Iranian UAVs | News and Discussions

[jauk]

where ? in your fantasy world ?
Nobody buys cheap-useless Iranian technology

Its good only attack on civilian areas to create chaos and terrorism

you can not show any video about Iranian Drone hit a Tank or Air Defense System
only attacking Buildings civilians areas

Hmm. I thought you were a serious poster. Now we know you’re coming from Cope World and can’t even post a picture of the imaginary fiction you’ve created in your head.

Still never heard of it.

 

[vmro]

According to this Turkish "Genius" No "other Drones could dare to Join conflicts"

You are a National treasure!!!

Drones are improving their AI, they are no more stupid to die for humans...Iranian drones are confident only in large groups, unlike fearless bayraktar...

 

[jauk]

Back to Earth:

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[Kyussis]

Drones are improving their AI, they are no more stupid to die for humans...Iranian drones are confident only in large groups, unlike fearless bayraktar...

How large a group are Hashd al Shabi, Ansar Allah and Hezbollah are sending their Iranian drones into Israel?

 

[vmro]

How large a group are Hashd al Shabi, Ansar Allah and Hezbollah are sending their Iranian drones into Israel?

Enough for deadly light-show, as far as I can see in Tell Aviv today, enough...

 

[jauk]

You are maybe VIP troll

I gave you TB-2 kill list

A Monument Of Victory: The Bayraktar TB2 Kill List

www.oryxspioenkop.com

So no pictures. Huh.

Never heard of this fictional movie ’kill list’.

 

[Kyussis]

then you will report this as showing Turkish weapons here
if you are real military expert then visit Turkish section I will show you what about TB-2 and others

not only pictures but also videos
then we will see what about you so called VIP member

Why are you here Talking about Turkish UAVs in the Iranian section in the first place?

 

[Khorasan Black Flags]

@Persian Gulf @Musings

The crazy troll have cut his collar

 

[Persian Gulf]

@MMM-E end the pissing contest and stay on topic

 

[Immortals]

Considering the large geography of Iran, unmanned-AWACS/SIGINT/ELINT/Attack platforms are needed within Iran or on the periphery of its borders too. You are considering the role of RQ-4 in USAF only, Iran does not need to operate a turbojet-powered Shahed-149 HALE 10000+ KM away, it needs to secure its bordered zones first.

With the advent of HGVs, MARVs, ALBM etc GWACS or IADS search/track assets are not to be solely relied upon because of lack of quick mobility, so we do need an Unmanned-AWACS/ system within or on the periphery of Iran.

As for the cost of OWJ turbojets, we dont need a fleet of like 100 of them. Just a 1-2 squadrons of 15-25 will be enough, the AWACS version can have something like SAIRAN upgraded/enhanced AWG-9. SSJ pushed the search-only range of AWG-9 to APG-71 standard in F-14AM (300+ KM for bomber sized RCS). May be a little more effort and $ can give us a 500+ KM range with good SAR capability and datalinking. Such a system can be put on HALEs to operate in collusion with IADS. If someone attacks IADS search/track assets on ground the aerial asset of IADS still sees the enemy.

If BT is to be believed, OWJ turbojets are built in Iran but with black-market components of later versions of J-85. Apparently, parts from J85-GE-17C (the particular example in IRIAF F-5) can't be used in them. This is one of the many reasons, the unit cost of the Kowsar program exceeded expectations.

I do not think Jahesh-700 had any other application than Shahed-171 which never got into mass production compared to Shahed-191 so the program stayed a technology demonstrator of a single crystal Iranian turbofan. Story of most of the mismanaged Iranian defense programs that remained a prototype.

The issue I see here is that large drone class in Iran has stayed relatively stagnant in last decade. The designs follow two routes: Predator route (Gaza, M-10, Kaman, etc) or the RQ-170 design route.

The problem with these big drones is they are blimps on radar. We see it in Yemen and Lebanon, Predator, Chinese Predator, Israeli Hermes are easily shot down by groups that have low tier air defenses.

Unfortunately I am not seeing any Iranian innovation in the large class category, it’s all in small and mini drones. Specifically I am talking about a move towards LO and VLO designs. We haven’t even built upon the RQ-170 flying wing after a decade of producing the designs.

