Saudis pledge to buy 96 French Rafale jets

Actually thats a complete wrong call there by edsinger. The MiG 21 and the F-4 were not equivalents in any way other than the timescale in which they appeared. The MiG 21 was more copmparable with aircraft like the F-104 whilst the closest Russian equivalent to the F-4 was the Su-15, and even that was not really the same as it lacked the multirole capability of the Phantom, which was indeed the greatest heavy fighter of its generation, I don't get what Daedalus is on about with this one?

Oh nothing really..

Not heard much about the F-4 really..Besides it being shot down a lot in NAM..
Anybody got some stats on the F-4s success rate in NAM ??
Yes actually the F-4 was a fighter-bomber of sorts while the MiG21 and the F-104 were interceptors..

What was the time frame of the F-4? 60s-70s?..
When did the Jaguar first come out..
And what were the French jets at the time..
Its not just american jets vs. russian jets really..
Everybody's invited..

Well I can help you out with some facts there,

The F-4 first flew in 1958 and entered service with the USN IN 1960. It stayed in production until about 1980 and over 5,000 were sold all over the world.

The Jaguar first flew in 1968 and entered service in 1973.

When the F-4 debuted Frances main new fighter was the Mirage III while the Mirage IV bomber was just a year or so behind. The most widespread operational French fighter was the Mystere IV and Super Mystere.

Originally posted by ufo3
Rafale's seem to be popular i think China may also be considering them too.

IT remains to be seen how much they are actually charging the Saudi's for the jet. Dessault, or better yet the French government, is despirate for an export sale of thier plane otherwise the stretched out production run will have to stop at some point. No doubt that the french goverment offered them good terms on the plane and if they break even on it I would be surprised. List price is always quoted even for civil airliners (Both Boeing and Airbus do this) but actuall price is different. Saudi is unlikely to be enticed by production offsets and the like.

The Rafale to China? Yes no doubt that is a consideration. Please do not forget the 5 plane order for the A380 following the Chirac / Schroder holding hands and singing Kumbayah with the Chinese leadership last year. Those orders came with some conditions no doubt.

Excuse me? The F-4 was multi role yes but the F-4 tangled with the Mig 21 in Nam quite a bit, they are the same generation as the Mig-19 was just a wee bit older.

Now for some serious notes, The F-4 and MiG 21 probably tangled more than any 2 fighters since the 50's.

The F-4 had more capability than the 21 although the 21 could theoretically out dogfight the Phantom, I guess they found out this wasn't necessarily the case when they back added a 20mm gun on her.

Pilots? or the Plane?


I think a combination of both, but after that generation the MiG23 came and it never really lived up to the hype, the Mig29 was the first Soviet warplane that could really out dogfight the US planes 14-18 series and the first real advantage in a dogfight since the Mig15 vs to F-80, The electronics however left much to be desired.

If it was my pilot...........

Nah, China's not gonna buy any Rafales, first of all, the Varyag was just moved into drydock THIS month and its gonna take sometime to get it finished, we're not even sure if its gonna be fully finished or furnished into a training ship. The embargo is still on so there is no way that France could get the planes to China. China does not currently need a twin engine carrier oriented aircraft as our J-10C (twin engine, CVN capable) aircraft is well underway. The news about China purchasing Rafales came from a Taiwanese propaganda website and the main purpose of that website is to post BS and spread rumours and China Threat.

[edit on 29-4-2005 by COWlan]

I still think waynos is correct..
The F-4s were mainly used in NAM for Ground strike missions (like the IAF hunter) while the F-104 (Maybe 105 as well) were used for escort and interceptor roles..
I can say from experience

( "JANE's USAF" NAM missions!! )

The F-4s used in 'Nam had only missles and no gun. Back then,they had more advanced radar, but they still couldn't tell a MiG-21 from a friendly F-4 until they were visually sighted, and at those ranges, AIM-7s only had a rough 10% chance of hitting a MiG-21, which would make it hard for a F-4 to shoot down a MiG-21.

When the F-4 was originally introduced, it had a poor showing 1-1 and did not have a gun. Later Models did and when the tactics were changed the kill ratio rose to 10-1.


Just so those stats last night on the Military Channel.

Edsinger, Although they tangled a lot in combat it doesn't mean that they are the same. The F-4 and MiG 21 are as different from each other as the F-15 and the F-16 are. I make this point only in response that you said that the MiG 21 was the Russian equivalent of the F-4, not in the wider context of the argument. In fact both countries had very different ideas on combat aircraft at this time so really there was no Russian equivalent of the F-4, strictly speaking.

Daedalus, the F-105 was a bomber, just like the F-117 is, it even had an internal bomb bay, one of the very few 1950's/60's fast jets that did (I can only think of the HS Buccanneer at the moment) that wasn't a strategic bomber.

The F-4 was a fighter bomber combo so I guess the MiG23 -MiG27 would be the equivalent but those were not in theater....

I would say that the MiG 21 and F-4 were equivalent in the sense that it was the front line fighter for both parties in Nam.


Of course the Mig21 was more maneuverable but the F-4 had the engines to make the difference.

They were both frontline fighters yes, but they were based on very different concepts, for example, the MiG-21 was designed for the 1940s' style dogfights, while the F-4s were designed around missles, which is why early models didn't have the guns required to dogfight, meaning the F-4s had a disadvantage at visual range while the MiG-21s had a disadvantage further away. After the Nam war both sides learnt from each other, for example F-4s now had guns, and MiG-21s were modified to fire R-60s.

Originally posted by waynos

Daedalus, the F-105 was a bomber, just like the F-117 is, it even had an internal bomb bay, one of the very few 1950's/60's fast jets that did (I can only think of the HS Buccanneer at the moment) that wasn't a strategic bomber.

Ah yes the thunderchief isn't it?..
The one capable of carrying nukes..

Originally posted by Daedalus3
I still think waynos is correct..
The F-4s were mainly used in NAM for Ground strike missions (like the IAF hunter) while the F-104 (Maybe 105 as well) were used for escort and interceptor roles..
I can say from experience

( "JANE's USAF" NAM missions!!

)

F104 was almost purely a fighter but never dogfighted that I know of.

The F-4 was given an ad on gun pod soon after its introduction and the realization that to leave one out was stupid.

Just a quick thought on the original thread, I think the Saudis have chosen the Rafale instead of the Typhoon purely because BAe Systems are being investigated for having a 60 million pound slush fund which was used to "ease" the way for BAe defense contracts and the Saudi Royal family have said that if they are named or implicated in any way in the investigation there will be no more british defense contracts and all the BAe Saudi insructors/technicians will be asked to leave the country!

I know this because, until recently I was over there as an instructor and heard a lot of rumors about this very thing happening!.

Sv Out!!!!

SilentVulcan,

From speaking to several mates who are either out in the Magic Kingdom or have come back recently I get the feeling that most of them want to come home anyway.

Cheers

BHR

the rafales that are going to be sold to Saudi Arabia won't be fully equipped. France is not crazy

It is not certain yet that the Saudi's will buy Rafales, despite reports. Apparently it is quite normal for the Saudi's to do this sort of thing and (for example) shortly before the Al Yammamah (Sp?) deal for Tornadoes was signed the Saudis had been indicating that they were going to buy the Strike Eagle.

Thats not to say that the Saudis will buy the Typhoon anyway, just that its not settled yet.

The Saudis come 2nd at foreign purchases at a whopping 2.9$ billion USD..
India at 5.3 $ billion USD and China at 3rd at 2.2$ billion USD..