I don't think I need to read any further. The 'Active Cancellation' you are mentioning was really a 90's technology. It it not something that's limited to Rafale only. It's used by many jets, including some of the Swedish jets, certain American, British, French and Russian jets, etc, too.
1: The forum - or blog you listed, has no credibility. Show me the same stuff from Janes or the manufacturer of Rafale or some French company who makes pods or electronics for Active Cancellation....(who also refer to this exercise as Rafale seems like the best of the best, this would be GREAT FREE marketing won't you think?).
2: Always remember, NATO participation doesn't mean NATO's jets flying in one configuration or with 'Active Cancellation' pods at all times. In fact, the US (and I assume the NATO also) does exercises with other with a down graded configuration. The idea is to pitch your worst configuration against the best and see how it measures out. The US rarely uses its state of the art equipment in exercises to max.
3: SU-300 series is a good SAM and it'll threaten pretty much all planes unless we are talking about F-22 or F-35 or stealthy UCAV's. But, to put Rafale on top of the world doesn't help your argument as it sounds silly. Specifically, when you have no valid proof.
4: The topic is for Spada 2000 I believe. I'd love to debate with you on a SU-300 series SAM forum if there is any.
USA wasn't even in the exercise,how can it use inferior equipment,lol.
I didn't put rafael on top of the world,the russian-slovaks did,and not on top of the world only better than the other platforms in the exercise by far.And that electronically.Which is plausible since rafale is the newest and spectra amounts to 30-35% of the entire cost of the plane i think.This 90s tech as u say is only operational on rafale and raptor probably atm[raptor doesn't need it i think being all aspect stealth] and probably later in eurofighter and f-35.
A Stealthier Rafale?
Rafale makes extensive use of radar-absorbent material (RAM) in the form of paints and other materials, Dassault engineers have said. RAM forms a saw-toothed pattern on the wing and canard trailing edges, for instance. The aircraft is designed to so that its untreated radar signature is concentrated in a few strong "spikes," which are then suppressed by the selective use of RAM.
Spectra's active jamming subsystem uses phased-array antennas located at the roots of the canards. Dassault has stated that the EW transmit antennas can produce a pencil beam compatible with the accuracy of the receiver system, concentrating power on the threat while minimizing the chances of detection.
But there is more to Spectra than conventional jamming. Pierre-Yves Chaltiel, a Thales engineer on the Spectra program, remarked in a 1997 interview that Spectra uses "stealthy jamming modes that not only have a saturating effect, but make the aircraft invisible... There are some very specific techniques to obtain the signature of a real LO [low-observable] aircraft." When asked if he was talking about active cancellation, Chaltiel declined to answer.
Earlier this year, Thales and European missile-builder MBDA disclosed that they were working on active-cancellation technology for cruise missiles and had already tested it on a small unmanned aerial vehicle, using a combination of active and passive techniques to manage radar signature. This revelation makes it considerably more likely that active cancellation is already being developed for Rafale.
Active cancellation is a LO technique in which the aircraft, when painted by a radar, transmits a signal which mimics the echo that the radar will receive - but one half-wavelength out of phase, so that the radar sees no return at all. The advantage of this technique is that it uses very low power, compared with conventional EW, and provides no clues to the aircraft's presence; the challenge is that it requires very fast processing and that poorly executed active cancellation could make the target more rather than less visible.
The complexity of active cancellation could account for Spectra's high price tag, estimated in 1997 as "several billion francs" (equivalent to the high hundreds of millions of US dollars) for research and development. One of four Rafale prototypes was dedicated to Spectra tests, along with a Falcon 20 flying testbed. Four new large anechoic chambers were built to support the Spectra project, including one which is large and well equipped enough to operate the complete system in a fully detailed electromagnetic environment.
Rafale, Dassault-Breguet
Fine lets get back to spada.