that can see all the way to horizon, the Rafale will still fly closer to the threats and see all over to the horizon anyway. During earlier times, a fighter jet could only see up to 150Km, whereas AWACS could see up to 400Km, so it was a force multiplier then. Nowadays, fighter jets have started having more "relevant" range than AWACS. For example, Irbis with 400Km range is effectively similar to an AWACS when you fly closer to the enemy, so you can imagine what a GaN upgrade will do, and later photonics.
If you recall, @vstol Jockey and I used to have discussions on how to fit AWACS sensors on new gen aircraft like MSA and FGFA. It's primarily because AWACS are no longer survivable. In a year or two, within our own theatre, AWACS will become a "previous day of war" aircraft, since the Chinese will have operationalised AWACS-killers with an estimated range of 400-700Km. The same with other ISR and EW aircraft that rely on slow business jets. So all that capability has to be moved into fighter jets. And Rafale F3R is the IAF's first step towards that. It's created a significant assymmetry against both our adversaries.
Simply put, AWACS+fighter combo is 4th generation, or even early operational 5th gen. Late 5th generation to early 6th gen eliminates the need for that combo. So if we get 36 Rafale F4.2, it's the equivalent of buying 36 Phalcon++ (+) 36 ISR++ (+) any number of 4th gen fighter jets.
Yes. That is why the TE design has a dedicated Escort AWACs role which will have all the capabilities of an AWAC including escort jammer with its internal bays converted to sensor bays. And yet be a fighter with all the abilities to defend itself from enemy fighters and the missiles fired at it from air or ground.
I do not believe the French air force is planning to retire its E-3 without a replacement...
With the advent of modern SAMs and increasing SAM rings, I don't know what the AWACS will actually do. The S-400 already created a ring of 400Km and the S-500 will increase that to 500Km. What will an AWACS do 500Km away from the threat?
Considering both India and France operate a lot of aircraft that are currently below the F4.2 specification, AWACS will continue to be important for a long time.
However next gen aircraft like the Su-57 will be designed for full AWACS-free operation. In fact, such aircraft will find it disadvantgeous to actually have AWACS support, no different from how the Rafale today doesn't need Growler or dedicated jamming aircraft support. AWACS can even end up interfering in operations.
Look at the reality of the systems in play. Any radar data from an X band radar from 400Km away is going to be far more accurate in every way than an L band radar from 600Km away for the same target, never mind if both can do the same from the same distance.
The F-35 pilots are already saying they don't need AWACS. Now there are calls within certain sections within the US to avoid buying new large AWACS and ISR aircraft and start phasing out even the existing ones. So once the F4.2 comes online, I'm sure all the pilots operating this aircraft will feel it's time for AWACS to be phased out.
NATO plans to extend the operation of the E-3 until 2035. So there's plenty of time to make such a decision.
If still necessary, any future requirement can come on long endurance survivable drones, with crew on the ground, interconnected with datalinks. It's a whole lot cheaper.
With the 600Km range 40N6M coming into play from this year, what will the E-3 do anyway? Think about it. A 1m long SAR on a Dassault nEURON will pick up more information from 70Km away than a 10m long SAR on a Global 6000 from 600Km away. And datalinks have advanced to the point where any data can be transferred in milliseconds.
Anything that's not designed to be highly survivable or is "ethically" expendable has already become useless today, never mind what's going to happen 5 years from now.
By incorporating stealthy design. Russia is already building a stealthy transport plane. Other types of support aircraft would follow soon. You simply couldn't negate the advantages of the sheer size of these aircrafts. Once they will get stealth with modern radar tech, they would be able to provide a coverage of 1000 Kms something not possible with a fighter size jet.