Why the Rafale F5 will be more attractive than the F-35.
After almost a decade without export contracts, between 2005 and 2015, the Rafale has established itself as one of the French defence industry's most important export success stories. Since Egypt placed its first order for 24 Rafales in February 2015, the French fighter has enjoyed a string of successes, initially in Qatar and India, then in Greece, Croatia, Indonesia and of course the United Arab Emirates, where the 80 Rafale F4s ordered by Abu Dhabi for €14 billion are the largest export contract ever signed by the French MIC.
With 284 aircraft exported and 225 fighters planned for France, the Rafale is a huge success for Dassault Aviation, especially as further export contracts are expected in the coming months, perhaps with announcements at the next Paris Air Show.
The Rafale has a lot to offer. A well-balanced aircraft offering rare versatility and much-appreciated aeronautical performance, it also boasts original, high-performance modern on-board electronics, as well as a range of munitions and other on-board systems that make it the best operational fighter of the moment, in every field.
Despite all these advantages, the Rafale has never managed to establish itself in Europe against Lockheed-Martin's F-35A, but only in the United Arab Emirates. It has to be said that the Lightning II has the support of the American media, the Pentagon and the US State Department, arguments that are strong enough to mystify the general public with the notion of a fifth-generation fighter, which is a marketing invention of Lockheed Martin, and to put pressure on the allies who are actually buying the American umbrella.
But things could well change in the coming years, or even months. During the parliamentary debates on the 2024-2030 Military Planning Law, the French Ministry of Defence set out a highly ambitious, and in some cases revolutionary, trajectory for the French aircraft, which could profoundly change the Rafale's relative position on the international stage, particularly in relation to the American F-35.
1- The first operational Air Combat System
With the modernisation of onboard systems, more and more tasks are being entrusted to the aircraft itself. In fact, on board a Rafale F3R, piloting and flight path control represent only a tiny part of the workload in the cockpit.
In fact, the aircraft not only handles the piloting, but also a large part of the combat mission, with the pilot's job being to determine the best course of action to take to carry out the mission and respond to the environment.
Like the SCAF programme, the Rafale F5 will be an Air Combat System, based on a system of systems, rather than a combat aircraft acting as the main vector for its deployed resources, as is still the case with the Rafale F4.
To achieve this, the Rafale F5 will be equipped with combat drones integrated into its own system, Neuron and Remote Carrier, each drone being controlled by the Rafale crew in order to coordinate and optimise the effectiveness of this system of systems.
In fact, the Rafale F5 will be one of the first to represent the 6th generation, which is characterised precisely by this new architecture. And while the US Air Force has announced that it intends to equip 300 of its F-35A aircraft with combat UAVs, like the Rafale F5 backed up by the Neuron and Remote Carrier, everything to date indicates that these Loyal Wingam-type UAVs attached to the NGAD programme will not be offered on the international stage, at least for a while.
Even if the F-35 were to be equipped with Loyal Wingman UAVs, its relative advantages, such as stealth, will have been erased or reduced, whereas the Rafale will be able to rely on requirements that are much more characteristic of this new architecture, particularly in terms of payload capacity and autonomy.
2- Neuron, Remote Carrier
For Team Rafale, this approach would be an economically viable and operationally effective alternative to the SCAF for France.
The new combat aircraft would extend the Rafale's operational capabilities and, above all, its potential to evolve to meet the demands of air combat in the years and decades to come, just as the Rafale has done and continues to do successfully in theatres of operation and on the export market.
The stealth combat drone, for its part, would provide the new aircraft with greatly extended surveillance, suppression and detection capabilities, including in highly contested environments, especially as it will probably be able, like the Rafale, to rely on airborne Remote Carrier UAVs to extend its capabilities.
3- New capabilities and new munitions
In addition to the UAVs themselves, the Rafale F5 will be equipped with new munitions. This is particularly the case in the SEAD domain.
Many people still think that the SEAD mission involves the massive use of AGM88 HARM missiles (or equivalent), and that this miracle weapon will be able to eliminate any air defence threat.
In the field, it doesn't take long to realise that this is not true.
The Rafale F5's SEAD mission will therefore be carried out with a wider scope than traditional SEAD assets. A large part of the success of SEAD missions is due to the ability of the coalition forces to combat SDAI in a global approach.
Contrary to some preconceived ideas, the eradication of Iraqi air defence in 1991 was at the very least a joint affair, setting an example of what becomes possible when all the available spectrum is used.
The coalition used air, land, special forces and naval forces to degrade, destroy and remove Saddam Hussein's air defences, using a variety of weapons and effects.
In Kosovo, for example, despite the fact that NATO SEAD operations accounted for 12% of total combat sorties, Serbian ground/air systems adapted their tactics to increase their survivability (blind fire, etc.) and, as a result, were able to remain partially operational throughout the conflict.
In 1999, NATO forces fired hundreds of anti-radar missiles with very little destructive effect against Serbian air defences.
