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I think some of the really challenging aspects of this piece is there's a lot of comparisons that really hinge on details that are both fixable (ie, not baked into the F-35 vs Rafale airframe selection per-se), or are details that -really- the greater community couldn't possibility -really- have insight into. Examples: * When discussing situational awareness, the article grants similar raw data gathering capabilities to both platforms, but then grants the overall win to Rafale because of better data presentation, claiming that the F-35 just dumps piles of raw numerical data at the pilot. Now, given the age of this article, I can connect to problems that Lockheed Martin had in delivering working sensor fusion software around that timeframe. To be fair to the article, that was actually a problem. But as a software problem, it's much more fixable. I can't find any recent discussion on broken sensor fusion or F-35 information overload. * I automatically red flag high precision/confidence discussion about RCS, radar set and IR search/track performance. Like... it's for sure some of the most sensitive parts of fighter platform performance. I would take the entire section with a grain of salt as well. * The entire engagement scenario chosen heavily boils down to missile choice/availability. There's no argument that AIM-120D has significant limitations in range compared to some of its peers, but this is also a solvable problem (AIM-260 in development). Weapons availability/compatibility is definitely a valid consideration when choosing between platforms, but should be weighed appropriately. * The engagement scenario is also a bit weird. It doesn't consider for example a pair of Rafales vs pair of F-35 (which would be much more likely scenario... wingmen exist for a reason). It removes AWACS (while AWACS is obviously very vulnerable, it's unclear to me that they would be fully neutralized in a peer conflict). It doesn't consider that data-links might actually be hard to jam. Because it doesn't consider cooperation, it doesn't consider that perhaps F-35s could work together, with one using its radar and feeding it's data to the other. Basically, the engagement scenario removes the F-35's greatest structural advantage (it's radar stealth). Now, I think it's completely fair to consider that scenario, but to be honest you'd need to consider it against other engagement scenarios and then weigh the relatively likelihood/importance of the different scenarios. |