Rafales for Lybia

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andrei

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According to le Journal du Dimanche, Lybia will acquire from 13-18 Rafales. The total amount of the contract will be 2.5 billions euros. If this is confirmed it would be the first export order for the Rafale. Lybian pilots have tested the plane in december apparenty and since the acquisition of other western planes - us or british - was problematic they opted for the french aircraft. I wonder why Lybia has not opted for Su 30 or Su 35 instead. I'm also curious if this is going to affect the delivery of the aircraft for the French air force and if planes are going to be diverted to please the customers.
http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/actu...6961/la_libye_acheterait_13_a_18_rafales.html
 
gf0012-aust

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
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andrei said:
Lybian pilots have tested the plane in december apparenty and since the acquisition of other western planes - us or british - was problematic they opted for the french aircraft.
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and the last time that Libya used UK or US combat aircraft was when? (its a trick question btw, they've never had UK FWA and US FWA were embargoed. So it would be very very difficult.) OTOH, I find it hard to see that they would be locked out of any new hardware purchases as it was the UK that facilitated gadaffi coming in from the cold - and the US has been more than willing to hold Libya up as a model of how a rogue state can change its status voluntarily

current ORBAT (look at the aircraft, reverse engineer the stats and you can see how long they're had them)

the newspaper article seems to be doing some chest beating at the expense of facts and with a liberal dose of poetic factual license. :rolleyes:

COMBAT FIXED WING AIRCRAFT INVENTORY:
Bombers : 6 TU-22A/U Blinder.
Fighter/Ground Attack : 50 Mig-21MF Fishbed, 75 MiG-23B/ML Flogger, 60 Mig-25 Foxbat, 15 Mirage F1-ED, 6 Mirage F1-BD, 40 MIG 23BN Flogger, 15 Mig 23-U Flogger, 30 Mirage 5D/DE, 14 Mirage 5DD, 14 Mirage F1-AD, 45 SU-20/22 Fitter.
Counterinsurgency: 24 Jastreb J-1E.
Reconnaissance: 5 Mirage 5DR, 7 Mig 25-R Foxbat.
Strike and multi-role aircraft : 12 SU-24MK Fencer, 40 SU-22M-3 Fitter, 10 MIG-25R/U Foxbat, 2 TU-22U Blinder.
 
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Magoo

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gf0012-aust said:
and the last time that Libya used UK or US combat aircraft was when? (its a trick question btw, they've never had UK FWA and US FWA were embargoed. So it would be very very difficult.) OTOH, I find it hard to see that they would be locked out of any new hardware purchases as it was the UK that facilitated gadaffi coming in from the cold - and the US has been more than willing to hold Libya up as a model of how a rogue state can change its status voluntarily

current ORBAT (look at the aircraft, reverse engineer the stats and you can see how long they're had them)

the newspaper article seems to be doing some chest beating at the expense of facts and with a liberal dose of poetic factual license. :rolleyes:

COMBAT FIXED WING AIRCRAFT INVENTORY:
Bombers : 6 TU-22A/U Blinder.
Fighter/Ground Attack : 50 Mig-21MF Fishbed, 75 MiG-23B/ML Flogger, 60 Mig-25 Foxbat, 15 Mirage F1-ED, 6 Mirage F1-BD, 40 MIG 23BN Flogger, 15 Mig 23-U Flogger, 30 Mirage 5D/DE, 14 Mirage 5DD, 14 Mirage F1-AD, 45 SU-20/22 Fitter.
Counterinsurgency: 24 Jastreb J-1E.
Reconnaissance: 5 Mirage 5DR, 7 Mig 25-R Foxbat.
Strike and multi-role aircraft : 12 SU-24MK Fencer, 40 SU-22M-3 Fitter, 10 MIG-25R/U Foxbat, 2 TU-22U Blinder.
Click to expand...
Geesh...7 different types of fast jets plus several sub-types! Must be great fun upkeeping that lot!

Magoo
 
gf0012-aust

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
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Magoo said:
Geesh...7 different types of fast jets plus several sub-types! Must be great fun upkeeping that lot!

Magoo
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quite frankly, they'd be better off dumping all their FW combat and replacing them with Rafale - the current is a loggies/spanners nightmare....:shudder
 
D

Das Kardinal

New Member
radiosilence said:
I agree, how many Rafales would they need to do this?
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First we'd have to know how many of their current aircrafts can actually fly !
Seeing how the Rafale can replace most of those planes (keeping some "rustic" planes for counter-insurgency makes sense), and with much nicer maintenance requirements... Heck I'd say a mere 50 Rafales would make Libya the dominant airpower in the Maghreb.
 
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BilalK

New Member
Good stuff from Libya. So are they planning to concentrate only on Rafale, or are they thinking of inducting a cheaper fighter as a main workhorse?
 
