Posted on 10/25/2010 11:21:00 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
A jet that specializes in surrendering. Interesting french concept.
With the weakness of the dollar and the unmatched combat record of the F-15, F-16 and the advance technology of the Joint Strike Fighter the Rafale is a hard sell.
Well at least the French do not elect Muslims to run their country. The USA does.
If any place is a militatry sellers market it would be the Persian Gulf.
The Euro Fighter, the Gripen, the F/A-18 Super Hornet, and the F-35 will be the end of the Rafael IMO.
I don’t know about current French jets, but those Mirages did some serious damage to the Brits Navy during the Falklands. Maybe that’s before they started putting so many reverse gears (for retreating) in them.
How come we can’t sell some F-22’s to the Gulf states instead of shutting those lines down? I guess the answer is Obama...
Thats a mofo of a missile in any league...
The Rafale is as good if not better than most of those jets. The thing that signalled its end is the lack of commitment from the French military itself.
Given the failure of the French to help Taiwan upkeep their Mirage 2000s, why would anyone purchase Rafales?
Well those are too widely different issues. For one Taiwan was just dumb to buy the Mirage-2000 from France when everyone knew that the Europeans would shut them out sooner than later. The aircraft has done just about perfectly with pretty much every other air arm.
The French have just one policy-follow the money.
The Rafale is a pretty old design is in not?
To bad there are not advanced war games out there that fellows like you me and some other folks could play!
Same age as the Gripen/Eurofighter and younger than the US teen and Soviet/Russian standard offerings. As far as basic design goes.
A very neat review of the aircraft-
Who says we have to sell the F-22 with all the bells and whistles on it?
In a game of ‘strategy’, I’ll take squadrons of F-35’s over a couple hundred F-22’s
Just my $0.0002 on the topic.
Lynyrd Skynyrd “you got that right”
As far as costs goes, squadrons of F-35 are becoming increasingly difficult to come by.
Selling the F-22 to Japan is another story entirely.
We're going to be selling the F-35s to these countries pretty soon IMO.
I think its a stupid idea.
I don't think we have anything to fear from Saudi Arabia's government. Their in house zealots, yes, but not the government.
They are Wahabis. They share the theological goals of Al Qaeda,opposing the tactics of Salafist Jihadis. The Saudi regime is corrupt and unstalbe. I don't see it surviving. It can't create jobs for the rising youth, which it indoctrinated in Wahabbism.
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