Since the end of the Cold War, the Air and Space Force's fighter fleet has been divided by three, going from more than 600 Mirage F1, Mirage 2000 and Jaguar, to less than 200 Rafale and Mirage 2000D and -5F. The Naval Aeronautics fleet has also undergone a severe slimming down, going from 80 Super-Étendard, F-8 Crusader and Étendard IVP, to only 40 Rafale M.
This reduction in format has often been criticized by specialists on the subject, as well as by certain parliamentarians, and even, more recently and in a more subdued manner, by the general staffs themselves. Thus, the Air and Space Force publicly estimates that it would need “at least” 225 combat aircraft to meet its operational contract.
However, the optimal format of the French fighter seems, today, more a question of political and budgetary negotiations, than the result of objective reasoning, in the face of the needs which the Air Force and the Naval Aviation must be able to respond.
In this article, we will attempt to carry out this reasoning, and to determine what this format would be, necessary and sufficient, to allow French hunting to fully and effectively fulfill its present and future missions. As we will see, the current format appears very underestimated.
In this section:
The format of the French fighter fleet today, its origin and its operational contract
What exactly is this format, and where does it come from? Today, LPM 2024-2030 aims to bring the French fighter fleet to 225 combat aircraft, with 185 fighters for the Air and Space Force, and 40 for Naval Aeronautics.
This format was set by the 2022 Strategic Review, itself taking it from the 2018 Strategic Review, which served as a basis for the creation of the previous 2019-2025 LPM. Here again, it was not the 2018 Strategic Review that set this objective, since it was instructed to take up all the formats of the forces, defined by the 2013 White Paper.
It was, in fact, this White Paper which established, for the first time, these 225 combat aircraft, with the 185/40 distribution between the AAE and the French Navy. To achieve this result, the designers of this White Paper, whose guiding principle was to reduce the size of the French armed forces as much as possible, set a relatively simple operational contract for the two air forces.
For the AAE, it was necessary to be able to guarantee the projection of 15 combat aircraft, including on remote bases, as was the case in Niger and Jordan, to support the French and allied forces deployed in the Sahel. or in Iraq and Syria. In addition, the AEE was to ensure the availability of the air component of the French deterrent, with two squadrons equipped with RafaleThe French Navy was to arm the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle with 18 fighters for two two-month deployments per year, as well as air policing and training missions.
This reduction also made it possible to significantly reduce the training and training needs of crews, as well as ammunition stocks, especially since the main conventional threat then envisaged concerned asymmetrical conflicts in Africa or the Middle East, with a very reduced threat to the aircraft themselves, and relatively limited operational pressure for the deployed forces.
The operational pressure on French hunting since 2014, significantly higher than that estimated by the 2013 White Paper
As expected, this operational pressure, since 2013, has absolutely not respected the planning of the White Paper. The Air and Space Force has thus had to, on several occasions, deploy twenty to thirty combat aircraft on external missions, including in Europe. The aircraft carrier, for its part, has often largely exceeded the four months at sea per year planned, with a record of 8 months at sea for the year 2019, before its IPER (Periodic Unavailability for Maintenance and Modernization).
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Can't!
Not to mention the trained crews who, in the event of a conflict, will never be able to compensate for the resulting losses!
Thank you very much for this article. THE Rafale Is it its versatility and its fairly high cost the trap of the Air Force? We would gain so much from having a supersonic single reactor for air defense missions... The mirage III mirage IV couple in a way. If it turns out to be impossible to achieve this level of manning on line, would it be possible to replace the air defense mission with a first-rate DCA? Or to replace part of the bombing missions (CAS, Deep strike) with a fleet of drones? I don't think we'll get all 110 Rafales more.
I do not think that the commitment to NATO allows the substitution of planes piloted by loyal wingmen, at least, for the moment. I think they should be seen more as next-generation appendages, not as alternatives.
Afterwards, it is certain, a single engine, which we could develop, for example, with the Swedes, would allow this format to grow at a lower cost per aircraft, but the additional design costs would most certainly neutralize this benefit. As long as we do not consider, in the economic equation, revenues as well as expenditures, we will have to make decisions under strong constraints, leading to questionable trade-offs.
It is true that a single-reactor built in cooperation with Sweden would be a good supplement.
Hello, thank you very much for this article.
Would it be possible to write a follow-up article on the support fleet including A330MRTT, AWACS, A400M, etc.?
MRTT and Awacs, probably, because it's relative to AAE posture. For the A400Ms, it will be more difficult, because the basic data, in terms of necessary support to the combined forces etc., is unknown to me, and probably very difficult to obtain, if not simply confidential.