7th April 2025
In April 28, India will sign a contract with the French company, Dassault Aviation, for 26 Rafale Marine fighters. These multi-role, carrier-based fighters (MRCBFs) will operate from the Indian Navy’s two aircraft carriers—Indian Navy Ship (INS) Vikramaditya and INS Vikrant.
This sale was formalized on April 9, when the Indian government’s apex body for clearing big acquisitions—the Cabinet Committee on Security—green-lighted the acquisition of 26 Rafale Marines for $7.6 billion. This will be the Indian military’s costliest-ever defense purchase.
Rafale’s Long Flight to India
On a cold evening in December 1981, Indian Air Force (IAF) planners at Vayu Bhavan, the building that houses the Indian Air Force (IAF) headquarters in New Delhi, were concerned over an announcement from Washington D.C. about the sale of forty F-16 fighters to Pakistan—an aircraft fast, agile and armed heavily enough to upset the balance of air power in the subcontinent.
That deal was a milestone; since then, the IAF has been reacting in one way or another to Pakistan’s acquisition of the F-16s. Soon after Pakistan’s first F-16 landed at Sargodha Air Base on Jan 15, 1983, the IAF signed a contract with Dassault for 51 Mirage 2000s between 1982 and 1985. This is a true “multi-role” fighter, good for strike missions, electronic warfare (EW) support, and fast and maneuverable enough for air-to-air combat. It can even be rigged to carry and deliver nuclear weapons. From the outset, IAF pilots relished the Mirage 2000 as well as the relationship with Dassault Aviation.
By 1987, the PAF had inducted all forty F-16s it had contracted and, in 1988, it bought another 11 F-16s.
Although the IAF was keen to order more Mirage 2000s under an options clause in the contract, it never did so. By 1984, the IAF had ordered 44 Russian MiG-29s, billed the “F-16 buster” due to its prowess in air-to-air combat. Earlier, by 1981, the IAF had ordered more than 100 Jaguars, leaving no space for more Mirage 2000s.
The IAF’s enthusiasm for the Mirage 2000 burned even brighter after the Kargil conflict in 1999, in which the Dassault fighter successfully struck Pakistani positions on knife-edged ridges at altitudes of more than 15,000 feet. By the turn of the century, the IAF’s older MiG-21s were obsolete; and the indigenous Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) was still to make its first flight in 2001.
At that point, the IAF formally proposed to the MoD that it purchase the Mirage 2000 production line in France that Dassault was closing down to shift production to the new Rafale assembly line. The IAF proposed that Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) builds Mirage 2000-5 fighters in India to replace the vintage MiG-21s.
But the MoD, burned by the Tehelka exposés on corruption in defense procurement, shied away from a single-vendor acquisition from Dassault. Instead, then-Minister of Defense George Fernandes told the IAF to float a global tender.
Indian planners feared the Mirage 2000-5 was already outdated. With the U.S. military embroiled in Afghanistan and becoming ever more dependent on Pakistan, the PAF was pressing hard to get two more squadrons of the formidable Block 50/52 F-16 fighters with improved radars and weaponry. The PAF was also bringing into service its new fleet of over 200 Chinese-Pakistani JF-17 Thunder light fighters.
Meanwhile, China too had become a formidable aerospace power with the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) building up aviation assets in Tibet. China’s old J-7 and J-8 fighters were being replaced by Russian Sukhoi-27 and Sukhoi-30 fighters, and the PLAAF was flaunting a shiny new fleet of indigenous fifth-generation fighters. China’s Lanzhou and Chengdu Military Regions that border India now incorporate 5-7 divisions of the PLA and an improved military airfield network in Tibet with extended runways and modernized facilities.
India’s military planners agreed that it was time to acquire a clear combat aviation edge, featuring nothing less than 126 medium fighters, formed into six squadrons of 21 aircraft each.
Enter the Rafale
In the decade from 2004 -2014, under the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government, the IAF conceived and ran what was billed as the world’s most impartial and comprehensive fighter procurement project ever. It was called the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) contest.
The IAF’s specifications for the MMRCA demanded a superb aerodynamic performance with super-cruise capability; advanced AESA (active electronically scanned array) radar that would allow the MMRCA to detect enemy fighters and fire beyond visual range (BVR) missiles before the adversary realized that he was in the crosshairs; advanced electronic warfare (EW) capabilities to blind the opposition; and weaponry that was integrated seamlessly into the fighter’s avionics.
A Request for Proposals (RfP) was sent to six global aerospace companies in August 2007.
The dilemma for some of these companies was: which fighter to offer? Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor, then the world’s only true 5th generation fighter, would win any contest, but Washington would not clear its export. The F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter was years from participation in the IAF’s flight trials. Lockheed Martin eventually fielded its most advanced Block 60 F-16 fighter, with better avionics and weaponry than any F-16 sold before. It was dubbed the F-21 to distinguish it from the F-16 variants that Pakistan had flown for years.
