Since we are not buying SU 57 and F 35 is not possible due to conditions attached , Rafale and upgraded Sukhoi 30 are our only hope till AMCA comes in
Tejas MK 1A and MK 2 will replace Mig 29 ,Jaguars and Mirage 2000
Rafale DH/EH of Indian Air Force : News and Discussions
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Since we are not buying SU 57 and F 35 is not possible due to conditions attached , Rafale and upgraded Sukhoi 30 are our only hope till AMCA comes in
Tejas MK 1A and MK 2 will replace Mig 29 ,Jaguars and Mirage 2000
To be honest, mk1,mk2 or AMCA won't be a true replacement for Jaguar. Its ridiculously accurate on air to ground mission even with unguided weapons, and the only low level penetrater with IAF. O dont think even Rafale is that much good.
We don't know that yet, at least regarding the F-35. With the Su-57, we are more or less certain where we stand, because so far very little has changed (either with the aircraft itself or with negotiation terms) since the time we left FGFA 7 years ago.
Low-flying fighter bombers are now no longer needed. That capability was much sought after in the era where precision-guided munitions were yet to be perfected. If you can deliver accurate payloads from higher altitude and/or standoff distances, flying low is pointless and brings undue risk to the aircraft & the pilot.
Breaking news : Dassault with TATA
Breaking news :
Dassault Aviation : fabriquera des fuselages de Rafale en Inde
Dassault Aviation: to manufacture Rafale fuselages in India
Published 05/06/2025 at 10:48
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Dassault Aviation and Tata Advanced Systems Limited have signed four production transfer agreements to manufacture the Rafale fighter jet fuselage in India. "This location represents a significant investment in India's aeronautical infrastructure and will serve as a hub for high-precision manufacturing," explains the aircraft manufacturer.
As part of the partnership, Tata Advanced Systems will set up a state-of-the-art production facility in Hyderabad to manufacture key structural sections for the Rafale, including the rear section side bodies, the complete rear section, the center fuselage and the front section.
The first fuselage sections are scheduled to roll off the assembly line in fiscal 2028, with the plant delivering up to two complete fuselages per month.
"For the first time, Rafale fuselages will be produced outside France. This is a decisive step towards strengthening our supply chain in India. Thanks to the expansion of our local partners, including TASL - one of the major players in the Indian aerospace industry - this will contribute to the successful ramp-up of the Rafale," said Eric Trappier, Chairman and CEO of Dassault Aviation.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
Breaking news :
Dassault Aviation : fabriquera des fuselages de Rafale en Inde
Dassault Aviation: to manufacture Rafale fuselages in India
Published 05/06/2025 at 10:48
Share
Dassault Aviation and Tata Advanced Systems Limited have signed four production transfer agreements to manufacture the Rafale fighter jet fuselage in India. "This location represents a significant investment in India's aeronautical infrastructure and will serve as a hub for high-precision manufacturing," explains the aircraft manufacturer.
As part of the partnership, Tata Advanced Systems will set up a state-of-the-art production facility in Hyderabad to manufacture key structural sections for the Rafale, including the rear section side bodies, the complete rear section, the center fuselage and the front section.
The first fuselage sections are scheduled to roll off the assembly line in fiscal 2028, with the plant delivering up to two complete fuselages per month.
"For the first time, Rafale fuselages will be produced outside France. This is a decisive step towards strengthening our supply chain in India. Thanks to the expansion of our local partners, including TASL - one of the major players in the Indian aerospace industry - this will contribute to the successful ramp-up of the Rafale," said Eric Trappier, Chairman and CEO of Dassault Aviation.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
But we have used Jaguars and Rampage in the present conflict
Next time we will go for SEAD missions in the beginning itself
So Jaguar will be required for the
Immediate follow on attacks
Anyway IAF has a good number of Jaguars which they will keep till 2030 atleast
Sad part is Jag is obsolete, and no counter part is available in market and we don't have an inhouse program too. MK2 cannot do low level penetration i guess.
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I dont think f35 can do this,infact such thing is not required for F35 or any other stealth aircraft as on today.
That's not a platform-specific capability though. We used Jag to launch Rampage cuz that's what we had them integrated on. If we had them on LCA, we'd have used LCA. Rampage is the kind of weapon that actually benefits more if you launch it from something flying high & fast, not low & slow. But because none of our aircraft actually penetrated enemy airspace, it didn't really make a difference what the launch platform was on that occasion.
Navy has their Rampage on MiG-29Ks for example.
Of course we spent a lot of money on upgrading a lot of our Jags with ELM-2052 AESAs so we're gonna keep them as long as we can. They're gonna be nice little launch platforms for standoff strikes...and when & if enemy AD has been put out of action & air superiority established, they can penetrate as well and drop CBU-105s to mop up armoured columns.
Great news. And with that, we're moving closer towards my dream of Tata/TAS becoming the Lockheed-Martin of India. Now just waiting for them to become production partners for LCA MK2 & AMCA.