S

swerve

Super Moderator
gf0012-aust said:
and the last time that Libya used UK or US combat aircraft was when? (its a trick question btw, they've never had UK FWA and US FWA were embargoed. So it would be very very difficult.) OTOH, I find it hard to see that they would be locked out of any new hardware purchases as it was the UK that facilitated gadaffi coming in from the cold - and the US has been more than willing to hold Libya up as a model of how a rogue state can change its status voluntarily

current ORBAT (look at the aircraft, reverse engineer the stats and you can see how long they're had them)

the newspaper article seems to be doing some chest beating at the expense of facts and with a liberal dose of poetic factual license. :rolleyes:

COMBAT FIXED WING AIRCRAFT INVENTORY:
Bombers : 6 TU-22A/U Blinder.
Fighter/Ground Attack : 50 Mig-21MF Fishbed, 75 MiG-23B/ML Flogger, 60 Mig-25 Foxbat, 15 Mirage F1-ED, 6 Mirage F1-BD, 40 MIG 23BN Flogger, 15 Mig 23-U Flogger, 30 Mirage 5D/DE, 14 Mirage 5DD, 14 Mirage F1-AD, 45 SU-20/22 Fitter.
Counterinsurgency: 24 Jastreb J-1E.
Reconnaissance: 5 Mirage 5DR, 7 Mig 25-R Foxbat.
Strike and multi-role aircraft : 12 SU-24MK Fencer, 40 SU-22M-3 Fitter, 10 MIG-25R/U Foxbat, 2 TU-22U Blinder.
Click to expand...
That's out of date. The Mirage 5s were sold to Pakistan in 2004, for example.

The IISS estimated in 2003 (Military Balance 2003) that Libya had (including stored & non-operational aircraft) -
Strike
6 Tu-22, 1 -U, 40 MiG-23BN, 15 -U, 6 Su-24MK, 53 Su-20/22, 14 Mirage F-1AD
Fighter:
45 MiG-21, 75 MiG-23, 70 MiG-25, 3 -U, 15 Mirage F-1ED, 3 -BD
Recce:
7 MiG-25R
15 Mirage F-1ED, 3 -BD

Plus 48 assorted Mirage 5, known to have been sold since

Your estimate obviously used much the same sources, apparently from about the same time.
 
R

rjmaz1

New Member
radiosilence said:
I agree, how many Rafales would they need to do this?
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Considering a single Rafale could do the job of 10 Mig-21's.

I'd say a fleet of 100 Rafales would replace their 300 odd aircraft of multiple types.

100 Rafales would cost well over 10 billion euro's... however maintaning 100 Rafales would cost less than half of 300 much older aircraft. So if they saved a billion per year in maintenance and logistics the Rafale option would pay itself off fairly quicker and much better in the long run.

However most governments go for the best short term option and end up throwing away money in the long term.

Just like how countries outsource manufacturing to third world countries just to save a few dollars in the short term. Then they complain they no longer have any industry in their country down the track and no high skilled jobs.
 
S

swerve

Super Moderator
rjmaz1 said:
It already has 300 fighter jets and even some massive TU-22's. 100 Rafales would not be a problem at all for them to operate.
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Bollocks. Libya does not operate all those aircraft & never has done. Most went straight into storage when delivered. When Pakistan bought Libyas fleet of 30 year old Mirage 5s, the Pakistanis discovered that quite a few appeared not to have been flown. Libya has too few pilots & ground crew to operate most of its current inventory. When Libya was operating 100+ fighters, that was done with seconded foreign crews, e.g. Pakistanis.

100 Rafales would be
1) unaffordable (more people, lower oil production, than in Libyas past great arms-buying spree).
2) impossible to operate (see above).
3) not for sale while Libya has a bunch of innocent Bulgarian medics on death row, according to every French politician who counts.

BTW, it's not just aircraft. The majority of Libyas tanks have never left their depots.
 
C

chrisrobsoar

Defense Professional
Verified Defense Pro
rjmaz1 said:
It already has 300 fighter jets and even some massive TU-22's. 100 Rafales would not be a problem at all for them to operate.
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There is a lot of difference between having and operating aircraft. Most of the old soviet types are in storage.

Have a look at the size of the country and consider what it can afford.

Australia

Population: 20,264,082 (July 2006 est.)
GDP (purchasing power parity): $635.5 billion (2005 est.)
GDP - per capita (PPP): $31,600 (2005 est.)

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/as.html


Libya

Population: 5,900,754 note: includes 166,510 non-nationals (July 2006 est.)
GDP (purchasing power parity):
GDP - per capita (PPP): $11,800 (2005 est.)

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/ly.html


Canada

Population: 33,098,932 (July 2006 est.)
GDP (purchasing power parity): $1.111 trillion (2005 est.)
GDP - per capita (PPP): $33,900 (2005 est.)

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/ca.html


So Australia has 3.5 times the population and 3 times the GDP per capita than Libya. Australia will deploy about 4 squadrons of 24 aircraft 96 in operation. OCU & OEU, & whole life attrition will increase this total to 160 – 170 aircraft depending on the quantities of each type in service.

So Canada has 5 times the population and 3 times the GDP per capita than Libya. Canada has reduced the number of squadrons in service to just 2 each with 24 aircraft, on the same basis this would give 28 operational aircraft and 84 in total. Canada may increase the number of squadron to 3 or 4 with pro rata increase in the numbers of aircraft.

So how many aircraft might Libya require? Before answering that remember that the aircraft that Libya obtained from the Soviet Union were obtained during the cold war at very little cost, part of the proxy war between the USSR and the west.

If Libya has to pay the full price the 2 squadrons of 16 aircraft giving 32 operational aircraft, together with the OCU, OTE and attrition reserves would require 48 –50 aircraft. These numbers could increase it they get a very good deal (towards the numbers for Canada) or fall to one unit with 24 aircraft operational with 36 aircraft in total.




Chris
 
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