"the array is distributed, the power is NOT"

 

Are you talking about the AEGIS system ?

Even so , I can 't see why the power would not be distributed ? In fact , it is distributed . It 's not the AESA system who 's "fabricating" its own power . If I have "X" watts to playwith , I can ask the 3 Aesa systems to work with each other through the software code like if it was one single system . The total available output power is managed and distributed by the processor Units in charge of the array(s) . This is the way it 's done if I am not mistaking .

 

You also said :

Except the Falklands campaign, which did show the need for the the RN to have radar control ( on a Seaking helicopter).

I didn't think of that, though I note that the Falklands started before the Bekea and finished after. In any case, the major point that I was trying to make is that neither the F-15 nor the F-18 has been proven on a level playing field with equivalent force multipliers against anything, and for that matter the F-14 and the F-16 have only been proven in that context against third gen or earlier types.

 

The only fourth gen on fourth gen engagement on a level playing field that I am aware of was a scrap between a Greek Mirage 2000 and a Turkish F-16, and the F-16 lost. Now if I was feeling naughty I would point out that the Rafale is the successor for the Mirage 2000, so that proves that the Rafale is the better aircraft, but I will demonstrate a bit of academic honesty and won't try to pretend that one engagement between earlier marks proves that. Instead I will state that the Libyan campaign has proven the Rafale as much as the teen series has been proven in engagements in which it has been involved.  

You mean the same Eurofighter consortium that has those "fiscal giants", Italy, Spain and the UK as members? I don't think those governments are going to be wanting to front up any tax concessions in their current state of affairs and neither will the poor old Germans, who are currently footing the bill for everybody else's cock ups in Europe.

 

Well yes, in terms of strategic importance you could quite easily argue that Italy, Spain, Germany, and the UK are a more influential and powerful bloc to do business with than France is. You could just as easily argue that the dire state of the US economy puts it in the same boat, yes the Eurozone's prospects are dire (good news for those of us opposed to the EU) but France's banking sector is the most exposed of all.

 

Re: Germany, I'm not sure how much you understand of the situation but they're actually footing the bill for their own cockup - the reason their economy has boomed since the inception of the single European currency is that the Euro in Germany is massively undervalued favouring their export-oriented economy, it is the relatively uncompetitive southern states that it has relied on to keep its export market profitable, that was why the Euro was such a good prospect for Europe's largest economy that had previously been uncompetitive due to the high valued DM  (and if the Euro collapses or splits the Germans and French above all others will be the losers). The German and French bureaucrats initially bent the rules and ignored the warning signs allowing Greece, Ireland, Portugal etc to join the Euro project and now they are faced with no easy way out.

 

But that may be irrelevant, what I am saying is that, yes, EADS et al have far greater offset scope than that of France, when you ignore the Nations for a moment and consider instead what Defense contractors you are talking about in the Eurofighter bid that should be relatively obvious.

 

 

As for the upgrade schedule, the Rafale is starting from a higher base in multi-role capability than the Typhoon and the EF consortium doesn't exactly have much credibility to be believed on their upgrade schedules. I don't really see the lack of Rafale foreign operators as a biggie for the Indians, the aircraft will be the principal multirole asset French Air Force for a very long time and the French are offering them full tech transfer, so it will be assured of being supportable.

 

Yes, as I said it depends on what India's priorities actually are, on paper the Rafale fits the MRCA contract as initially specified better than the EF, I said as much several times - it depends on what they view as the most important element, and the EF's capabilities are hard to ignore and quite possibly more relevant to India specifically than an upgraded strike capability. What IS clear is that the initial rules of the contest have been moved, strictly speaking it should be the cheapest of the two platforms that is automatically selected (including offset).

 

R

And Re: The above I didn't want to sound patronising or intimate you didn't have an understanding of the Eurozone, all I was trying to point out (and it is OT so apologies to everyone else) is that the Eurozone has worked very well for Germany indeed, it's not that those countries (greece etc) have suddenly started behaving badly, it's that they always have done, and the "strict" entry requirements were knowingly bent and fudged so as to allow the less competitive southern states to join, there is roughly a 30% disparity in productivity between the German and Mediterranean, that allowed Germany to trade at a competitive advantage using a cheaper currency (by more than 20%)  than would ever be possible if its value was not offset by a comparable overvaluation of the Eurozone's less efficient economies. It all has to balance and sooner or later you get to the point we are now at, which is that Germany will lose much of that accumulated capital in bailing out the southern states, or they allow QE (which is specifically banned under treaty and suffer huge, unpredictable inflation), or structured or unstructured disintegration...

 

Bottom line, the exact same factors that have until favored Germany will wipe out a large percentage of that accumulated wealth, a one-size-fits all approach that will only end up well for the bankers and bureaucrats who've long since covered their losses and passed the debt on to European taxpayers.

 

R

Re: Germany, I'm not sure how much you understand of the situation but they're actually footing the bill for

So do you see the US looking to divide the $US every time one state goes broke while others go better? Nope? Wonder why? 

 

The reality is that the Germans are footing the bill for the Greeks being useless over spenders and under workers, and exercise this laziness and gluttony through their political system. The Italians and Spanish are almost as bad. The loss of differential currency values through the Euro is just a distraction from the real issues, countries have to expect their citizens to work hard and governments shouldn't spend more than they earn. The Eurozone provided those economies with opportunities to benefit from increased intra European trade by reducing currency risk and transaction costs - opportunities that the UK doesn't benefit from, but  they have messed it up for now by being lazy and stupid. Hopefully for them they will have learned their lesson through t

No one can claim they have been whiter than white on this