In all probability the French government has declared today & tomorrow a public holiday in honour of the single biggest order for fighter aircrafts in French Aviation History.
They're too busy celebrating the sale to Croatia, the repeat order of Egypt, and the massive sale to the Emirates.
42 was 30 (to complete the 210 total purchase according to the last defense white book) + 12 to replace the 12 x 2nd hand for Greece.
Wasn't the AdA supposed to get some 275 Rafales in different variants in addition to the Naval Fighters? Has AdA scaled back it's requirements?
At the very begining, the french armies need was for more than 300 (including 86 "M" variant). It was cut year after year.
The current order is for 180 on which 152 was delivered. So there is 28 to be delivered on current order plus 12 to replace the Greck ones + 12 to replace the Croat ones that's 52. These 52 will be delivered from January 2023 to September 2027 and will be F4.2 compatible at the begining and directly F4.2 at the end of 2024 until the end in 2027. But the LPM Define that we need 225 Fighter as a minimum. We have about 100 Mirage aircraft that we are in the process of removing, to maintain the 225 we will need to continue the delivery in 2027 so we will need to order before Sept 2024 a new tranche of 30 Aircraft which will be delivered from October 2027 to July 2030, but the last Mirage 2000 will be retired in 2032 so we will need again 15 Rafale begining in september 2030 to January 2032. That's a total of 97 F4.2 or upper standard for France. We certainly will need also some F4.2 Rafale M for our Navy.
The target has been 225 fighter aircraft across both air force and navy (so 180+45) for over a decade or two.
Yeah, Rafale doesn't sell to people who only buy American. Shock, horror. Again, Finland is not strategically important to France. I don't know if you are able to understand geography. Take a map of the world, look for the little tiny dots of French overseas territories, and try to find roads between the mainland and them that would naturally go through Finland. The focus is on the Indo-Pacific region, not Northern Europe.
Weren't the total number of Mirage 2000s in different variants around 300 for AdA? Considering 1:1 as replacement shouldn't AdA be ordering 300 Rafales or does AdA think 225 + say 20 will do the job?
For the moment 152 Rafale replace 593 old fighter (Mirage F1, Super Etendard, Crusader, Jaguar, Mirage 2000...) so 225 Rafale will do the Job!
There was only one source of the information that the F-35 won, which was picked up by everyone, and that source is a tabloid and is not very serious.