This news also confirms that we're going to order a lot more Rafales than just 2 squadrons in future. @randomradio
We can lean towards that, like a second stopgap order for the IAF before MRFA, but this deal isn't enough to make that happen long term. Our P-8I and C-17 deals led to manufacturing the Apache airframe too.
What really counts is the lead integrator.
The opposite.
Flying low is the safest. Flying high is the most impactful in terms of sensors.
To have more sensor impact from higher altitudes, they designed stealth.
Then networking bridged the gap via the sensor-shooter loop, so now we can use both high and low altitude with pretty much equal impact, and things depend significantly on the weapon used instead.
So if you fire from high altitude, then you don't need a powered weapon, but a glide bomb is sufficient, but you also increase risk to the pilot due to high exposure. And if you fire from low altitude, you need a powered weapon, but at decreased risk to the pilot. For standoff, while higher altitudes provide longer range, it's largely irrelevant because the quality of the weapon can bridge that gap.
So, if a SAM is 250 km away, a 500 km-capable BM like Rampage can kill it from either low altitude or high altitude. Alternatively if you use a VLO missile, like the new Ice breaker, then you can send that towards a SAM from high altitude.
The benefit of low altitude is you give the SAM less time to react with the ability to move in closer. So a missile will be visible only from tens of kms away, so it gives you only a few minutes to react. A Hammer fired from 10 km away gives the SAM only 50 seconds to react.
The only difference is glide bombs are cheaper than powered weapons. And with stealth you can get closer to get more information on the ground from higher altitudes. So now the question is which is better, a stealth platform that's also firing the weapon, like the F-35, or a networked stealth drone that can go even closer to support the low flying Jaguar with better information.
That was the thinking back when short-range AA essentially consisted of unguided 20mm cannons i.e. the early/mid Cold War era.
Today, the sensor density & engagement envelope of weapons at short range/low altitudes is immense. So is the ability of enemy radars to look-down/shoot-down, and the ability to use heat signatures to prosecute targets. All things considered, flying high with VLO shaping is far more survivable than low altitude without shaping, and allows one to get much closer to any target. If you don't have VLO, then flying low toward the same target isn't really an option against peer threats...only thing you can really do is rely on standoff range strikes.
In the future, a further evolution will have to be made - go ULO while still flying high, or fly low. But only one of those options allows you to retain the kind of range & kinematic performance needed to wrest air superiority from the enemy.
Thanks for providing evidence for what we already knew sweetie , that your 5th Gen FA is equivalent in some capabilities to our 3rd turned 4th Gen platform ( thanks to the efforts of the IAF , DRDO & HAL ) .
Plus it doesn't have E virus like Stuxnet the actual reason we're not going in for the F-35. You want us to consider the F-35 , you demonstrate the efficacy of E virus like Stuxnet to us & we'd sign a contract for its purchase. Ja ?
We are using the same weapons the Israelis plan to use from their F-35s, F-16s, and F-15EXs in the same hi-lo combination as we plan to do. The USAF plans to do the same with their F-16s, F-15E/F-15EXs.
Look-down/shoot-down is possible only if the enemy at higher altitudes is untouched. And that's quite unlikely to happen in an actual shooting war. They will get engaged by long range AAMs and SAMs. Fighter sweeps will push them back too, or will be far too distracted.
Anyway, SEAD/DEAD will be a combo attack, with fighter sweeps, top cover, standoff CMs and BMs, followed by an ingress.
Not sure what you're getting at.
What we know for sure is that nobody is making aircraft that are designed specifically for stable, low-level, low-speed flight anymore cuz the risk-reward equation for such flight profiles no longer makes sense. What Rafale (or any other MRFA, or even Tejas Mk-2 or F-35) can do with low level flight is not exactly what planes like Jag or JH-7 were designed for.
Compared to them, even Rafale is much more biased toward high-altitude, high-speed flight.
You can kinda see this with missiles too. The low flying SCALP, despite being stealthy, has suffered much more attrition than the BrahMos. Low level AD has gotten very very good.
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However, these are the qualities required to land on an aircraft carrier, and this is one of the purposes of the Rafale's canards: to make this aircraft better than the Jaguar in terms of low speeds and stability at low altitudes.
But how efficient is it when flying like that. How far can it fly with a meaningful payload with such a flight profile.
The approach to carrier landing lasts only for a few minutes. Whereas Jaguar is designed for low level flight as its primary mode of operation.
Indeed, I was thinking of JASSM/ER/XR missile vs tomohawk, and how it acheives more range in compact form factor due to high altitude flight path and stealthy shape and treatment which gives some protection also.
Lockheed Martin tests updated JASSM - Military Embedded Systems
ORLANDO, Fla. Lockheed Martin announced that its updated Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) recently completed two successful product-verification flight tests at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
militaryembedded.com
We too should be thinking in that direction for pakistan theater atleast as the terrain is mostly flat and they can use chepaer SHORADS than costlier HIMADS for scalp like missiles, for jassm kind of missiles, which are stealth shaped we can invert the equation and make them use HIMADS for air defence.
As you mentioned earlier, PL-15 kind of missile with AESA seeker and heavier rocket motors don't face much issue in low altitude flight either with ground clutter or higher air resistance any way.