Iran unleashes Shahed drones aimed at targets across Middle East
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
One recent update is that Apache Attack helicopters are being refitted to hunt/kill these types of drones, but the newest Iranian models are flying 300+ mph which is faster than a single rotor helicopter can fly (the leading blade of a helicopter starts to break the sound barrier).
Targets: UAVs/drones (including swarms), short-range rockets (Qassam-style), mortars, artillery shells, cruise missiles, and potentially other low/slow-flying threats. It excels against cheap, high-volume threats where kinetic interceptors are uneconomical.
The US is working on a megawatt version that will be mounted on ships to take down full sized aircraft, hyper-sonic weapons and ballistic missiles. Timeline: 2030. Even at 30-50 kW (e.g., the earlier AN/SEQ-3 LaWS on USS Ponce), lasers can target helicopters or manned aircraft to cause crashes by frying sensors or engines. Scaling to hundreds of kW extends range and lethality against faster, larger aircraft.
If your laser emplacements are somewhat expensive and only lightly armored, you might end up in a situation where your opponent happily throws cheap drones, 10 at a time, straight at your defense and still comes out way ahead financially.
Israels situation is quite unique in that it is very small, but gets exposed to imprecise indirect fire a lot, so what works for them might be a really bad investment for the restt of the world.
If we take 4 million per interceptor at fact value, you can compare them on cost basis. More area coverage for less money would be a potential benefit. Alternatively, reusability could be a benefit if we expect prolonged conflicts or many more of these situations in the future.
perfect is the enemy of the good
No idea. I would imagine one would have to call, negotiate, kvetch, negotiate, stall, and so on.
I also can't find the accurate time to target stats, just overall dwell time.
However, they have 100 of them (so spend 4mil). so you might have to spend (if say 100k each). 10mil to protect your 10mil in property (and more if the interceptors cost more).
If on the other hand you can get the cost down to pennies (minus R&D costs), this is no longer part of the calculus.
They flew countless helicopters over the exposed reactor core and because this was 1986, helicopters didn't have a million sensors or electronics in it. It was entirely mechanical. Effectively all in-use aircraft nowadays could not complete such a mission as the electronics would be rendered null almost instantaneously, even with ECC, etc.
Do these high energy lasers fry the electronics, or are they able to simply ignite and burn holes through the aircraft?
The lasers can fry sensors like I mentioned. They can also burn holes in the body of the aircraft and damage engines. I think you may be conflating the modern glass displays with the sensors themselves. In many cases the actual sensors have not changed that much in terms of being vulnerable to directed energy weapons. The energy being emitted from Chernobyl was gamma radiation which at high enough prolonged exposure can cause bit flips. The two TU-16 bombers that seeded rain clouds around Chernobyl were not affected at all by the gamma radiation and I doubt modern aircraft would be affected just flying over it.
Some time log out and view your comments [1] as almost all are auto [dead]. A new account could be a fresh start.
The main weapon that Apache's use to hunt drones are laser guided rockets (APKWS) with a per-shot cost around $30k (https://www.airandspaceforces.com/apkws-base-laser-guided-ro...)
These weapons have been fitted to most US tactical fighters for the counter drone role as well. APKWS is also not a "new" weapon system - it started fielding back to 2012, and was adapted into the counter drone role.
There are other lower cost (compared to legacy systems designed to take on manned aircraft) solutions currently deployed. The US Army has the Coyote, which is in the ~100k range.
Beyond cost of munitions, you have to consider that cheaper systems are going to have less range, and therefore you'll need more launchers, and you can start running up costs that way.
It's an arms race with each side constantly updating the tech.
The Ukrainians have offered to help out in the Gulf but for some reason Trump is kind of dismissive.
There's a new UK/UKR one called Octopus coming shortly https://united24media.com/latest-news/ukraine-and-uk-success...
In practice, this was seemingly validated by the 2002 Millennium Challenge controversy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002#Exer...
Drones such as the Shahed are little more than cheap mediocre cruise missiles. Because they are cheap, the enemy can launch them in large numbers. You counter them by detecting them early and then using plenty of cheap mediocre anti-aircraft weapons. Mostly guns and interceptor drones (=cheap mediocre anti-aircraft missiles).
