The International Rafale forum

This thread is linked to the Kovy's article/poll :
http://rafalenews.blogspot.com/2010/09/ ... ed-on.html

Up to now, it seems that the two favorites are the Aim-120 C7 Amraam and JDAM family.

I must say that i'm a bit surprised by the results.
American weapons are the favorite while i would have bet on the israeli weapons.

An interesting result is that almost all the IR missiles are rather high in the pool. this may show that most readers think that the Rafale need a cheaper alternative to the mica IR.

Hi, what I find very surprising is, that Aim 120 and JDAM have so many votes, although the Rafale offers METEOR and AASM in the latest competitions. Both similar weapons, but more capable than the US versions, so it would hardly makes sense for Dassault to offer them (especially JDAM).
Imo Dassault should focus on weapons, that have no alternatives in the actual weapon pack, or are clearly more cost-effective, for example the Brazilian MAR 1 ARM. The integration of this weapon would also be a point in the FX2 competition, same goes for integration of Indian weapons, like the new LGB, which should be cheaper than US Paveways.
India is interesting in regard of weapons anyway, because there were reports about French MBDA offering partnerships in weapon development, or production to India. This could help to bring the costs of weapons down, especially if India equip their forces with these weapons too und orders them in higher numbers.
So instead of replacing already available and good French/European weapons with US weapons, it should be better to focus on other alternatives from possible Rafale operators and to bring the costs of the own weapons down.

Regards