Pak Fa Vs Rafale: Seriously? What About A Fight With American Stealth Fighters? Published June 2, 2017 SOURCE: Arush Singh/ FOR MY TAKE / IDRW.ORG Amid growing speculations on the social media that Russia demanded 7 billion $ for transferring critical technologies of the fifth generation super maneuverable PAK FA, some social pundits start preaching that the French Rafale is a better fighter option, India should focus on its own AMCA, the only advantage PAK FA have over Rafale is an internal weapons bay, Russia is opting for more 4.5 generation SU 35 fighter jets and reducing the number of PAK FAs because PAK FA is plagued with problems and so on. Once you go through the article, you will understand that PAK FA is not only a highly evolved SU 35 but is also way ahead of Rafale (or any other fourth-gen fighter). Russia is cutting down T 50 orders coz T 50 is costlier than an SU 35 and Russia cannot afford large fleets of T 50 due to its dwindling economy. For instance, Russian Economy dropped down by 3% in 2015 itself. Now coming to the AMCA program, the first flying prototype of AMCA is slated to be ready by 2035 only if Russia provides support on thrust vectoring controls, stealth technology, avionics, super manoeuvrability and so on. India, a co-developer in the T 50 program is currently suffering from reduced squadron strength and has budget constraints but to maintain aerial dominance and produce AMCA within the given time frame, there is a strong requirement that PAK-FA is produced in India and the same technology and supplier ecosystem can be utilised to fast track AMCA. In my opinion, India should get the Russian technology critical for AMCA even if it comes at a hefty price. India should reduce the number of these jets to 96 (8 squadrons with 12 jets each) though to allocate more funds to the Indigenous AMCA. Rafale is a tech beast and is truly a highly capable fourth gen fighter but comparing it with the capabilities of PAK FA is an insult of the Indo-Russian Masterpiece. HAL/Sukhoi FGFA (Indian derivative of PAK FA) will be an even more evolved version of PAK FA with 43 major India specific improvements already in place. Actually, FGFA comparable to the F22 Raptors and you will understand when FGFA is compared with Rafale in following aspects: 1.RADAR Basically, RADAR is an object detection system which is used to detect targets, lock on to them and fire missiles. The Radars on RAFALE and PAK FA are compared as follows: 2.ELECTRONIC WARFARE SUITE An EW suite is self-protection equipment which counters threat using Radar, Laser and Missile Warning Receivers for long-range threat detection. Apart from that, they generally have a Radar Jammer and decoy dispensers Thales SPECTRA is considered as one of the best ECM suites for a fourth generation fighter but SPECTRA is useless against Powerful Modern AESA Radars like the N036 radar on the PAK FA. On the other hand, L402 Himalayas developed for the T 50 uses both its own arrays and that of the N036 Radar system which gives it an unmatched capability to detect, jam and defeat RF-based systems. 101KSU/02 UV sensors have the capability to look both forward and backwards. Along with these, there are several other dedicated units present in the EW suite of PAK-FA which gives it an upper hand over SPECTRA. 3.ENGINE Several fanboys criticise PAK-FA to be underpowered and plagued with maintenance issues but they simply ignore the fact a completely new Izdeliye 30 is at the final stages of development after the Indian side expressed concerns over the previous engine. The new engine has fewer parts compared to its predecessor and generates 176 kN thrust in full afterburner compared to the tiny 75 kN Rafale M88 engine. With this new engine, PAK FA will be able to have a kinematic performance comparable to F22 Raptor with the capability to supercruise at Mach 1.6 and have a maximum speed of Mach 2.0. Even if some of the maintenance issues persists, the new engine is a generation ahead than the M 88 due to its supercruise capabilities. 