Iranian UAVs | News and Discussions

[Hack-Hook]

The original form was surveillance yes as it was built in 1960’s when armed drones weren’t really a thing.

But the design can be incorporated into a offensive version just like how Iran took recon version of RQ-170 and made it armed.

its called supersonic spy drone for a reason

 

[jauk]

The original form was surveillance yes as it was built in 1960’s when armed drones weren’t really a thing.

But the design can be incorporated into a offensive version just like how Iran took recon version of RQ-170 and made it armed.



China is much further along in large unmanned UAV projects and future AI driven projects.

Another mysterious drone bomber program, recently spotted

View attachment 36224

Darksword unmanned fighter jet
View attachment 36226

Iran is mostly still playing around with cheaper tech suicide drones and MALE drones (getting more obsolete by the day). It’s not really in the higher tech UAV space. It’s larger 1:1 RQ-170 scale program has largely stayed stagnant for past 7-8 years.

But iran is also limited due to lack of its own GPS constellation and military Sat comms.

Yes, but on paper. China has virtually ZERO battlefield experience. Iran, OTOH, has that in spades and at world class level.

 

[Immortals]

Yes, but on paper. China has virtually ZERO battlefield experience. Iran, OTOH, has that in spades and at world class level.

Wartime experience against a near peer adversary, yes China lacks experience and data.

I’m sure China is taking notes on what the data is showing for Iranian and Russian UAVs in their conflicts against the West and adjusting accordingly.

China is trying to close the West’s long time qualitative military edge by 2050. Iran cannot hope to do that on a $15-20B military budget nor with its current infrastructure, thus Iran takes a cost benefit efficiency approach.

 

[Immortals]

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[jauk]

Wartime experience against a near peer adversary, yes China lacks experience and data.

I’m sure China is taking notes on what the data is showing for Iranian and Russian UAVs in their conflicts against the West and adjusting accordingly.

China is trying to close the West’s long time qualitative military edge by 2050. Iran cannot hope to do that on a $15-20B military budget nor with its current infrastructure, thus Iran takes a cost benefit efficiency approach.

I disagree with the gist of your assessment. Battlefield experience FAR outweighs paper specs. China, may build shiny objects but they are of ZERO value to Iran--except as TOT.

It is clear China keeps pumping out copies of western systems. This is classic 'cargo cult' behavior.
Very few countries have up-to-date battlefield experience. Iran is high amongst them and has closed that 'gap' quite significantly.

China = 'cargo cult' when it comes to war.

 

[Flotilla]

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That is why I said you some months ago that Mohajer VI It is the BEST option for patrolling during hours frontiers and eliminating the terrorists cells coming and going from the south East Frontier. Even in other provinces those slow UAVs can do a good job to deal with those.

 

[jauk]

That is why I said you some months ago that Mohajer VI It is the BEST option for patrolling during hours frontiers and eliminating the terrorists cells coming and going from the south East Frontier. Even in other provinces those slow UAVs can do a good job to deal with those.

I hope they have these UAVs feed into machine learning systems to at least alert the operators if not execute automatically. It must be very laborious and tiring on the operators to constantly monitor the feed which would result in mistakes. Shouldn't be very complicated.

 

[Immortals]

I disagree with the gist of your assessment. Battlefield experience FAR outweighs paper specs.

I’m sure China would have learned by now how to better protect its Generals. And not hold important meetings in consulates next door to their enemy.

And your inferring how Iranian units will do when they haven’t seen war either, NOHEDs showing in Al-Eis for example was highly poor when they walked into a clear ambush and got roundly defeated never to return back to Syrian war front again.

Quds Force and advisory operations cannot be extrapolated to the entire armed forces of Iran. Especially considering the latter is mostly a conscription force with minimal training and such forces experience high attrition in war (see Russian and Ukrainian soldiers KIA/WIA).

China, may build shiny objects but they are of ZERO value to Iran--except as TOT.

