French Military News Thread

[Scratch]

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French Navy set to test novel landing craft design

The French Navy is set to begin an evaluation of a novel variable-draught landing craft known as the L-Cat, to assess its suitability as a potential future expeditionary watercraft. ...

That's an interesting new design. A little transformer out there.

 

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New radar could boost Rafale's export prospects

French industry is pinning its hopes for reviving the flagging export fortunes of the Dassault Rafale fighter on the entry into production this month of Europe's first active electronically scanned array radar.
[...]
Thales will start delivering AESA RBE-2 radars to the French air force from 2010 under a €200 million ($256 million) contract covering final development and the initial production of up to four units. Chaltiel expects the French defence ministry to award a full series production contract worth "several hundreds of millions of euros" for the RBE-2 in 2009, to equip the French military's fourth tranche of Rafales, expected to number around 60 aircraft.
[...]
Swapping out the Rafale's passive electronically steered antenna and replacing it with the active antenna takes "less than one hour", says Chaltiel, although France is yet to commit to a retrofit of its existing Rafale fleet. The AESA radar face improves detection range by "about 40% compared with previous technologies of radar", says Chaltiel.

Meanwhile, the Rafale's ability to shoot down an enemy aircraft using only passive detection was demonstrated for the first time in October, says Chaltiel. Two aircraft flew "several miles apart", the first using electronic support measures to monitor the target and communicate its track via Link 16 datalink to the second Rafale.

The second aircraft also passively tracked the target using its infrared search and track system and was able to achieve a lock-on by sending "a few pulses" from its laser rangefinder. The enemy aircraft was then "shot down" using an MBDA "Mica-type" air-to-air missile with an active seeker that became effective at a range of around 18km (10nm), says Chaltiel.
[...]
Thales says that the integration of the RBE-2 positions the Rafale as the only fighter in its class to be equipped with active arrays for both its radar and electronic warfare suite.

Finally, europe gets it's own fighter AESA airborne.
This passive engagement part is also interesting, although using a laser range finder is not really passive.

 

[Scratch]

More news on the evolution of the Rafale:
I wonder what exactly would make the F4 a "true 5th gen aircraft"?
Also, the UAE is building up a really capable airforce. Block60 F-16 and modern Rafale jets.

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Dassault-UAE May Have Rafale Deal This Year

By PIERRE TRAN - Published: 3 May 2010 17:16

PARIS - Discussions between France and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on a prospective next-generation Rafale strike fighter are taking longer than expected but Paris hopes an agreement can be reached on a "common core" aircraft by the end of the year, a French official said May 3.

An agreement reached by "the end of 2010" would open the way for delivery of the more capable Rafale model in 2014 and a flying operational life in 2015, said the official, who is familiar with the negotiations.

The talks on cooperation also mean the French Air Force and Navy could get an advanced F4 version of the Rafale earlier than planned. The F3 standard is just entering service and is expected to fly until 2018-20.

The F4 model would be a true "fifth-generation" aircraft, the official said.

[...]

The main additional capabilities under discussion with the UAE include an active electronically scanned array radar, advanced electronic warfare and frontal sector optronics gear, and a nine ton thrust version of the M88 engine. ...

 

[Stealthflanker]

So i made myself a Rafale model. Commissioned and well because Indonesia is going to be an operator.

As usual Frontal aspect because most if not all really cares only about that i think.





The model includes :
-Inlet duct system and cooling vents
-Mock-up of the engine
-smol details like tailhook, OSF etc

Clean configuration atm. No RAM treatment except the inlet duct which assumed to be treated with 3 mm of magnetic absorber.

The modeling is at 12 frequencies spanning from VHF down to X-band. In 2 assumption, existence or non-existence of a Bandpass radome. That my client suggest that Rafale does not have bandpass radome, thus its AESA are fully exposed. So i decided to model both conditions.

Here is some animation on how the clean Rafale interacts in each frequencies.

and the "big picture" the tabulated Median value. Compared to a clean F-16 fighting Falcon.



Basically Rafale have higher RCS than F-16 in VHF frequencies and without FSS/Bandpass radome it's higher in other frequencies too.

However I do think some people may consider 1-1.5 sqm RCS to be small, considering that F/A-18E was claimed to have that RCS too (1 sqm improved over 5 sqm for classic F/A-18C/D) However i don't know what frequency or other information regarding superhornet's RCS reduction.

 

[siegecrossbow]

So i made myself a Rafale model. Commissioned and well because Indonesia is going to be an operator.

As usual Frontal aspect because nobody really cares more about that i think.

View attachment 110657

View attachment 110658

The model includes :
-Inlet duct system and cooling vents
-Mock-up of the engine
-smol details like tailhook, OSF etc

Clean configuration atm. No RAM treatment except the inlet duct which assumed to be treated with 3 mm of magnetic absorber.

The modeling is at 12 frequencies spanning from VHF down to X-band. In 2 assumption, existence or non-existence of a Bandpass radome. That my client suggest that Rafale does not have bandpass radome, thus its AESA are fully exposed. So i decided to model both conditions.

Here is some animation on how the clean Rafale interacts in each frequencies.

and the "big picture" the tabulated Median value. Compared to a clean F-16 fighting Falcon.

View attachment 110656

Basically Rafale have higher RCS than F-16 in VHF frequencies and without FSS/Bandpass radome it's higher in other frequencies too.

However I do think some people may consider 1-1.5 sqm RCS to be small, considering that F/A-18E was claimed to have that RCS too (1 sqm improved over 5 sqm for classic F/A-18C/D) However i don't know what frequency or other information regarding superhornet's RCS reduction.

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In fact, an AESA flew on Rafale in May 2003. According to Ramstein, a migration to AESA has been considered from the early days of the programme, and the RBE2 is designed so that an AESA front end can replace the current passive antenna and TWT. Power and cooling are adequate for the job. A programme called Demonstrateur de Radar a l'Antenne Active (DRAA) started in 2000, and the radar flew on a Falcon in late 2002 before flying in Rafale B301. "It was a difficult integration, taking two or three days," jokes Ramstein. The problem, however, is that DRAA relied on US-sourced high-power processing chips - which, after Korea and the Iraq war, no longer seemed like a good idea. A new AESA version of the RBE2, DRAAMA (DRAA modes avancées), using all-European technology, was launched in July 2004 and will be ready in 2007-08. "We have a firm commitment to AESA, which allows us to propose it for export," Ramstein says.
However, Dassault and Thales are not proposing to make the AESA the all-encompassing RF Cuisinart that Boeing (for example) envisages for the Super Hornet, with features such as passive detection, multi-beam operation and jamming. Nor does the team intend to exploit the AESA's wide bandwidth, which would mean a new radome. (This suggests that the current radome is a bandpass design, transparent at the RBE2 frequency but stealthily reflective at any other.) Rather, the approach is to minimise cost and risk by keeping the same modes as the RBE2, while harvesting what are seen as the most valuable advantages of the AESA. These include a 50 per cent-plus increase in detection range - a better match for Meteor - much better performance at the edges of the elevation and bearing envelope, better reliability through the elimination of single-point failures and lower through-life costs. With only 120 aircraft planned by 2012, the pace of the Rafale programme has been influenced more by budget considerations than by technology.

 

[Stealthflanker]

Thank you. Oh and feel free to move the post to France military thread. Apologize that i havent seen the thread before.