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Comment by m4rtink | Hacker News Reader

Iran does manufacture a lot of drones, including similar looking ones.

Just repeating. This drone is named Geran-5. It is produced in Russia. Iran doesn’t produce such a jet drone at all.

Renaming another country’s weapon is a very weird propaganda move. Why would anyone do that?

Good question, why did Russia rename the Shahed-131 to Geran-1? Those are allegedly Iranian made, and Geran-2 is allegedly a slightly modified Shahed-136. Of course, as they keep modifying them they slowly become their own thing, but there's a clear tech ancestry.

Russia renamed it because it chose to. This is a general rule: if you produce something, you name it.

For example, the Storm Shadow missile in the UK is essentially the same as Scalp missile in France. Yet whoever produces chooses a name.

Renaming a Russian made drone is WEIRD. You can only name the weapons you make.

It is not weird to call something by the name of something that is much more widely known, that it is closely related to. It is maybe a little bit weird to get really angry online about that, unless you are upset about the association being reinforced.

I am not saying this drones is Iran made (it is most likely built by gang pressed teenagers in Alabuga like other Geran drones) just that Iran has a bunch of drone designs, including jet powered ones:

https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2019/09/the-oryx-handbook-of-i...

Also would not be surprised if there was knowledge sharing either previously when their let them clone the main Shahed variant or even to this day.

"Drone" is an overloaded term. I'm not sure what someone means when they say "drone" (an FPV drone? an MQ-9?) When someone mentions "Shahed" I immediately know what's being talked about. It disambiguates what's being discussed.

Many also describe the US-made LUCAS drone as a Shahed clone, which clear up what role this system fills.

What is the resemblance between Geran-5 (a jet drone, essentially a rocket) and Shahed/Lucas drones after all?

It's role is far closer to that of Shahed/LUCAS drones than that of FPV drones or MQ-9s.

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