The ingenuity is kind of astonishing, there is something of a mad febrile energy to it. Thus Houthi and Hamas mostly did not need external supply chains for rocketry etc.: a complete industrial chain could be devised in Iran and deployed on site. Part of it seems to be that a chief objective of design is minimizing what seems to us as inevitable external supply chain dependencies.
The product is indeed largely replication of external industry: as I understand, they seem to have done a lot of reverse engineering of enemy drones. But none of these can bee too much like the shahed, I think, as is evidenced by the fact that Uncle Sam has reverse engineered versions in production and appearing in the Gulf now.
Similarly, I suppose, the Chinese AIs that to some extent mirror US AIs, but on the cheap and with way less computing power, will be replicated in US.
Copies of copies. German 1980s Dornier DAR prototype https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_Anti-Radar copied by South African Kendar as ARD-10, bought by Israeli and manufactured as IAI Harpy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAI_Harpy, copied by Iran as Shahed 136
https://chakranewz.com/defence-and-aerospace/drones/copy-pas...
https://en.defence-ua.com/news/first_shahed_136_prototype_wa...
and in 2025 US SpektreWorks copied it as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-cost_Uncrewed_Combat_Attac...
Shaheds are probably the simplest thing in anyone's inventory.
They win by 'scale', not be capability.
Nobody has enough AA to cover everything, and, for what they can defend, they have 3 weeks of munitions.
There is some 'laser tech' coming along that will maybe change this dynamic. And some 'fast drone killing drones'.
Not during development/early phases, they were created during time where sanctions were somewhat enforced. Debris analysis of earlier models show they were full of western COTs parts, including stripped components, i.e. think RU breaking washing machine for chips. Incidentally they were also fairly expensive, 4 digits, for otherwise a rudimentary - though elegantly simple form factor. At least given sanction constraints and relative to what Iran industrial base can muster at relative scale.
Realistically the BOM for one of these things should be low $1000s if value engineered by competent industrial power like PRC. Who has contract to acquire 1m loitering munitions/drones this/next year. There's have factories that can churn millions of of engines per year, i.e. 10s of 10000s of 1500-2500km fires per day.
https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/massachusetts-iran-drone...
They also have 95 million people, which is certainly enough to do it. They have inherited/stolen somewhat functional infrastructure (ie. schools, universities, research labs, ...) from the Shah.
Additionally they absolutely do not care about the consequences for the Iranian people. By that I mean once a ballistic rocket's motor goes out, at the top of it's trajectory it is more or less unstoppable (it just falls down essentially). Which means fighting ballistic rockets can only happen above (at the very least close to) the launch site, which means in Iran, and that means above the heads of ordinary Iranians. And of course what works best is disabling them on the ground.
They're not competent enough to build things themselves ... yet. Neither Shaheds nor the ballistic rockets, and certainly not things like centrifuges. But China and Russia are helping them out with a bunch of components. So there you are. Again, China and Russia know perfectly well that this can only end in war against the Iranian people, and yet they still do this.
Btw: yes Hamas' and Hezbollah rockets are ballistic missiles too and suffer from this problem. But they're ... shall we say "tactically using" the problem, blaming the target for the inevitable deaths. The only way for Israel to defend itself against those rockets is to make them impact Gaza/Lebanon instead (if you hit them on the ascent you're essentially massively reducing the range of the rocket). But of course they're pretty small compared to what Iran is firing.
Now, of course Iran COULD build these rockets like the west does: so that when they're intercepted they don't kill. To have an active fuse system and you only activate the fuse near the target. Then, if anything happens you still have the rocket impact, but not the explosion, no or minimal shrapnel, etc. But no, they make their weapons like the Soviets did. These weapons are meant to kill in all cases. If they get intercepted, if they have an accident, if the maps aren't up to date, they just kill anyone they can where they fall and if they fail entirely they kill the launch crew. These weapons are designed for maximum killing, whether it's their target or someone else, and then they blame the resulting deaths on the target.
Of course in an honest/sane system such deaths would be blamed on the manufacturer of the weapons, but apparently we're not intelligent enough for that to happen.
It is worrying that Iran itself is now also using human shield tactics with their own people. That girls' school that was hit in Iran ... was an IRGC base until 3 years ago. The school is surrounded on 3 sides (about ~half) by the IRGC base, and the road into that school is the road into the base. The school is inside the outer wall of the base. In other words: this was specifically arranged by the Iranian government to try to get a foreign adversary to hit the school. Luckily they've also totally failed to show even a single corpse and the school was hit at a time the building should have been empty. So hopefully, this is just a lie.