The need for greater "interarmisation" of the SEAD mission was undoubtedly most evident during the Libyan campaign in 2011. During this campaign, the neutralisation of the enemy SDAI had to be accomplished, by necessity, with a wider field than the traditional SEAD assets, which were relatively uncommitted to the operation.
Although the Libyan armaments were old and therefore less advanced, the Libyan SDAI was relatively present, but above all singular. It often used non-military infrastructures for command, control and communications (C3), which complicated targeting for obvious legal and humanitarian reasons.
For example, to counteract the targetting specific to SEAD missions, the Libyan military used civilian air traffic systems, or even recent on-board commercial aviation technologies. In addition to supporting the Libyan civilian defence infrastructure, urban areas were used by the Libyan regime to exploit their inherent potential for collateral damage. This illustrated one of the many problems associated with the complexity of SEAD missions.
From 2016 onwards, by validating the approach during Tactical Leadership Program (TLP) exercises organised by NATO, the French Air Force reintegrated the SEAD mission into its capabilities by using the resources of the SPECTRA electronic warfare system combined with the SAR mode (synthetic aperture radar calculating a radar image of the ground) of the Rafale's RBE2 radar, which makes it possible to guide a non-specialised munition (GBU or AASM) on the coordinates of the enemy defence radar emission.
The Rafale F5 will also be designed to deploy the new Franco-British FMC (Future Cruise Missile) and FMAN (Future Anti-Ship Missile) missiles, which will respectively replace the SCALP/Storm Shadow cruise missile and the AM39 Exocet.
These two long-range precision munitions currently being designed will have advanced features, such as stealth and hypersonic speed, to challenge modern anti-aircraft defence systems such as jamming and decoy systems, and will give the aircraft highly advanced long-range strike capabilities in the decades to come.
The aircraft will also be fitted with a pod that merges the capabilities of the Talios target designation pod and the RECO NG reconnaissance pod into a single piece of equipment, giving the fighter highly accurate tactical air-to-ground, air-to-surface and even air-to-air vision, and thus multiple operational options while remaining in EMCON mode.
Finally, the Rafale F5 will be designed to operate the new ASN4G nuclear-tipped hypersonic cruise missile, which is to replace the ASMPA in the two squadrons of the French Air and Space Force and the flotillas of the French Navy forming the air component of the French deterrent. However, this capability, although critical for French defence, is unlikely to have much influence on the international market.
Other munitions and capabilities could be integrated into the Rafale F5 by 2030. These include light precision air-to-ground munitions such as Thales's BAT-120 LG, as well as medium-range prowler munitions, especially as these light weapons would naturally find a place on board the combat UAVs supporting the aircraft, including Remote Carriers. It will also benefit from the Rafale F4's current arsenal, including the Meteor and MICA NG air-to-air missiles, as well as the highly effective ASSM-propelled glide bombs.
As a result, by 2030, the Rafale F5 will have a comprehensive and highly modern operational toolbox, perfectly in line with and even superior in some respects to that offered by the F-35, depriving the latter of one of the key assets on which it is building its commercial success.
4- The Rafale Club revolution
The Rafale is also receiving a great deal of attention. A few days ago, the French Ministry of Defence presented an amendment to the National Assembly aimed at providing a framework for the development of the programme, in particular for the F5 version, which must have renewed data fusion capabilities, as well as new capabilities such as the suppression of enemy anti-aircraft defences, and above all the ability to operate alongside combat drones derived from the Neuron programme.
All the R&D work required to produce the Rafale F5 and the combat drone derived from the Neuron will be carried out during the 2024-2030 LPM, which implies, as the Defence Minister explicitly confirmed, that the two aircraft will enter service in 2030, or at least at the very beginning of the next LPM.
This statement was not the biggest surprise of the Minister's hearing. To develop and finance the new aircraft, the Minister intends to call on the Rafale Club, i.e. the current operators (Egypt, Qatar, India, Greece) and future operators (Indonesia, Croatia, United Arab Emirates) of the aircraft, to participate in this critical development of the programme.
This announcement undeniably represents a profound paradigm shift for the Rafale programme, and more generally for the way in which France now sees the relationships it intends to maintain with the operators of its weapons systems.
In concrete terms, several current and future operators see the development of the Rafale F5 as an operational and industrial opportunity. This is particularly true of India and Greece, which has an active aerospace industry. Egypt, and above all the United Arab Emirates, have major ambitions precisely to develop their respective defence aeronautics industries.
The shift in the commercial paradigm could potentially give new impetus to French fighter aircraft exports in the years to come.
This approach could have several positive effects. It will be possible to apply the same collaboration matrix as that used for the Neuron programme, which produced excellent results.
Finally, it will make it possible to extend the industrial base and orders for new equipment, in particular UAVs and probably new aircraft, and thus ensure the industrial activity and sustainability of the Rafale for the next decade and even beyond.
