Shahed-136 kamikaze drone servomotor [video]
youtube.com
youtube.com
I suppose that from the PoV of the Iranians this is a high-tech weapon the performance of which is optimised, whereas I perceived it as a kind of saturation weapon, one which I expected to be made of plywood.
Plywood would also allow much higher production rates, whereas this is clearly fiddly work with people stuffing prepregs into moulds.
As far as tanks go I would guess that already most of the interior is taken up by tanks and using plywood would only reduce the potential range.
I have two additional considerations: Durability and manufacturing process. Shaping plywood means machining, granted it isn't the most high precision process, but mould construction might also be more feasible if labor is cheap, but usable machinery is difficult to obtain in quantity.
I suppose this is Iran's equivalent of Tomahawk.
Plywood can also be bent with heat. There's a thing called a 'high frequency plywood bending press'. But these thin parts probably make more sense if they're made of fibre-reinforced plastic.
I don't think consequences on range would be so bad, but what really matters is probably cycle rates and cost.
https://hitecrcd.com/products/servos/digital/sport-giant/hs-...
According to some of the YouTube comments.
I am more interested in the controller for the drone but I suspect it is also likely a clone of some existing drone control tech.
If they were built in Iran or Russia, they would likely need to import components in any case. Why not just import the completed product?
If they're cloning it and their goal is supply chain independence, that seems like first step.
IIRC, that's how a lot of countries move up the manufacturing value chain.
Secondly, internally, the clone motor appear to be superior on paper since it's using a brushless motor versus the original who's spec sheet says it's a carbon brushed motor, but that's just a speculation since until we can benchmark them side by side it's impossible to say exactly.
kamikaze drone is perhaps the most ridiculous term that has popped up in the last few years.
I despise it for at least two reasons.
1. Kamikaze was terminology specifically used to describe a "human" not a machine guiding themselves terminally into the target. this is what made it so horrifying.
2. If that is a 'sighs' kamikaze drone. why is the aim-9 sidewinder not one? by which I mean we already had perfectly good term to describe this sort of device. why not use it. It is a guided missile.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahada#Terminology_and_signif... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahid_(name)
From the second wiki page "It is not to be confused with a different word, a religious term, written and pronounced differently, Shaheed (Arabic: شهيد šahīd, plural: شُهَدَاء šuhadāʾ; female: šaheeda), meaning "martyr"."
One of the things that I think make them different is that UAVs are expected to be able to wait in the area of operations after being launched (how they do it? It differs between models).
But I agree that using the word Kamikaze specifically is a bit weird.
>It is a guided missile.
No, it isn't. It only uses rocket propellant for starting, then it uses a propeller and it's wings to stay in the air.
which is a sub class of.. a guided missile
> a flying weapon that has its own engine and can travel a long distance before exploding at the place at which it has been aimed.
You can still do it by saying e.g. "low cost cruise missile".
> they have totally different operational uses and characteristics.
Such as? Shaheds are used for similar goals as e.g. Tomahawks missiles.
I think a problem with insisting on this dichotomy is that we will see more in-between missiles - e.g. Shahed 238 is a development of Shared 136 with a jet engine. Is it a drone or a missile and why?
Furthermore word missile is often used in history for arrows, spears and stones exchange during battle.
So technically it could be considered a missile.