IAF Rafale Jet
Brandon J. Weichert argued that IAF issues alone can’t explain the PL-15’s effectiveness against India’s advanced jets. Once hailed as elite, India’s Dassault Rafales disappointed during their first real combat experience. This underwhelming showing quickly caused tension between the Indian and French governments.
Moreover, Rafale’s poor start in the recent conflict shocked many defence observers around the world. As a result, several French defence clients have started reviewing their aeroplane deals.
Last week, Indonesia launched an audit into its Dassault Rafale fighter jet contract. Although officials did not provide a reason, the concerns clearly arise from the performance of India’s Rafale jets in their engagements against Pakistan. Jakarta may be rethinking the value of its costly deal after seeing India’s experience.
Naturally, France has responded by defending its flagship aircraft. This week, French officials blamed India for the Rafales’ poor performance. They cited pilot errors and inadequate maintenance instead of flaws in the aircraft itself.
This move appears aimed at shielding the Rafale’s global image. After all, France cannot afford to lose more buyers. Meanwhile, India faces pressure to explain its apparent aerial shortcomings. Both sides now appear locked in a quiet diplomatic row. The Rafale Jet, once a symbol of prestige, now carries doubts over its real-world combat value. Dassault is facing unprecedented challenges in defending its highly valued export.
India Denies French Auditors Access to Rafale Jets
Unverified reports in the global media and on social platforms suggest that the Indian government is denying Dassault’s audit team access to India’s Rafale Jet arsenal.
Auditors from Dassault seek to examine the Indian Rafale Jet fleet to verify the absence of any technical difficulties potentially overlooked by the Indian Air Force (IAF).
The Indians are likely to be apprehensive regarding this request. What is the reason? New Delhi apprehensively suspects that the primary objective of the French auditors is to attribute the subpar performance of the Dassault Rafales to the Indian Air Force.
After losing at least one Rafale jet in the early stages of India’s recent conflict with Pakistan, speculation arose that the Rafales weren’t the problem.
They have suggested that inadequate IAF pilot training and negligent maintenance standards over many years are responsible. The Indians unequivocally refute this assertion.
While Indian standards may have played a role in the disaster, a more straightforward explanation is probable: the French are attempting to obscure the reality that their intricate Rafale jets no longer possess sufficient superiority over Pakistan’s Chinese-manufactured aircraft to warrant their significantly higher cost.
The Indian Air Force has been unprepared for more than a decade.
Substantial evidence clearly suggests that Dassault, who is experiencing significant embarrassment, may legitimately harbour fear.
In December 2024, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India and the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence reported a recruitment crisis impacting India’s military.
The IAF is experiencing a significant pilot deficit, which escalated from 486 in February 2015 to 596 in 2021, highlighting the increasing difficulty in sustaining operational readiness, as reported by Shivani Sharma of India Today on December 20, 2024.
The CAG report is increasingly critical of the IAF’s relentless yet ultimately futile attempts to recruit an additional 222 trainee pilots from 2016 to 2021.
Staff shortages hindered the IAF’s efforts to address operational problems with essential training aircraft, including the Pilatus PC-7-Mk-II. In the absence of dependable training aircraft and a significant deficiency of qualified pilots, the IAF was on the brink of failure should war ensue.
The Parliamentary Committee stated that the pilot-to-seat ratio of 1.25:1 for fighter aircraft was inadequate for the “high-intensity operations” characteristic of India’s four-day conflict with Pakistan.
IAF Fighter Squadrons
The IAF possessed only 31 fighter squadrons, whereas the national air doctrine mandated a minimum of 42. Consequently, the IAF did not retire obsolete aircraft and introduce new ones promptly, thereby diminishing its defence preparedness.
The French auditors are evidently cognisant of these issues. Despite thorough documentation, these issues went unaddressed for a decade before the outbreak of war earlier this month. The measures implemented by the Indian government to address their aircraft and pilot shortages were ineffective.
