What next for Dassault's Rafale?

[BERKUT_SU]

The French White Paper on defence and national security published on 17 June appears to point to a significant reduction in the number of Dassault Rafale F3 multirole fighters that will be ordered by the French Air Force.

The document announces plans to decrease the number of combat aircraft across both the navy and air force down to a mix of 300 Rafales and upgraded Mirage 2000Ds. Given that plans exist to upgrade at least 50 Mirages under a mid-life upgrade (MLU) programme announced by the Délégation Générale pour l'Armement (DGA) in 2002, it now appears possible that the Rafale order will be limited to 250 platforms at the most.

This figure represents a decrease of at least 44 aircraft or 15 per cent of the originally intended order. Jane's Defence Forecasts estimates this will reduce the value of the contract by between USD3.4 billion and USD3.7 billion. Furthermore, if the Mirage 2000 MLU is expanded to incorporate additional aircraft then these figures could rise further. So far, contracts are in place for 120 aircraft including 38 for the navy.

Given that the navy's Super Etendard fighter aircraft will need to be replaced by the navalised Rafale M, necessitating the full 60-aircraft purchase, it appears that the reduction in platforms will come from the air force order.

Clarification on the issue of how many Rafales the DGA now plans to order is likely, Jane's understands, to come as part of a capability review that will follow the White Paper. French Defence Minister Hervé Morin has highlighted the importance of this review as existing projects such as the Rafale, NH90 helicopter and Tiger attack helicopter are expected to place considerable strain on the defence budget between 2009-11 as production schedules for these programmes accelerate.

In July 2007 Morin stated his belief that the current budget would need to be increased by as much as 43 per cent to accommodate the spending commitments expected in this period, warning that "a certain number of difficult decisions and tough choices" will have to be made on which future programmes continue, are deferred or delayed.

News contained in the White Paper that French defence-procurement spending will be increased from the current level of EUR15.5 billion (USD24 billion) per year to EUR18 billion a year between 2009-20 will serve to ease some of Morin's concerns. However, the White Paper's revelations suggest this is unlikely to prevent cuts to a number of key programmes including the Rafale.

WHAT MORE COULD BE COMING FOR THIS FIGHTER??

[Carlo]

The future doesn't seem bright for French military industry. Since the end of WWII until now, France managed to be the only European country to design and build all of their weapons: fighters, all kinds of missiles, radars, ships, tanks, aircraft carriers, ICBMs and SLBMs, etc. To keep all these industries, they had to export, and they always managed to sell their products abroad, to North African, Latin American and some Asian countries. But Rafale so far proved a complete failure in the foreign market; perhaps France will manage to sell a few dozens to Libya and Algeria, but it is for sure that it won't have the same success that Mirage III and 2000 had. Apart, now France has a president who want to bury de Gaulle's policy and will approach more NATO and the US, so it doesn't seem that there is political will to keep France strategically independent. It is likely that Rafale will be the last fighter fully designed and built in France.

[sicsok]

The French Defense Ministry is on the verge (allegedly decided) of cancelling even the Rafale for French use. This still would leave it for exports, but the technology just goes too fast for the design to test periods in comparison nowadays. This is why I can not over emphasise: robots are winning the manufacturing technology contest and weapons developments. Did anyone know that even with the humans exponential overpopulation rates - the robots in the last 15 years 30 times faster grew in numbers than people did.
So if you are unemployed, do not blame the immigrants anymore, unless you wish to sell burgers in fastfood joints...