Libya, days 9 and 10

Rafale M with budy-budy refueling loadout

Sunday March, 27th : Air strikes on armored vehicles and large ammunition stocks in Misrata and Zintan zones.

Recce : 2 Rafale M
Interdiction : 4 Rafale air / 2 Mirage 2000D / 2  Sem
Air Defense : 2 Mirage 2000-5F / 2 Mirage 2000-5EDA (Qatar)

Later in the evening 4 Rafale (2 air and 2 M) have struck a command center south of Tripoli while 2 othe Rafale M were performing another recce mission.

Monday March 28th : Same patrol zone and same order of battle as Sunday 27th. No strike reported at 06h00pm.
edit : At 10h00 pm, Defense journalist JM. Tangy reports that all the Rafale has came back to Solenzara Air base without their AASM.

Recce : 2 Rafale M
Interdiction : 4 Rafale air / 2 Mirage 2000D / 2 Sem
Air Defense : 2 Mirage 2000-5F / 2 Mirage 2000-5EDA (Qatar)

For several days, some rafale are spotted with an unusal loadout : Apparently at least one Rafale in each flight  is loaded with a damocles pod whereas the planes are only armed with AASM bombs which are GPS guided (see the Rafale C on the left). The best bet is that the LDP is used to feed the AASM with GPS coordinates (especially for opportunity targets). The pod can also be usefull for damage assessment and off course for visual identification of the targets prior to any strike

Source and Pictures credit : French MoD