Other companies had fewer choices; Boeing fielded its F/A-18 Super Hornet; Dassault offered the Rafale; Saab, the Gripen E, which was still in the future; Eurofighter GmbH offered the Typhoon; and Russia fielded the MiG-35.
In the next stage of evaluation—flight trials—all six contenders were test-flown by IAF pilots who tested 660 separate performance aspects of each contender aircraft. If the IAF demanded a “sustained turn rate” (the quickness with which a fighter can turn in the air) of 24 degrees per second, IAF pilots put each fighter through this maneuver to ascertain that it met this requirement. Six teams of IAF pilots, flight engineers, and maintenance staff were mustered, one for each aircraft being tested. The IAF pilots physically flew each fighter, albeit with a “home” pilot in the second seat.
At the end of this technical process, in April 2011, only the Rafale and the Eurofighter Typhoon were declared compliant with the IAF’s specifications. In 2012, after their financial bids were examined, Dassault was declared the winner of India’s global tender. However, price negotiations remained deadlocked until a new Indian government, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, came to power in May 2014.
With the procurement of the Rafale fighters having taken on a political colour, the matter was finally resolved in February 2019 with the Supreme Court giving a clean chit to the government.
Deadlock Broken
On the eve of PM Modi’s first state visit to France in June 2015, his office let it be known that, during the visit, New Delhi and Paris would conclude an inter-government agreement (IGA) for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighters.
Before long, another surprise followed. With the first 36 Rafales sporting IAF roundels by 2022, New Delhi announced on July 13, 2023, that the Indian Navy too would acquire 26 Rafale fighters. These would be configured for operating from aircraft carriers—the variant that France called the Rafale Marine.
India’s MoD announced that it had sanctioned “procurement of 26 Rafale Marine aircraft along with ancillary equipment, weapons, simulators, spares, documentation, crew training and logistic support for the Indian Navy from the French government based on an Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA).”
An Aircraft for Carriers
The Indian Navy had sent out a tender for 26 carrier-based fighter aircraft to two vendors: French company Dassault for the Rafale Marine fighter, and the American company Boeing for its F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. After trials, the navy selected the Rafale Marine.
In making that choice, the Indian Navy ruled out having a twin-seat fighter flying off its aircraft carriers. The twin-seat, trainer version of the Rafale Marine operates only from shore-based runways, not from aircraft carriers. Of the 26 Rafale Marine MRCBFs being acquired from Dassault, only 22 single-seat fighters will be capable of combat missions off a carrier. The remaining four Rafale Marines will be used for training pilots from shore-based facilities, but not for combat missions flown from carrier decks.
These restrictions will not be operative for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornets. All the Boeing aircraft—single-seat as well as twin-seat versions—are capable of flying combat missions from the Navy’s aircraft carriers.
Furthermore, procuring Super Hornets for the role of MRCBFs would ensure a high degree of interoperability between the carrier-based fighters and the other aviation systems, data links, and onboard platforms and electronics that the Indian Navy has bought or is buying.
One game-changing system that would be compatible with the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter is the electro-magnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS) and advanced arresting gear (AAG) that provides U.S. carriers with their high precision capabilities to launch and recover aircraft. Fitted on the latest U.S. supercarriers—the Gerald Ford class—EMALS and AAG would permit each carrier’s aviation complex to calculate precisely the take-off and braking power needed by each on-board aircraft. This, however, would be available only for the U.S.-origin aircraft based on the carrier.
Furthermore, enhanced electronic warfare (EW) capabilities would be built into the F/A-18G Growler aircraft that would fly missions alongside the Super Hornets. These advanced capabilities would also be built into the other platforms that form part of the U.S. carrier battle group, such as MH-60R Seahawk helicopters and E-2D Hawkeye airborne early warning and control systems (AEW&CS). These provide U.S. Navy carrier strike groups with real-time situational awareness that integrates all the combat aviation assets in the battlespace.
In contrast, a system built around French avionics—mostly built by the French company Thales—would not offer the highly integrated data networks provided by the multiple elements of a U.S.-centric system of systems.
For example, in airborne surveillance, the onboard capabilities of U.S. carrier groups are fully integrated with their advanced radars, P-8I Poseidon long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft, and the Sea Guardian long-range drones, which are used to operating together after years of coordinating in exercises like Malabar.
Alongside the obvious U.S.-India interoperability benefits that would stem from selecting the U.S.-built Super Hornet fighter, similar benefits would also emerge from selecting the Rafale Marine.
The 2016 France-India contract for 36 Rafale fighters catered for special features – termed “India Specific Equipment” or ISE – to be developed for fitting onto the 36 Indian Rafales. Most of these features were developed by the Rafales’ two original equipment manufacturers (OEMs): Dassault and Thales. The cost of development and fitment into the Rafale fighter was paid for by India. Now, there will be no extra cost for the ISE being fitted into the Rafale Marine fighters being bought.
The MoD announcement says: “Further, integration of Indian designed equipment and establishment of maintenance, repair & operations (MRO) hub for various systems will be incorporated into the contract documents after due negotiations.
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