I’d much rather build 100 VLO drones that at 3-5x the cost of these “old gen” drones can actually survive contested airspace, rather than build 1000 drones that will get eaten up by any capable adversary.

I do not think Jahesh-700 had any other application than Shahed-171 which never got into mass production compared to Shahed-191 so the program stayed a technology demonstrator of a single crystal Iranian turbofan. Story of most of the mismanaged Iranian defense programs that remained a prototype.

I think it could have been versatile engine for building a next gen platform of LO and VLO drones. If what you say is true, Iran is killing the dev teams on these programs, because if you are a young bright Iranian engineer/scientists there is more incentive to go into nuclear program or rocket program than bother with the aerospace program. That’s why so many of engineers working on these old planes are at retirement age, there are few apprentices coming in trying to learn how to maintain an F-14 or SU-22 or F-7.

I don’t know if you remember there was a highly knowledgeable user on the old forum who was involved in arms industry in the west (not peed) and in his time he shared alot of important data including that there were retired senior engineers who worked on F-35 living in Iran and that Iran never reached out to ANY of them about despite their wealth of knowledge. One in particular he said was one of the most brilliant he knew and he asked him if Iran has ever contacted him while living his retirement in Iran and he said no.

That sums up all you need to know I guess.

 

[Mehdipersian]

@MMM-E You can't deal with Iranian bullshit. I advise you to leave them alone, nobody takes them seriously.

It is a correct opinion, but you should change the name of Iran to Türkiye

 

[Flotilla]

The issue I see here is that large drone class in Iran has stayed relatively stagnant in last decade. The designs follow two routes: Predator route (Gaza, M-10, Kaman, etc) or the RQ-170 design route.

The problem with these big drones is they are blimps on radar. We see it in Yemen and Lebanon, Predator, Chinese Predator, Israeli Hermes are easily shot down by groups that have low tier air defenses.

Unfortunately I am not seeing any Iranian innovation in the large class category, it’s all in small and mini drones. Specifically I am talking about a move towards LO and VLO designs. We haven’t even built upon the RQ-170 flying wing after a decade of producing the designs.

I’d much rather build 100 VLO drones that at 3-5x the cost of these “old gen” drones can actually survive contested airspace, rather than build 1000 drones that will get eaten up by any capable adversary.



I think it could have been versatile engine for building a next gen platform of LO and VLO drones. If what you say is true, Iran is killing the dev teams on these programs, because if you are a young bright Iranian engineer/scientists there is more incentive to go into nuclear program or rocket program than bother with the aerospace program. That’s why so many of engineers working on these old planes are at retirement age, there are few apprentices coming in trying to learn how to maintain an F-14 or SU-22 or F-7.

I don’t know if you remember there was a highly knowledgeable user on the old forum who was involved in arms industry in the west (not peed) and in his time he shared alot of important data including that there were retired senior engineers who worked on F-35 living in Iran and that Iran never reached out to ANY of them about despite their wealth of knowledge. One in particular he said was one of the most brilliant he knew and he asked him if Iran has ever contacted him while living his retirement in Iran and he said no.

That sums up all you need to know I guess.

Unfortunately if IRIAF and Industry are not willing to build a 4 gen or 4.5 gen superiority aircraft that engineer has no interest for the Government.

But returning back to UAV I agree MALE are dead when it is used in a light protected airspace (you are seeing it right now in Lebanon). So the answer would be a HALE and as much as low observable possible.

But again, the bottleneck it is the engine. More than copying the RQ170, the great leap forward would be to clone the engine. I am not sure if the engine of the RQ170 was either a Garrret TFE or a Williams FJ44. But there are many corporate aircraft around the world with them. It should be easy to study alloys and try to reverse engineer those small turbofans even if they are not exact copies. The Industry could black market probably tens of them.

But I think the main problem for Iranian UAV expanding it is the engine bottleneck.

