M-MRCA Deal- Dassault's Rafale

The Third competitor is Dassault Aviation's Rafale

Rafale is a twin-jet combat aircraft capable of carrying out a wide range of short- and long-range missions, including ground and sea attack, air defence and air superiority, reconnaissance, and high-accuracy strike or nuclear strike deterrence. Rafale is the only aircraft in the competition which has a declared nuclear deterrence capability. Advantages of this aircraft includes demonstrated carrier capability in the Rafale-M, which could be a very big factor if the RFP includes that as a requirement, just to make a follow up acquisition plan for Indian Navy. The aircraft offers exceptional ordnance capacity for its size -The Rafale can carry payloads of over 9t on 14 hardpoints for the Air Force version, and 13 for the naval version. The range of weapons includes: Mica, Magic, Sidewinder, ASRAAM and AMRAAM air-to-air missiles; Apache, AS30L, ALARM, HARM, Maverick and PGM100 air-to-ground missiles; and Exocet / AM39, Penguin 3 and Harpoon anti-ship missiles. For a strategic mission the Rafale can deliver the MBDA’s ASMP standoff nuclear missile. In December 2004, the MBDA Storm Shadow / Scalp EG stand-off cruise missile was qualified on the Rafale As you can see most of the armament is of Western Origin. Dassault have to do lot of integration testing for Israeli and Russian origin weapons if it wishes to play tough with Super Hornet or MiG-35. It can have its range extended via conformal fuel tanks. It also offers superior aerodynamic performance over the F/A-18 family. The Rafale claims “super cruise” capability, but observers are skeptical and it has been challenging to demonstrate this with the Snecma R88-2 engine.But personally I feel that Rafale cannot perform “Sustained Super Cruise”. France is also more than willing to help Develop the Kaveri Engine for LCA programme. This would give India’s indigenous jet engine project a broader fleet of aircraft that would amortize its costs better – albeit at a likely performance penalty. The Rafale also offers some equipment, maintenance and spares commonalities with existing Mirage 2000 fleet, which would probably increase if India’s Mirage 2000s are modernized in future. It will also ease out few maintenance and upgrade problems.
Weaknesses include the fact that the Rafale has yet to win a single export competition worldwide and the need for additional funds and work to integrate many non-French weapons if one wishes to use them on the Rafale; and the biggest disadvantage is that it lacks an AESA radar. The Rafale’s failure to win export competitions means more than a perception of “also-ran” status –(the Rafale lost to the F-15SG Strike Eagle during Singapore Coverage), it is already forcing cuts in future Rafale procurement to pay for modernization, a dynamic that could get worse over the next 30 years. Another Disadvantage is it’s price tag. Rafale is the costliest aircraft among all the competitors for the M-MRCA deal.

About The Author

Iam a Lifestyle Photographer, SEO Consultant and Database expert.I studied Biological Engineering at Amity University.I grew up in India,Can't mention a single area here.. My family was like a japanese bagpacker. Roamed to many indian cities.I have several ideas of what I might do with myself in this lifeworld. Although I feel very much a part of this world, I spend a lot of time questioning it. That's the social scientist in me.People say i am full of attitude and i think that's good.I'm idealistic and maybe naive, but at this point in time I can't imagine living any other way.I have two business ventures- XpressoStill and OptSEO.Xpressostill is a lifestyle photography venture which i started in early 2010.Currently it has two portfolios for wedding photography and travel photography.OptSEO is a new idea, atleast for me. OptSEO is about managing e ventures. My main objective is to try to create,develop and execute a cost effective program to maximize the communication between enterprises and their customers and generate high quality sales inquiries. And if that is not enough..Iam also training to become a pro deep-sea diver. You Can write to me at rakesh.mahato@live.com

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