"Charles Talleyrand" wrote in message
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"Paul F Austin" wrote in message
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"WaltBJ" wrote
IS the Rafale dead? Nobody answered the question.
BTW the US armed forces, with the exception of the Navy, didn't have
anything to fight with in 1941, let alone 1939. Look it up.

It's not dead but it is very ill, for lack of foreign military sales.
France
alone can't manage Rafale procurement at a rate that would give them a
viable force in reasonable time, not when she is funding the A400M, a
new
carrier, procurement of the fourth Triomphant.. All those things are
also in
competition with social security funding as the French population ages.

It seems very unlikely that the Rafale will *ever* have a foreign
military sale. The best chance is 25 years from now when France wants
to upgrade, and the planes are both used and cheap. Or maybe politics
can force someone like Taiwan to buy them (but I doubt it).

In the case of Taiwan, politics are what would prevent any possible sale of
Rafale. IIRC the French said "uncle" after their last sale of Mirage 2000's
to Taiwan (back when the US was reluctant to provide the F-16) provoked the
ire of the PRC. ISTR France decided then to promise not to sell further
advanced weapons to Taiwan lest they lose out on (potentially) more
lucrative sales of goods to the PRC.


Seriously, it's hard to imagine the nation that would pick the Rafale
when the Typhoon and the F-16/18 are available.

I suspect that part of Rafale's problem is the perception (mostly
unjustified) of lukewarm interest in it from the French forces themselves,
which is really more of a budgeting problem. It is not a bad airplane, but
the sluggish pace of development, coupled with past overly-optimistic and
premature pronouncements regarding its capabilities (i.e., trying to sell it
as a first-rate multi-role platform when it was still just emerging as a
single role performer) during sales attempts to various nations, have
repeatedly left it in the "also ran" category. Add to that the fact that a
couple of the nations where it has been marketed were more interested in
acheiving/maintaining interoperability with US forces than they were with
French forces. I'd guess that Brazil was their best hope for an export sale,
but last I heard that competition has again been delayed due to money
concerns.

There has been some high-level talk in the recent past of India entering
into a coproduction deal with Dassault on the Mirage 2000-9. If you take the
recent reports of Indian dissatisfaction with the Su-30 into account, and
the potential impact upon plans to coproduce those aircraft in India, the
possibility of the Indians changing horses midstream and maybe looking at
Rafale as its premier future platform is a bit intriguing--rather unlikely
as of yet, but still...

Brooks