‘Shiny objects’ are of military value. Most of Iran’s drones are based on western design. It’s entire RQ line wouldn’t exist for not the RQ-170 capture. It’s infamous S-136 is a German drone from the Cold War era.

Iran relies on cost efficiency warfare because it neither has the infrastructure nor the budget to build large conventional war machines.

Just look at status of Iranian navy shipyards and how long it takes to build 1 Mowj vessel, then compare it to China that has drydocks that allow 2 aircraft carriers to be built side by side.

It is clear China keeps pumping out copies of western systems. This is classic 'cargo cult' behavior.

You don’t know what you are talking about.

China has largely moved forward from western designs in many areas and yes it has a huge espionage arm that steals data and puts it to its own use. If your enemy does the R&D and spends tens and hundreds of billions of dollars on designs you shouldn’t use it? That’s like saying international drug companies shouldn’t copy western drugs and should go invent their own drug from scratch to serve the same purpose. Preposterous.

And again your arguement is hypocritical when Iran is one of the single largest “copy” cat countries in the world.

Karrar - copy of T-90
Karrar drone - copy of US target drone
Shahed 131/136 - copy of German drone
Nasir and Qadr - copy of C-802
Soumar - copy of KH-55
Kowsar - copy of F-5
Almas - copy of spike
Flying wing Shahed family - copy of RQ-170
Yasir - copy of scan-Eagle
Shahed 136 - copy of hermes
Gaza/Kaman-22/[insert another predator/reaper design] - copy of American family of drones
Mowj - copy of British frigate
Meraj- copy of British speedrunner

This is just off the top of my end without even looking at data.

Very few countries have up-to-date battlefield experience. Iran is high amongst them and has closed that 'gap' quite significantly.

Most of Iranian military (especially Artesh) doesn’t have “up to date” battlefield experience. A very few select branches of IRGC and Quds Force are in active battlefield and that is more iran spy v spy type shadow war rather than anything reasonably a kinetic face to face Combat.


Like I said it’s two different philosophies. Iran cannot do the China way and China cannot do the Iranian way. Both sides have different have vastly Different properties and end goals. I have been highly critical of China foreign policy and it’s cold military relations with Iran.

While I do agree that China’s military has its own set of weaknesses (as does any military power today), I would not go as far to dismiss them as a ‘cargo cult’. That just screams fanboyism.

 

[jauk]

I’m sure China would have learned by now how to better protect its Generals. And not hold important meetings in consulates next door to their enemy.

And your inferring how Iranian units will do when they haven’t seen war either, NOHEDs showing in Al-Eis for example was highly poor when they walked into a clear ambush and got roundly defeated never to return back to Syrian war front again.

Quds Force and advisory operations cannot be extrapolated to the entire armed forces of Iran. Especially considering the latter is mostly a conscription force with minimal training and such forces experience high attrition in war (see Russian and Ukrainian soldiers KIA/WIA).




‘Shiny objects’ are of military value. Most of Iran’s drones are based on western design. It’s entire RQ line wouldn’t exist for not the RQ-170 capture. It’s infamous S-136 is a German drone from the Cold War era.

Iran relies on cost efficiency warfare because it neither has the infrastructure nor the budget to build large conventional war machines.

Just look at status of Iranian navy shipyards and how long it takes to build 1 Mowj vessel, then compare it to China that has drydocks that allow 2 aircraft carriers to be built side by side.




You don’t know what you are talking about.

China has largely moved forward from western designs in many areas and yes it has a huge espionage arm that steals data and puts it to its own use. If your enemy does the R&D and spends tens and hundreds of billions of dollars on designs you shouldn’t use it? That’s like saying international drug companies shouldn’t copy western drugs and should go invent their own drug from scratch to serve the same purpose. Preposterous.

And again your arguement is hypocritical when Iran is one of the single largest “copy” cat countries in the world.