The question then emerges: why did Chinese-manufactured Pakistan Air Force (PAF) aircraft use PL-15 air-to-air missiles to down the Rafales? Was it due to the Indians acquiring overvalued French armaments and systems, or was it merely a consequence of the Indian military’s inadequate preparation for the conflict at hand?
The crisis within the IAF alone cannot account for the exceptional performance of Pakistani PL-15 missiles against India’s ostensibly superior air capabilities. In other words, regardless of any preparedness issues within the IAF, they cannot obscure the deficiencies associated with the French armaments and aircraft that India employed against Pakistan.
No one should underestimate the significant advancements the Chinese have achieved in developing systems that are comparable to, or potentially superior in certain instances to, the costly and intricate Western systems.
Dassault decided to withhold the Rafale Jet source code from India.
Simultaneously, the Indians are expressing their dissatisfaction with Dassault, the French manufacturer of the Rafale jet, in a public manner.
India’s primary complaint against Dassault is the company’s continual refusal to provide the source code for the Rafale jet to the Indian Air Force, despite India’s status as a longstanding client.
Although some may presume the delay is solely to safeguard Dassault’s valuable intellectual property, it is essential for the Indians to access the source code to guarantee uninterrupted maintenance of the avionics suite and intricate mission systems and to uphold critical weapons integration.
Dassault’s failure to deliver that to the IAF is unnecessarily complicating fundamental operations for an IAF that has already demonstrated its unpreparedness for high-intensity conflict.
Please clarify the reasons for Dassault’s delay. Is the company apprehensive about intellectual property theft? Or is it genuinely due to concerns that India might recognise how egregiously it was exploited by another Western defence contractor that inflates prices, makes excessive promises, and fails to deliver?
Social Media
The Chinese have been enjoying these narratives on social media. Ultimately, what rationale exists for their prohibition? The performance of Chinese armaments and aircraft during the conflict surpassed expectations.
After news broke of India’s failure to secure Dassault’s source code, another revelation surfaced. This coincided with India’s acquisition of an intact Chinese PL-15 missile. One of Beijing’s “wolf warrior” diplomats mocked New Delhi on X. He claimed India paid $288 million for each Rafale jet yet still lacks the source code.
These individuals assert their ability to ‘retrieve the software’ from the charred remains of a PL-15 missile. However, they are unable to access the fundamental functions of their own Rafale jets?
Although irritating, this was a legitimate question posed by the Chinese account. It highlights the gap between the claims about India’s military strength and the truth that, while New Delhi has significant abilities, how they are used doesn’t match the inflated claims made by their supporters.
India Must Reevaluate Its Military Forces
Ultimately, India was ill-prepared for the intensity of the war with Pakistan from the outset, regardless of the reasons for this inadequacy. Consequently, New Delhi swiftly intensified the conflict in an attempt to surpass the Pakistanis.
Ultimately, India probably procured inappropriate platforms from Western defence contractors, which inflated prices and failed to meet expectations.
France and India will persist in assigning blame to each other, yet they collectively bear responsibility for the evident shortcomings at the onset of the war. India, specifically, must alter its trajectory while time permits.
References
- The National Interest—Brandon J. Weichert
🔗 short.link/Weichert-NI - Popular Mechanics – Brandon J. Weichert
🔗 short.link/Weichert-PM - India Today – IAF Pilot Shortage
🔗 short.link/IAF-Pilot-Crisis - CAG India – Defence Reports
🔗 short.link/CAG-Defence-Audit - The Diplomat – Indonesia Rafale Audit
🔗 short.link/Indonesia-Rafale - Defense News – Rafale Controversy
🔗 short.link/Rafale-India-France - The Hindu – Rafale Audit Blocked
🔗 short.link/Rafale-Audit-Denied - France 24 – Rafale Performance Response
🔗 short.link/France-Rafale-Response - Twitter—Chinese Diplomat on Rafale Deal
🔗 short.link/China-Rafale-Tweet - Global Times – Rafale vs PL-15 Analysis
🔗 short.link/Rafale-PL15-Analysis
