How Iran's $20,000 Shahed Drones Swarm Past $4 Million US Missiles
How Iran's $20,000 Shahed Drones Swarm Past $4 Million US
Missiles
Stripped down, a Shahed-131 or Shahed-136 drone - the name
means 'witness' in Farsi - is a small, delta-winged missile with a
propeller-driven engine at the back.
New Delhi:
A fuel-efficient engine + modest radar evasion capacities + a 40-50kg warhead make Iran's Shahed-series 'kamikaze' drones a low-cost terror that can be mass produced for US$20,000 - US$50,000 each, and used to overwhelm air defences.
The Shahed-131 and 136 series drones - rudimentary cruise missiles - have been at the core of Iranian resistance against joint US-Israel strikes so far, trundling hundreds of miles to strike military bases, oil infrastructure, and civilian buildings.
They are effective not because they travel at hypersonic
speeds or boast advanced stealth technology to shield them from top-of-the-line
air defence systems like the US' PATRIOT, but because there are too many for
interceptors to neutralise.
That, in a nutshell, is what Iran's air attack strategy is
– an attempt to overwhelm US-Israeli forces with waves of 'flying missiles'
that knock out ground radars and air defences, and make it easier for larger
and powerful ballistic missiles to break through. And even if the drones are
shot, it is still a win because a US$4 million rocket was used to hit a
US$20,000 drone.
Some reports indicates Iran has fired over 2,000 so far.
Of course, the better tech on the PATRIOT or THAAD works in
its favour; the UAE, which uses the American air defence system, has reported
interception rates north of 90 per cent while other countries have reported
rates nearing 96 per cent.
But the cost offset is a problem the West has failed to
answer since Russia's war on Ukraine four years ago. So what is the Shahed
drone? Stripped down, a Shahed-131 or Shahed-136 is a small, delta-winged
missile with a propeller-driven engine at the back.
The name means 'witness' in Farsi and were originally
developed by an Iranian aerospace company, Shahed Aviation Industries in the
early 2000s. Both are roughly the same size; open-source assessments
indicate they are between 2.5 and three metres long and weigh around 200kg at
launch, most of which is the fuel and payload. The 136 series has the longer
range, i.e., between 2,000 and 2,500 kilometres, and the small size of both
models means they can be launched from almost anywhere in Iran.
The drones are precision-guided munitions that are launched
using disposable rocket-boosters fitted to the underside. Once fired, the
booster is jettisoned and a four-cylinder, air-cooled piston-driven engine
takes over propulsion. Fitting a propeller over a jet engine sacrifices speed –
top speed is around 185 km per hour – but offers greater range and agility.
An explosive payload – up to 60kg – is fitted in the nose; some versions pack
a 90kg payload but have shorter ranges.
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It uses manually-uploaded coordinates to navigate and can
hover over the chosen target before dive-bombing.
The Shahed drones were also used in the 12-Day War of June
2025 between Israel and Iran, and they are being used in large numbers by
Russia in Ukraine. Kiev, though, has developed an efficient anti-drone
squad, which President Volodymyr Zelenskiy offered to deploy in West Asia on
condition the Western nations can force Vladimir Putin to accept a truce.
Iran's drones are, therefore, cheap and efficient.
They are also difficult to detect.
The relatively low radar cross section, coupled with
ease-of-launch makes them almost impossible to spot when being fired, though
the buzzing noise from the piston engines do give it away during flight.
Russia, though, has improved on some aspects, including night-op variations and
a honeycomb structure inside the wings to reduce likelihood of radar detection.
But perhaps the biggest impact of the Shahed drones is the
fact the US has been forced to play the same game.
US-Israel's 'new' war
Washington has rolled out reverse-engineered versions of the
Shahed in this war.
LUCAS, or Low Cost Uncrewed Combat System, were described by
US CENTCOM as "one-way attack drones... modelled after Iran's Shahed
drones". Each costs around US$35,000 and, like the Shahed, is a
precision-guided 'loitering munition'.
But this shift towards drone warfare is not an overnight
development.
The US acknowledged the transition back in December last
year, when it activated Task Force Scorpion Strike, its first 'one-way attack
drone squadron' based in West Asia.
The evolution became most apparent, however, in the
Russia-Ukraine theatre after exhaustion over a war in its fifth year forced the
artillery-to FPV, or first-person view, move.
The future of warfare is, perhaps, becoming like a video
game; user-operated UAVs that operate in offensive and defensive capacities,
expanding front lines and converting them into 'kill zones' while minimising
human costs.
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