Mover and I chat about the Serbian Air Force getting the French Rafale.
Every Monday at 8PM ET, Mover (F-16, F/A-18, T-38, 737, helicopter pilot and wanna be race car driver) and Gonky (F/A-18, T-38, A320, dirt bike racer, and awesome dad) discuss everything from aviation to racing to life and anything in between. Send your topic ideas to cwlemoine at cwlemoine.com!
The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.
Views presented are my own and do not represent the views of DoD or its Components.
Kids Coloring and Activity Books!
20 Comments
We, people in Serbia do not shifted frim Russia.. We love Russia.. Rafals are just political game with Wild West 😉
What a coincidence… Croats are getting them too. INB4 "Oba dva, oba dva. Oba su pala"
250,000,000 a piece. U could buy the cheap F-35 Ha
They are trying to buy Rafals because Croatia bought 12 Rafals so they want to keep up, Kosovo does not have an airforce
Seems like Serbia is signaling that they want to align themselves with the EU in principle even though they are going to maintain their claims on Kosovo and might even take some action to press the claims. Kosovo is now an EU candidate which will make this an awkward and interesting situation. I don’t think that Serbia is looking for all out conflict – they already know how that ends. But they might see military strength as a potential source of influence even if never used in a conflict. Leverage to negotiate I guess. Getting France on their side could also be worth something regardless.
I wrote this comment in one of the previous videos, so I just want get your attention, sorry for that! 🙂 Quote: "Gonky, are you considering to make a video about arrival of 6 Rafales (they are up to ten years old and additionl 6 will arrive next year) for a Croatian air force at the end of this month? Acquisition of Rafales is a huge leap for Croatian air force since we are still using MiG-21. For 12 Rafale the value of the contract is 1 billion euros witch includes : pilot and technician training is paid for, the package also includes a one-year warranty and three-year technical support from French mechanics…"
3billion divided by 12 is 250million
Price most likely includes associated weaponry and support infrastructure . As nb of planes is low, price per plane likely higher due to these extra…
Holy moly. What comes with 250m euros per piece? Is that just the aircraft?
I wonder if offsets are involved.
It's outrageous that France is considering selling to Serbia. Serbia is still actively aggressive towards it's neighbors, would like nothing more than getting revenge for the war they lost in the 90ies, and invade Bosnia etc just as dear Vladimir does in Ukraine. They are culturally traditionally pro Russian. We have to assume that Moscow sympathisers there send the blueprints and all the info about the tech details straight to Moscow.
Not a surprise really. As fear of Russian aggression among the eastern block countries increases, buying and relying on Russian built military gear will move them to western built gear. As members of NATO, I've rather wondered why they hadn't begun a switch to western military tech. Is it because they already knew how to use Russian tech? Or has there been resistance by western military gear makers to sell to them? Or perhaps a bit of both?
Serbia is buying new model from France 2028-29
😂😂 croatia wants to catch up with serbia. Croatia flew little with gen 2+ serbia had gen 4. Croatia bought old and ask you self why croatia president have put performance classified on bought rafael f3r " military watch and read not newest engine and electronics
The war in Ukraine has shown that Russian aircraft aren't as survivable, and competetive as they have flaunted. Ukraine was a country of limited means yet two years into the conflict Russia doesnt control the airspace in any meaningful way. I think other countries have watched, observed the conflict, and took note. Hence, they are running to western nations for Fighters.
Former Yugoslavia had a healthy domestic aircraft production, but they did depend on Mig-21s and before the collapse they got Mig-29s. That region was always very open to a mix of technologies from both Western, Russian, Chinese, and local.
Just a political move to copy Croatia because Croatia just received 12 of them, the issue with Serbia is, they'll be able to throw rocks off of their planes, because NATO will not give them access to any modern western missiles, electronics or defense systems since they're openly dealing with Russia and China in terms of military equipment, and France will not risk getting their tech into China's or Russia's hands through Serbia. Which is probably what's happening, and it's probably China or/and Russia giving money to Serbia to buy western tech and then give them access to it for R&D purposes.
Whatever the case is, it's a fact that Croatian Rafales will have all the NATO equipment and systems, Serbian will have none. Croatian Rafales will work in a network with all of NATO's airforce equipment, while Serbian Rafale's will be totally isolated and alone. In practice, the battle effectiveness of Serbian Rafales will be very low, 1 Croatian Rafale will easily take out 6 Serbian ones in a potential conflict due to superior radars, electronic warfare systems, missiles and being networked with NATO ground radars, AWACS, etc. Serbia is basically buying a Ferrari to drive it around a parking lot. A waste of money for them.
250Mio sounds like ' a ton of money' but normally US Government contracts calculate 'naked Aircrafts' whilst those kind of contracts include ALL kind of extras like initial Personal Training, both for Pilots and Ground-crew, spareparts, Weapons, simulators,.. so I have no clue if this is 'normal for todays standards?!
I think that is immpossiblllleee. NATO will not aprove that
Rafale is a very capable aircraft, I think Serbia has made a great decision here. If it comes with Meteor then it’s a game changer for their Air Force.