4.STEALTH, MANOEUVRABILITY AND STALLED RECOVERY In these domains, Indo-Russian PAK FA is a masterpiece and even the makers of Rafale have to admit the fact that PAK-FA has a lower RCS than Rafale due to its unique design which addresses even the considered drawbacks of F 22 such as lack of space between engines for weapons bays. Apart from that, the radar blockers to be used in the front edge of the engine fan hides them from all angles. No such system is present on Rafale presently. Now coming to manoeuvrability, PAK FA employs 3D Thrust Vectoring which makes it highly manoeuvrable in both roll and yaw which enables it to maintain very high angles of attack (AoA). Rafale or any other fighter in the world is not even close to PAK FA when it comes to manoeuvrability. AMCA though have the potential to have even better manoeuvrability but it is possible only if Russian assistance is provided. Stalled Recovery system comes into picture if Thrust vectoring fails due to any reasons. Even the F 22 Raptor with 2D thrust vectoring doesn’t have any such system. 5.ARMAMENTS All fighters use a mix of missiles and bombs to maintain versatility and unpredictability in a combat. Most of our readers might have a belief that with METEOR, MICA, SCALP and other armaments Rafale holds an edge over PAK FA. But this is not true and the misconception will be cleared once the under development PAK FA receives FOC. Let’s go through the following table: (Note that the list contains weapons of Indian origin too which are intended to be present in HAL FGFA. Some of the PAK FA armaments are under development and some are still to be decided but their specifications of the ones known publicly are highlighted) 6.FRENCH RELIABILITY Assume that India conducts an ICBM test of a missile which can reach the United States or India does something that the USA consider threatening. It is likely that the US will consider it as a challenge to its global dominance and will try to force France to supply spares of the Rafale fighter jets and France will obey US orders due to NATO(like as in the case of Russian Mistrals). 7.CO-ORDINATION WITH S400 S400 is one of the most advanced air defences in the world. India ordered six of them. With the detection capabilities of S400 and Air Dominance by PAK-FA, it is unlikely that even an F 22 will find its space inside such an aviation complex. Since India will always have a defensive posture, PAK FA will always work under S400 umbrella in which it is invincible. AN ENCOUNTER WITH THE SO CALLED BEST FIGHTER: F22 RAPTOR ALONG WITH SEAD MASTER THE F 35 IN AN S400 DEFENDED AIRSPACE The F 22 Raptor is a masterpiece of stealth technology and is said to have an RCS of about 0.0001 sq.m. whereas the PAK FA have an RCS of 0.1 – 1.0 sq.m. But stealth technology hides the planes from Radars only and both the Jets are equally visible to IRST and Electro-optical systems. If PAK FA is able to draw F 22 within visual ranges, F22 is out of the air. So let us imagine that 6 F 22s, 8 F35As moving into Indian Airspace along with an AWACS to destroy a forward operating base and some other military assets of the IAF into an airspace guarded by S400(excluding other air defence units). Though unlikely, let us assume that the F 35s evade the S400 radar due to their unique SEAD capabilities and start moving ahead of the F 22s to take out the S400. Meanwhile, The S400 radar gave information to the Indian Command centre that there are some stealth aircraft at a distance of 380 km in Indian Airspace but cannot determine its exact location. Acknowledging the threat the Indian Central Command orders the S400 to engage the targets. As well as, gives the order to the IAF base to dispatch fighters asap. The S400, even after getting the order cannot lock on to the F22s or F35s at long ranges due to their low RCS. The F35As move ahead sneaking from the S400 and confusing S400 commander using MALDs. On receiving the command, IAF plans to send in its best, the FGFAs to counter them along with Rafales. 