Egyptian Rafale Jets. Image courtesy of manufacturer Dassault Aviation.
Posted on 06/17/2016 8:59:12 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
A year after completing an order for the Dassault Rafale, Cairo has reportedly reentered negotiations with France regarding the procurement of additional fighter jets. On June 15, La Tribune reported that Egypt is in discussions with Dassault Aviation for the acquisition of 12 more Rafales.
La Tribune reports that some sources believe it is possible a contract could be reached before the end of this year, while others are more cautious about the timeframe for completion. As of yet, no side has commented on the reports of ongoing negotiations.
Egypt and France formally signed an agreement worth 5.2 billion euros on the acquisition of 24 Rafales, as well as MBDA missiles and a FREMM naval vessel, in February 2015. Of the 24 Rafales, 16 are two-seater Rafale DMs, while the remaining eight are single-seater Rafale EMs.
The first batch of three jets – reportedly from French inventory – arrived later in 2015, in July, and a second batch of three arrived in January of this year. These shipments marked the first export of the Rafale jet. Ahead of the deliveries, Egyptian pilots and maintenance crews trained in France on the operation of the systems.
According to IHS Jane's Defence Weekly, the Rafales are armed with AASM HAMMER air-to-ground missiles, the two versions of MBDA's MICA short- and beyond visual range air-to-air missiles, Exocet AM39 anti-ship missiles, and the SCALP long-range standoff cruise missile.
The agreement reached with France included an option for 12 more Rafales, which forms the basis of the framework for the current negotiations reported by La Tribune. A follow-on contract would be good news for Dassault Aviation, which wants to sell Rafales to India and Malaysia.
Similar to the initial order, it is unclear how Cairo will opt to finance a follow-on order. As noted alongside the announcement of the first sale in February 2015, experts speculated that it was possible France or Gulf countries provided loans to Egypt to aid in the acquisition. Egypt make seek a similar arrangement for an additional order of Rafales, though details of financing remain limited.
Alongside the Rafale, Cairo has negotiated with Russia for the acquisition of other fighter jets. Egypt was reported to have purchased 46 MiG-29s in 2015 under a $2 billion deal. MiG CEO Sergei Korotkov has also stated that MiG is ready to supply Egypt with MiG-35s.
Rumors continue to abound that Egypt is also buying Russian Su-35s. These rumors were recently fueled by an Egyptian television report that mentioned Cairo was purchasing 29 unspecified Sukhoi military aircraft, though this could be easily have been a reference to another system, such as the Su-30SM, and not the Su-35.
The fighter jet acquisitions are part of a larger Egyptian program of procuring new military systems to boost its conventional deterrent power and improve the military's counterinsurgency efforts. Under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt has purchased a frigate, corvettes, naval helicopter carrier vessels, fighter jets, helicopters, and missiles.
Derek Bisaccio is a U.S.-based journalist focusing on the Middle East, North Africa, as well as Eurasian affairs for Conflict News. For more of Derek's works, click here. To follow him on Twitter, click here. Questions/Comments: derek@conflict-news.com
Egyptian Rafale Jets. Image courtesy of manufacturer Dassault Aviation.
Egypt needs to be selling Islam. Let it go bankrupt...
OK, so they like the airplane, or the price — it doesn’t matter. A hardball-playing president of the US would say: “either buy our planes or kiss our aid good-bye.”
After they threw out the Muslim Brotherhood and put their figurehead in jail, Obama cut their aid. That’s why they’re buying French now.
Capable planes?
Ohhhhkay......
Reasonably so, yeah. Somewhere in capability between the F-15E and the F-15SG (the latter of which we don’t field), but with added stealth features. They have been known to kill F-22’s in exercises.
Dear leader threw a billion in aid to Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood Candidate who won the election through threats of violence and after he won got the Zer0 billion support even though his MoBros were killing Coptic Christians and burning their churches. The threat to Israel and Christians in the middle east was great and the Egyptian Military overthrew the tyrant Morsi. Zero withdrew the aid so you can see whose side he was on. The countries Zero has gone against in the middle east are the secular governments of ytria, Iraq, Egypt, Lybia. Is this a coincidence that Zero seems to be on the side of the islamists? I don’t think so.
Very capable, but mighty expensive since its all French unlike U.S. jets, which benefit from larger domestic volumes!
A non muslim, non america hating us president.
What do they need these war planes for? I mean, really!!! There’s no power threatening Egypt except USA under Obama of course and he’s supposedly leaving soon
I remember Egypt under Nasser built an Egyptian version of a V-2 rocket—kind of beefed up rocket that the Nazis used. Do they still have them?
Sorry I do t know. But someone here will
[cough, cough] link please.
https://warisboring.com/the-french-shot-down-u-s-stealth-fighter-f59db16282ca#.prgg8g5ca
Rafales aren’t the only one. An EA-6G managed the same feat, as have the Germans in their Tornadoes.
No. They dumped it for various Soviet rocket systems. SCUDs, FROG-7s, etc.
To be fair, they were all exercises at close range, whereas in actual combat the 22 is designed to stand off undetected and fire missiles.
That’s great, if they have AWACS support to localize the enemy. Both China and Russia now have (and offer on the world market) AWACS killer missiles that are fired beyond visual range. Once the AWACS is gone, the F-22 has to find its targets for itself and it’s just as vulnerable as any other flying emitter.
Expecting the F-22 to not have to mix it up in a dogfight at some point is as stupid as taking the gun off jet aircraft because “the missiles will do all the work.”
And yet the design of the F-22 is BASED on AWACS.
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