Karrar - copy of T-90
Karrar drone - copy of US target drone
Shahed 131/136 - copy of German drone
Nasir and Qadr - copy of C-802
Soumar - copy of KH-55
Kowsar - copy of F-5
Almas - copy of spike
Flying wing Shahed family - copy of RQ-170
Yasir - copy of scan-Eagle
Shahed 136 - copy of hermes
Gaza/Kaman-22/[insert another predator/reaper design] - copy of American family of drones
Mowj - copy of British frigate
Meraj- copy of British speedrunner

This is just off the top of my end without even looking at data.



Most of Iranian military (especially Artesh) doesn’t have “up to date” battlefield experience. A very few select branches of IRGC and Quds Force are in active battlefield and that is more iran spy v spy type shadow war rather than anything reasonably a kinetic face to face Combat.


Like I said it’s two different philosophies. Iran cannot do the China way and China cannot do the Iranian way. Both sides have different have vastly Different properties and end goals. I have been highly critical of China foreign policy and it’s cold military relations with Iran.

While I do agree that China’s military has its own set of weaknesses (as does any military power today), I would not go as far to dismiss them as a ‘cargo cult’. That just screams fanboyism.

Cherry picking.

That particular cherry, however, needs to be addressed.

 

[Immortals]

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Gaza, Kaman-22, Turbo prop Shahed-129 and other MALE class drones are flying billboards in modern warfare. They belong to a long to the last era.

I hope Iran realizes this and starts moving away from such big slow and easily detectable drones.

Their cost vs their utility is dropping. Now largely for recon, border patrol, and against Taliban like insurgents who don’t have any SAM Poseidon or 358 loitering munition to use. Hezbollah and Houthis have been shooting down MALES from US, China, NATO, Israel.

Having a HALE with stronger sensor package is way more survivable than 3 MALES with the same unit cost as 1 HALE (hypothetically speaking I assume Iran could produce a low observable HALE class drone for much cheaper than that).

Most air defense are made to hit targets between 5,000-35,000 feet. Thus a HALE at 60,000 or 75,000 feet is out of the range of nearly most modern SAMs.

 

[jauk]

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Gaza, Kaman-22, Turbo prop Shahed-129 and other MALE class drones are flying billboards in modern warfare. They belong to a long to the last era.

I hope Iran realizes this and starts moving away from such big slow and easily detectable drones.

Their cost vs their utility is dropping. Now largely for recon, border patrol, and against Taliban like insurgents who don’t have any SAM Poseidon or 358 loitering munition to use. Hezbollah and Houthis have been shooting down MALES from US, China, NATO, Israel.

Having a HALE with stronger sensor package is way more survivable than 3 MALES with the same unit cost as 1 HALE (hypothetically speaking I assume Iran could produce a low observable HALE class drone for much cheaper than that).

Most air defense are made to hit targets between 5,000-35,000 feet. Thus a HALE at 60,000 or 75,000 feet is out of the range of nearly most modern SAMs.

Cost vs utility is dropping? Absurd. How so?

 

[Mehdipersian]

New image of Qaher drone

 

[GWXP]

New image of Qaher drone
View attachment 36752

source?

 

[SuperWarrior]

New image of Qaher drone
View attachment 36752

Hopefully be for real.

Nice to see the futuristic evolved Qaher drone project implemented.

 

[Immortals]

Cost vs utility is dropping? Absurd. How so?

MALE drones have a higher cost and higher operating cost per hour than low endurance and low altitude drones. Their use on a modern battlefield anywhere near contested territory is dropping.

Iranian MALE drones are just as susceptible (if not more so) than American/Israeli/Chinese MALE drones to being shot down. If HZ/Houthi’s can use a 358 loitering missile to knock these prized possessions out of the air, then imagine a western army with heavy air defense capability. Hopefully it explains why Gaza, Fotros, and Kaman-22 aren’t being produced in any meaningful numbers. Fotros in particular might not even exist outside of less than <10 drones number could be as low <5.


Either go low observable (LO) @ HALE or go cheap and suicide like (S-136 class) the middle class is vulnerable and borderline impotent against hot conflicts, much like today’s Bomber aircraft (B-52/B-1) are useless in hot conflicts.