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Originally posted by waynos
To boil it right down to basics the Rfafale is essentially an all-French, smaller, lighter, cheaper and less capable equivalent to the Typhoon. For instance if you wanted the ultimate modern fighter you would buy Raptors (if you could) if you wanted pretty much a similar level of capability at a lower price you would buy Typhoon, taking it one step further if you wanted the best fighter out there thats cheaper still and/or had a carrier to equip you would buy Rafale. Of course there's more to the argument than that but thats the basics.
Originally posted by FredT
Here I go again. Perhaps the Rafale is cheaper because the maker is getting support to keep the line open and offer it at below costs to keep the factory going?
Rafale Mk 2 development will cost an estimated $730 million. No state finance will be directly involved, but Dassault, Snecma and Thales will no longer be required to provide 25% of the $1.9-billion cost of developing AdlA and Aeronavale Rafales to F2 and F3 standards. Nor will Dassault suffer financially from Aeronavale's decision last year to switch 40 of its planned purchase of 60 Rafale Ms to two-seat BM combat versions.
Originally posted by Daedalus3
is the Euro arms embargo on China over?
Its got to go very soon..