 

[Hack-Hook]

TB-2 UCAVs destroyed over 1.000 military equipment including 48 SAMs PANTSIR , TOR , BUK , S300 in Idlib/Syria , Libya , Karabakh and Ukraine

even TB-2 did it with 16 km MAM-L laser guided munition
now TB-2 armed with 200 km KEMANKES mini cruise Missile to hit Air Defense Systems from safe distance - stand off distance without endangering itself

TB-2 UCAV kill list .... Iranian Shaded-136 never can do it

A Monument Of Victory: The Bayraktar TB2 Kill List

www.oryxspioenkop.com

Iranian Shahed-136 kill list include su-27 and mig-29 when tb-2 managed to do that we will talk

 

[Immortals]

Unfortunately if IRIAF and Industry are not willing to build a 4 gen or 4.5 gen superiority aircraft that engineer has no interest for the Government.

It’s not that there not willing there an immense challenges to setting up necessary infrastructure to build aerospace planes at mass scale. And aerospace (fighter jets in particular) are something that the costs will only come down at SCALE. Trying to build only 48 aircraft or 48 engines is a terrible waste of resources given the amount of infrastructure and supply chain set up needed.

There is also the philosophy, does Iran believe in the value of an airforce? The answer is no, not at this time.

Also there is funding, Iran has one of the smallest military budgets among countries involved in active conflict/proxy wars. The budget is simply not conducive for a manned fighter jet program. Our neighbor Pakistan is able to run it because it’s a direct benefactor to Chinese ToT and assistance, much like Iran was under the Shah.

Without a “big brother” power like Russia, China, or U.S. to provide the jumpstart and ongoing technical assistance and infrastructure set up you aren’t going to build a 4.5 or 5th gen program on military budget of $15B annually.

The nuclear program was estimated to cost north of 100B dollars and I estimate a major dedication to manned fighter jet production without foreign assistance will like cost that much over a 5-10 year period. So where is Iran going to get that money from?

Especially when the outcome (ie is the final product any good) is not even known? Iran could spend 25B+ before finding out it cannot even build a reliable fighter jet. Just look at India with Tejas project and they have access to foreign tech and advisors!

But returning back to UAV I agree MALE are dead when it is used in a light protected airspace (you are seeing it right now in Lebanon). So the answer would be a HALE and as much as low observable possible.

But again, the bottleneck it is the engine. More than copying the RQ170, the great leap forward would be to clone the engine. I am not sure if the engine of the RQ170 was either a Garrret TFE or a Williams FJ44. But there are many corporate aircraft around the world with them. It should be easy to study alloys and try to reverse engineer those small turbofans even if they are not exact copies. The Industry could black market probably tens of them.

But I think the main problem for Iranian UAV expanding it is the engine bottleneck.

The main problem for every major Iranian military project has been an engine:

Fighter jet > engine

Tank > engine

APC > engine

Heavy Attack Helicopter > engine

Transport plane/helicopter > engine

Large drone > engine

Supersonic CM > engine

Hypersonic CM > engine

Heavy SLV > engine

Heavy Submarine > engine

Heavy warship > engine


It is the one area of Iranian arms industry that is holding it from becoming a mini-China in terms of making the quantum leap in arms production.

To be fair this isn’t an Iranian problem. It’s a worldwide problem. Hence why few countries can challenge the U.S. hegemony, it’s better for them to be allied and get tech transfer and assistance than trying to challenge them military.

Russia owes much of its knowledge from Soviet Union and only China has been a country to be able to stand toe to toe with Western war machine and that required 25 years of being the sweat shop of the west. China was smart in that they played the long game and were initially very friendly and pragmatic with the West so that they could build their economy to be able to withstand the west and master the various technologies needed to be a global superpower.

Instead after the revolution Iran came out swinging at the West and the East and chose a confrontational path without having the necessary economy in place to sustain such an approach.

 

[Immortals]

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Ukraine estimating Russian production of Shahed-136 (produced under license as Geran-2) is now at least 900/drones a month.

If true it would be an immense amount of strain on modern air defense and require cost effective solutions (automated AA/laser/etc) based solutions to not bankrupt the supply of Modern interceptors.

It should also give us a “rough” estimate of Iranian production capabilities. Obviously Iran is not in war time, so I doubt Iran is producing 900 S-136 a month. But it should indicate that Iran has at least 10,000+ such drones in supply. Real number impossible to determine.