RAFAEL VS J-10 C

RAFAEL VS J-10 C

SARASIJ MAJUMDER

After China, and Pakistan claimed that on 7^th May J-10 C shoot down Rafael – I saw at least 15 VDO clips, and 7 newspaper coverage on the subject. ‘HINDU’ being one of them. Some VDO clips were later withdrawn, or not available for reference.

Particularly there are two YOU-TUBE clips, in one, an EX-NATO expert pilot delivered a lecture, and in the other, somebody from Dassault was parroting the similar narrative, hinting loss of RAFAEL, & both the VDOs, indirectly implied that the Indian Pilot flying RAFAEL was not competent, or particularly attentive (?), and METEOR, or MICA missile attached to the hard spot of Rafael could be fired at right time to take down J-10 C. I, HOWEVR, CAN’T CONFIRM, WHETHER THE VDOs WERE GENUINE.

That is when I decided to study the details of two Fighter Jets from information available in public domain.

What I found is revealing!!

The Rafael isn’t inferior to the Chinese J-10C. In fact, the Rafael is probably a better plane if deployed on multi-Role Missions. J-10 C has limitations, when compared relatively, in some functions. J-10-C perhaps more or less an Air-to-Air missile launcher.

Most people possibly don’t know that it is no more the old day’s adventurous ‘DOGFIGHT’ between two fighter jets, where SKILL of PILOTS, and AVIONICS of the JETS were deciding factors.  That happened during India–Pakistan 1971 war, or the last one fought by our Wing Commander ‘ABHINANDAN’, flying a MIG-21, bringing down a vast superior m F-16 fighter jet in an aerial combat.

Today, the two fighter jets get engaged also in Digital Platforms, together with, or without their Ground, and/or Airbourne support systems.

Though CAPABILITY of respective Fighter Jets, and skill of Pilot still play very important role in their engagement—There Are Other Factor(S) That May Swing the Outcome.

The J-10, however, was designed for air-superiority in maneuvering, as first and foremost thing in mind, against the F-16 and Mirage 2000 that Taiwan was operating in the 1990s. Multi-role capabilities were added to it by Chengdu Aircraft Corporation later as an after-thought.

The J-10A could do Mach 2 and couldn’t do air to ground attack at all. This meant that the airframe of the J-10C, which was inherited from the J -10 A model, may be, just maybe, have excellent agility and maneuverability, making it a more capable dogfighter than Rafael. Rafael was conceived as a multirole Fighter Jet, from the very beginning, with speed less than Mach-2.

Just by eye-balling the available images including cockpits, it seems the J-10C has a bigger radar, a smaller frontal profile, a longer body and smaller wingspan. This is better suited for high speed and Beyond Visual Range (BVR) air to air missions. That seems to be its FORTE.

Add to that Chinese radar technology, which may be ahead of DASSAULT due to better employment of rare earth minerals, which is a Chinese forte.

Hence, the J-10C may be, in short, has an edge in air-to-air dogfight compared to RAFAEL, Only in An Independent Mode.

Still, I think the deciding factor in the Pakistan-India air battle in the early morning of 7^th May, 2025, was that the J-10C, as well as the PL-15E missiles it fired, could receive data and guidance through datalink from other Chinese-made support system close to the area, like the Chinese AWACS in air and ADS on ground, whereas Indian Rafaels and its Missiles were pretty much on their own, as it’s questionable how well the French technology interact with India’s SUDARSHAN ( based on Russian-S-400), Indian NETRA,  and Israeli AWACS. Particularly—WITHOUT ‘SOURCE CODE’ shared with India—this integration may not be perfect.

A Chengdu J-10C fighter jet can carry and fire two PL-15E missiles, almost one after the other, at the same or different target(S).

BVR (beyond view range), EWS (electronic warfare system) and SENSORS FUSION were fully used by the Pakistani pilot, operating under probably Chinese guidance.

Pakistan had and could operate nine AWACS aircraft. Those are Saab 2000 Erieye Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) aircraft. Pakistan acquired these aircraft from Sweden between 2006 and 2024. Two of them are sure destroyed by India in this conflict.

The Indian Air Force currently operates a total of six AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control Systems) aircraft. These include three Israeli Phalcon AWACS mounted on Russian IL-76 aircraft and three Netra AEW&C (Airborne Early Warning and Control) aircraft mounted on the Embraer ERJ-145 platform. 

Getting “SOURCE CODE” of RAFAEL could have helped India to integrate RAFEL with Russian, Indian, and Israeli systems. This is FAULT OF DASSAULT/FRENCH GOVERNMENT—as they refused to share the ‘SOURCE CODE’, in spite of repeated requests from India, thereby compromising the combat ability of RAFAEL and options of INDIAN PILOT got reduced in a demanding situation.

Any amount of ‘EXPLANATION BY OEM VENDOR’ will look like excuses now!!

SOURCES:

• https://www.dassault-aviation.com/
• https://theaviationist.com/2024/11/28/dassault-rafale/
• https://skybrary.aero/aircraft/rfal
• NEWSPAPERS, VDO CLIPS FROM YOU-TUBES.
• IMAGES: GOOGLE