6 FGFAs and 6 Rafales approach towards the enemy. The AWACS detects Indian fighters at a distance of 320 km and gives this information to the US fighters. Since the F35As were moving ahead of the F22s, they started taking out S400 missile launchers spread over a wide area while tracking for the central command post which was hidden deep within forests. The Americans were confident that they will take out the targets and move out of Indian Airspace before the Indian fighters come to the rescue. But things changed drastically. The S400 command post located the American AWACS but cannot shoot it down as the F35 destroyed its long range SAMs in the first strike. The FGFA pilot comes to the rescue and fires two of its Novator K 100 missiles mounted on external pylons and took out the American AWACS. The Rafale pilots decided to take out the F 35s as they were partially visible to them on the RADAR and said the FGFA pilots to go and meet the F22s head on. But there was a little problem. The Rafale Radar was unable to track the exact location of F 35s to shoot them down. So, two of the FGFAs, with their powerful AESA Radars started tracking the F 35s in an air to air mode and gave the information to S400 and Rafales using its high-speed data link. The F 35 is designed specifically to evade ground radars and is partially more visible to powerful air to air radars. The S400 was still trying to lock on to F35s to fire medium-range SAMs while they were at a distance of 150 km. The S400 tracked another bunch of stealth jets, likely the Raptors to be at a distance of 220 km at that time. The FGFAs fired their BVR missile and took out 2 F 35s using the K77M BVR missile. On receiving the exact position of the F 35, the S400 fired its SAM ( all the launchers were supposedly not destroyed by the F 35 strikes) and took out 3 of the F 35s. Meanwhile, the Rafale targeted rest of the F 35s with Meteors and took them out. Since the F 35s detected the Rafale (FGFA undetected) too at BVR they fired their own BVR missiles and took out 4 Rafales in the BVR fight. In the meantime, the Raptors locked on to the Rafale from BVR ranges and took out the remaining two of them from BVR ranges. When the F 22 and PAK FA were at a distance of 100 km they noticed each other and fired BVR missiles on each other. Since the F 22 had a low RCS, the BVR missiles missed their mark and were able to simply damage an F 22 whereas the F 22s took out an FGFA during the first round of exchange of missiles between the two super fighters. Now the 5 FGFAs were against 6 F22 Raptors and the second round of BVR missiles were fired. This time the results were even with both sides losing one fighter each. The S400 too tracked an F22 and destroyed it with its own missiles. The F22s tracked and destroyed the S400 command post in the mean time considering it as the primary target. But by this time the super cruising FGFAs moved closer to the F 22s and turned on their IRST and electro-optical systems while turning off the radars. The F22s had similar IRST systems and they turned off the radars too. But now the distance between the jets was around 45 km and it was dogfighting time. The FGFA being a super manoeuvrable fighter had an advantage in this part of the battle. The Raptor pilots were highly trained and knew very well that the FGFA is a threat and tried to take them down quickly but the FGFAs by evasive manoeuvres and jammers, evaded Raptors missiles and fired its own missiles. Now the Raptors stealth didn’t come to its rescue and the 5 Raptors were lost without the loss of a single FGFA in the dogfight. Basically, what I tried to explain is that the current model of Rafale which India planned to buy is not as capable as PAK FA against stealth fighters and other future threats. It can be the frontline fighter of France in future but it cannot be an air superiority fighter of a future superpower. On the other hand, the PAK FA even though having higher RCS is able to bring the Raptors at dogfighting ranges where it excels above any fighter jet. So, rather than comparing Rafales with PAK FAs the fanboys should start comparing it with the Raptors and the Indian government should not hesitate to pay even the speculated 7 billion $ for critical PAK FA technologies. Just because Russian media doesn’t hype their jet to be an ultimate fighter like the western media, it doesn’t mean that Russian jets are incapable. Keep in mind guys, In any condition, Russia will be with us whereas you all know the American Government (not citizens) are loyal to nobody. They hesitate to even give us armed drones which we need to carry out bombing missions on terror outfits
idrw.org . Read more at India No 1 Defence News Website http://idrw.org/pak-fa-vs-rafale-seriously-what-about-a-fight-with-american-stealth-fighters/ .
idrw.org . Read more at India No 1 Defence News Website http://idrw.org/pak-fa-vs-rafale-seriously-what-about-a-fight-with-american-stealth-fighters/ .
