How Did a Rafale Just Shoot Down an F-35 in Simulated Combat? Scripted Engagements Provide PR Opportunity

French sources have widely reported that a French Air Force Rafale fighter is likely to have achieved a simulated kill against a U.S. Air Force F-35A during the Trident Atlantic 25 multinational military exercise in Finland, which has the potential to represent a significant public relations victory for the aircraft. The French Air Force released a44 second video showing a Rafale achieving a radar lock against the F-35, before an audio “take the shot” is heard, indicating the pilot fired a simulated missile shot. The Rafale is subsequently seen achieving a target lock on a Finnish Air Force F-18C/D twice. The emergence of this footage comes at a time when the Rafale program has faced a public relations disaster, after between one and five of the aircraft flown by the Indian Air Force were shot down during clashes with the Pakistan Air Force, reportedly by Chinese supplied J-10C fighters.

With the Rafale having cost the Indian Defence Ministry over $240 million per fighter, and having long been criticised for its limited combat capacity and extreme expense, the aircraft’s performance has further deepened the controversies facing several of its clients. European fighter aircraft have long been criticised for being far from cost effective, while lagging far behind their Chinese and American counterparts in performance. The J-10C that reportedly achieved kills against the Rafales is notably not considered one of China’s top five most capable fighter classes, while the Rafale is widely considered the most capable European fighter aircraft. The Rafale has consistently lost every tender in which it has competed against the F-35 or the F-15, and several tenders against the Russian Su-30 and the F-16, with the aircraft having achieved sales primarily in states which for political reasons cannot procure either leading non-Western competitors or the F-35.

The F-35 is considered in a league of its own alongside its Chinese rivals the J-20 and J-35 in terms of performance and sophistication, and has consistently demonstrated overwhelming advantages over all other Western fighter classes, with the partial exception of newer variants of the F-15. The American stealth jet has nevertheless been shot down in a number of simulated engagements in the past by much less capable aircraft, which had depended largely on the scripting of engagements. Although the F-35’s beyond vital range combat capabilities are totally unrivalled outside China, simulated air-to-air engagements, and particularly international ones, have often prohibited fighters from engaging using radar guided missiles, forcing them into visual range fighters. Although the Rafale’s flight performance is far from exceptional, with its engines being by far the weakest of any fighter in production in the world today, the fighter’s position against the F-35 is nevertheless far less unfavourable when engaging at such ranges.

Engagements between both Chinese and American fifth generation fighters and their fourth generation counterparts have often been scripted to even the playing field between them. Although more capable fourth generation fighters with particularly large and powerful sensor suites and excellent flight performances such as the F-15EX and J-16 have proven capable of avoiding overwhelming losses against fifth generation fighters during simulated engagements, for much lighter and less capable fourth generation fighters with relatively small radars such as the Rafale, F-16 or J-10, a continuous spate of overwhelming losses would be expected if engaging the F-35 or its Chinese counterparts.

The odds facing fourth generation fighters can be improved by a number of means, including preventing the fifth generation fighters from jamming incoming missiles, and providing fourth generation fighters with support from electronic warfare aircraft and airborne early warning and control aircraft to increase survivability and situational awareness. With the Rafale urgently in need of good press after its losses in Indian hands, particularly as France has renewed efforts to market more of the aircraft to India and Indonesia, the use of scripted engagements to allow the aircraft to achieve simulated kills against F-35s provides an effective means of providing this.