But if true, this incident is 3 years of 100% intentional human rights violation by Iran's government, and one miscalculation on the US or Israeli side, or perhaps even a screwed up missile launch by the IRGC. And let's just not consider the possibility that they boobytrapped the school on purpose (it just happens to be an area where a minority lives ...)
The nation-state is not backed into a corner. For one thing, the west has refrained from using CBRN weapons on urban centres.
It's typical the world community has put up with the naked genocidal intent of the Iran government - which is by now in a sense woven into its constitution and mystical-apocalyptic self-conception - as if it were a musical curious style -- as they build militias saying the same on every border, financing the bizarre suicide campaigns of early 2000s etc. to stop a 2 state solution and keep the party going.
With 'deathtoamerica deathtoamerica' noblesse oblige requires us to pretend it is merely comical. But the 'uppity, arrogant' jewish state is microscopic by comparison with titanic Persian Empire. The disproportion (80x) is far more extreme than even USSR or USA v Afghanistan or USA v Vietnam (30x.
Analysts have been playing fast and loose with this phrase. Within reach assuming no air defenses and able to be struck are separate. I believe Iran could hit this infrastructure if it were undefended. It’s not practically able to due to air defenses. (Iran already targeted the small Gulf states’ airports. Given how much food they import by air, that’s an attempted blockade strike.)
Nobody does.
These are large regions, AA coverage is narrow, using F16s to shoot down Shaheds wears down fast.
If Iran has stockpiles, and the wherewithal for mission planning, they can steer them around AA and hit the 'back office' at will.
Those states also have no practice coordinating the in-between methods - they have only very expensive ways to stop Shaheds, and only jet fighters outside of AA coverage.
Now - hitting a lot of things like civic buildings etc. doesn't have much effect, but it depends how the civilians react and cope.
Some very specific things like energy desalinization are acute problems.
These are authoritarian states that can keep information dispersal minimal and the civilians will just have to 'eat it' - but only for so long.
The biggest damage will be to Straight of Hormuz - of those drones can be used to hit Oil Tankers ... if there are enough muntions, it will be bad
All of that said, China and India would be super duper upset about that, and Iran may depend on China for parts. They would have 'no friends' at that point.
So it's all plausible.
But it requires Iran to have capabilities.
The entire Middle East is lit up right now - and that puts US forces on a 'clock' - this is going to be an interesting form of attrition on all sides, not a good situation.
And launchers.
> of those drones can be used to hit Oil Tankers ... if there are enough muntions, it will be bad
Not really. During the Iran-Iraq war hundreds of tankers were sunk, including in the Strait [1]. Iran's supposed 'nuclear' option was mining the Strait. But for whatever reason, they weren't able to or chose not to do that.
> this is going to be an interesting form of attrition on all sides
I'm sceptical of this read. With missiles, the launchers are the weak link. With drones, the factories. In the meantime, the U.S. gets to refine the anti-drone kit it's been working on (based on lessons from Ukraine and the attacks on the Houthis).
The Iran-Iraq war was decades ago, every weapon system has changed.
Iran has anti-ship missiles they can fire with impunity at tankers - and - as I said Shaheds.
Shaheds are not yet used against moving targets, but it's plausible they are ready for that.
If they are, then they can close the straits.
The reason they would not likely close the straits is that China is the primary recipient of that Oil, and it's a bit of a client state. China paradoxically provides parts for those drones. And they are the 'last remaining frenemy ally of Iran'.
So the nuclear option is very nuclear.
Not the point. The point is when the world was even more dependent on oil, hundreds of tankers getting potted was no more than a major nuisance.
> Iran has anti-ship missiles they can fire with impunity at tankers
But limited launchers. And if by “with impunity” you mean losing launchers every time they fire, sure.
> Shaheds are not yet used against moving targets, but it's plausible they are ready for that
This would be an issue.
> then they can close the straits
As you say, this gives everyone in the Gulf, EU, China and India a motivated reason to ensure the war ends.
Also, Iran closing the Strait (note: singular) is self siege. A legitimate American strategy could be just waiting them out while potting shit from the air.
> the nuclear option is very nuclear
There are no nuclear tactics on the table at this time.