According to Indian media reports, after nearly a year of testing, the Indian Navy ended the performance of the French Dassault Rafale-M fighter and the US Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter, and submitted a very detailed test report to the Indian Ministry of Defense. Sources from the Indian Navy said that according to the evaluation results, Dassault Rafale-M is more suitable for the navy's combat requirements and combat standards than the Boeing 's F/A-18 fighter.
Indian media said that in any case, this French carrier-based fighter is in the leading position in logistics and other aspects, because Indian Air Force has purchased two squadrons of Rafale fighter and has established maintenance facilities in India, and the Air Force may buy more Rafale . The gusts used by the Navy can be fully maintained in the Air Force's maintenance facilities, and the two have commonalities. Moreover, France promised to redirect some active Rafale carriers from French Navy aircraft carrier for the Indian Navy to practice in advance without waiting.
Previously, many military experts believed that the gust-M without folding wings could not be used Indian Vikrant aircraft carrier . But According to the source, after actual tests by the Indian Navy, both the Rafale-M and the Super Hornet can use the lift on the Vikrant , but both must be lifted and lowered at a certain angle. Although the wings of the Super Hornet can be folded , it also needs to find the right angle to move up and down. Finding angles takes time and will affect the attendance rate of carrier-based aircraft . The size of this elevator has always been a problem with the Indian aircraft carrier, because it was based on the size of the MiG-29K and the Glory fighter at the beginning.
Currently Indian Navy Air Force uses the MiG-29K fighter jet, but with the Vikrant service, the MiG-29K is not in service enough for two aircraft carriers. Moreover, due to the many problems of this aircraft, the Indian Navy does not want to buy it from Russia anymore. At the same time, because the Glory carrier-based version of Ferra developed by itself was unbearable and could not serve for a long time, the Indian Navy's patience was wiped out and the Glory carrier-based version was abandoned, so they could only purchase carrier-based aircraft from other countries.
Interestingly, using outsourced carrier-based aircraft is temporary, because the Indian Navy is still betting on its domestic fighter jets. Indian Admiral Hari Kumar said on Saturday that the future of the Indian Navy's aviation force remains the local twin-engine carrier-based fighter (TEDBF), and its first flight is expected to begin production around 2032 between 2026 and 27. According to Indian practice, the equipment they developed will be more than 10 years longer than originally planned. Even if it only exceeds 5 years, it will be 2037. At that time, our "Five Generations of the Sea" have already entered service. Therefore, India's future carrier-based aircraft will be our "Fifth Generation of the Sea", rather than the J-15.
And at the moment, although the Indian Navy has chosen Gust-M, who will eventually choose. According to the source , this will be decided by the Indian Ministry of Defense to decide the next action, and the procurement contract is likely to be a transaction between the two governments, which will involve political factors. However, considers India's growing defense partnership with France, and France has interests in Indian Ocean , so even for political factors, the possibility of buying gusts is greater than that of the Super Hornet. Moreover, Super Hornet has a big deduction, that is, the United States has always been famous for sanctions, and it is easy to buy American weapons, but using American weapons will be subject to various constraints from the United States. So overall, the Indian government is more likely to finally choose the Rafale-M, which means it is most likely to be the J-15 opponent.
Indian media said that the Navy originally planned to purchase 57 carrier-based aircraft to equip two aircraft carriers, but in order to support the development of the local fighter , this number was cut to 26 aircraft, worth US$4 billion.It is worth mentioning that the Indian Navy's third aircraft carrier plan has been shelved. According to Indian Admiral R Hari Kumar, how the third aircraft carrier should be built has re-entered internal discussions because the Navy is satisfied with the test performance of the Vikrant.
currently has two plans. The first is to continue to build the originally planned large aircraft carrier 65,000-ton, but it was opposed by the Ministry of Military Affairs (DMA) due to fiscal austerity; the second is to build another ship according to the standards of the Vikrant. Although the Ministry of Military Affairs still opposes it, its manufacturing cost is 10,000 to 15,000 crore rupees (1.2-1.8 billion US dollars) cheaper than the large aircraft carrier above, and for the moment, the Navy is very satisfied with it. So India's third aircraft carrier is likely to be Vikrant II, which can carry about 30 carrier-based aircraft.
Indian media said that the French Dassault Rafale fighter adopts the delta wing design, can withstand overloads of up to 11G, and is available in single-seat and two-seat versions, which cannot take off and land on Indian aircraft carriers. The gust fuselage is 15.27 meters long and has a wingspan of 10.80 meters. It is equipped with a 30mm-caliber GIAT 30M/719B cannon, with 125 rounds of ammunition, with a maximum take-off weight of 24.5 tons, an internal oil carrying capacity of about 4.7 tons, and an external maximum ammunition load capacity of up to 9.5 tons. It can carry air-to-air, air-to-ground and anti-ship missile . It is an medium fighter . Its air combat capability can launch MBDA MICA EM short-range and IR medium-range air-to-air missiles, or meteor over-visual air-to-air missiles with a range of 200 kilometers.
Let’s take a look at the basic parameters of the J-15. Its length is 22.28 meters, its wingspan is 15 meters, its internal oil carrying capacity is as high as 9 tons, and its external maximum ammunition of more than 6.5 tons, with a maximum take-off weight of 32.5 tons. It can also be equipped with air-to-ground, and sea-to-sea-to-air missile . It is a multi-purpose heavy fighter. During air combat, PL-8 short-range, PL-10 short-range, PL-12 medium-range, PL-15 long-range air-to-air missiles can be mounted. The range of PL-15 is basically the same level as the meteor used by gusts.
Both are 4.5th generation fighter jets and both use active phased array radar . However, since the J-15 is an heavy fighter , it can carry a detection radar with stronger power and larger aperture, so its detection range is far from gusts. Although the J-15's radar reflects the cross-sectional area of the radar, the J-15 can still find the gust first, and in theory it can launch air-to-air missiles first.
In addition, the combat power of the same carrier-based aircraft when taking off with ski jump is significantly lower than that when taking off with ejection . During ski jump takeoff, in order to ensure safe takeoff, the carrier-based aircraft's ammunition load and oil carrying capacity will be reduced. Take the J-15 as an example. Its weight will not exceed 27 tons when it takes off on the Shandong ship and the Liaoning ship , usually around 26 tons, and the oil carrying capacity and ammunition load are 60% of the time it is at full load, which means that the combat radius will also be reduced by half. Of course, in order to ensure a certain combat radius, the bomb load will be reduced more, which is estimated to be between 2 and 3 tons. This is also the reason why we usually see that the J-15 only has 4 missiles during training. After 003 is put into service, when the J-15 uses electromagnetic catapult to , it can take off at full load and gain maximum combat power.
Similarly, when the Indian Rafale-M fighter takes off on Vikrant, its ammunition load and oil carrying capacity will be 60% or less of the full load state. Of course, since it carries less oil inside, it can only minimize the amount of bomb load without reducing the range, and the estimated bomb load is also between 2 and 3 tons. Overall, its combat power is slightly weaker than that of the J-15 when it uses the ski jump takeoff, and completely weaker than that of the J-15T when it uses the catapult takeoff. The most important thing is that after 003 is put into service, the J-15T will also have the assistance of the fixed-wing early warning aircraft KJ-600, while the Indian Rafale-M only has a helicopter early warning aircraft, and its performance is far weaker than that of the fixed-wing early warning aircraft.
