The picture below is a panic scene of pedestrians on the streets of Kiev, Ukraine avoiding Russian drones at a morning rush hour.
On the same day, the "Witness 136" suicide drone made by Iran attacked the Kiev central railway station and some power supply facilities, and there were many explosions in the center of Kiev.
This "Witness 136" drone carries a 50-kilogram warhead, which has a considerable damage.
Iranian "witness"-136 drone
There is also the picture below this Ukrainian pilot. When he was flying an MiG-29 in a heroic dog fight with a Russian drone group over the Vinnica area, he was suddenly attacked from the flank by a "Geranium" drone, but was unfortunately shot down without time to dodge. Fortunately, the pilot successfully ejected the parachuting. Although he was injured, it was not fatal.
The accident of a drone killing a manned aircraft is also rare in the world.
And this "Geranium" drone is also considered a powerful tool for Iran to assist Russia.
Iran and Russia, the relationship between these two countries has always been good.
After all, in terms of the international environment, Iran and Russia are considered to be empathetic - as major energy exporters, they have long been subject to financial and energy sanctions from the Western world; on the Syrian battlefield, they are even more brothers standing in the same trenches, helping the Syrian government forces regain 90% of Syria's territory and preserve the Bashar regime.
The two countries fight side by side in Syria
However, in terms of industrial capabilities, Iran is still far from Russia. No matter how bad the Russian bear is, it seems that it is not as good as Iran.
In fact, Russia does not do as good as Iran in some aspects.
For example, digital circuit technology.
Since the Soviet era, their development in this area has not been very good.
Originally, the Soviets relied on their excellent intellectual resources to develop and apply the research and development and application of analog circuits.
At this time, the Soviet Union could still rely on its mathematical advantages, use system engineering techniques to make up for the shortcomings of basic science, and use electronic tube circuits to realize the functions of chips. Although it seems bulky, some performance even surpasses the integrated circuit. The silly, big, black and thick radar of
mG-25 is a microcosm of Soviet industry
However, after entering the information age, the Soviet Union/Russians still insisted on "analog circuits" in terms of technological choices, and as a result, they missed the opportunity to digitally transform into .
When they figured it out, the situation was already very awkward.
"analog circuit" device is very rough and inefficient, and is not suitable for aircraft, especially for drones that emphasize flexibility and accuracy. Although the
drone is not expensive, it has a very high demand for digital technology. But Russia is seriously out of touch with the times in this regard and is very reluctant.
So people saw that in the early days of the Russian-Ukrainian War, Russia suffered heavy losses in succession due to its lack of reliable detection and attack drones.
During that period, Ukraine frequently dispatched drones to launch precise strikes on the Russian army. For example, in the process of sinking the cruiser of the Black Sea Fleet flagship "Moscow", the Ukrainian army used two TB-2 drones produced by TB-2 to assume the dual role of reconnaissance and bait. Although the
TB-2 drone is produced in Turkey, most of the parts come from the Western
At that time, the "Moscow" focused most of its attention on the TB-2 drone. They didn't know that TB-2 had already sent back the precise positioning of the "Moscow". Following closely behind were two Neptune anti-ship missiles launched by Ukraine, which sank the Moscow in one fell swoop.
On April 13, 2022, the cruiser "Moscow" of the Russian Black Sea Fleet was hit and sank after it caught fire. Such a tragic lesson forced the Russian bear to let go of the face of a big country and ran to Iran with a gift (the outside world generally believes that because Russia and Iran are both subject to financial sanctions and cannot use US dollars to settle at will, their "cooperation" may be carried out in the form of barter, such as using the Su-35 to exchange for 136 drones with Iran, etc.).
As mentioned earlier, Russia and Iran were originally partners who gathered together to keep warm.
So, the Iranian drone that was swiped into Russian began to appear frequently in Ukraine. Although the use of precision and high technology may not be as cheap as those of Turkey or China, it cannot be held back and the quantity is large, and the damage caused and the panic caused is still quite serious.
Secretly the Russian army used Iranian drone
Ukrainian police tried to shoot down the drone with a rifle. However, in this way, the probability of stray bullets flying to their own people is actually small. In terms of price, the unit price cost of Iran-made drones does not exceed US$50,000. If the Ukrainian army dispatches MiG-29 fighter to intercept, each R-27 air-to-air missile is worth US$200,000, and each R-77 air-to-air missile will be US$1 million.
For example, the MiG-29 that was hit and crashed by a drone mentioned earlier was in an interception operation. In order to save missiles , the pilot was ordered to directly use aerial cannons to attack drones.
As a result, when dealing with the fifth plane, MiG was actually hit by the opponent, and the fragments were also involved in the engine.
Eventually, the pilot had to give up the MiG-29 and eject the skydiving.
You should know that the unit price of a MiG-29 is US$40 million, and the five Iranian drones are only about 250,000. This cost-effectiveness is a reliable profit for the Russian army.
MiG-29 painted with the Ukrainian flag, this is a pretty good fourth-generation aircraft
Then, if you don’t use fighter to intercept and use air defense missiles to fight, it is also embarrassing - an S-300 air defense missile costs about 200,000 US dollars. Usually, to ensure successful interception, each target needs to fire two interceptor bombs, which is $400,000. If
performs electromagnetic interference , it will inevitably affect your own facilities, and it is difficult to accurately detect the other party's frequency, and the effect is not good.
But if you are reluctant to leave missiles and do not intercept, the cost is also huge - drones attack your high-value targets such as substation , ammunition database , command post, armored vehicle and other high-value targets.
In this way, facing the cheap and large-scale drones of the Russian army, Ukraine will suffer a loss if it intercepts, and not intercepting them will suffer a loss even more.
Faced with such a "machine cluster", it is very expensive to intercept
Reality is so magical. Iran relies on its independent drone technology to disgust the Western world from afar.
For the past 40 years, Iran has been under sanctions and blockade for most of the time. It is indeed admirable that through self-reliance, it can become one of the few countries in the Middle East that have a relatively sound military-industry system besides Israel.
The large-scale drone exhibited by the Houthi armed forces in Yemen is generally believed to have adopted Iranian technology and accessories assistance
Iran is a country in the Middle East except Israel. It is a very rare country in the Middle East that has mastered the R&D capabilities of autonomous missiles
In fact, the history of the research and development and use of drones in Iran can be traced back to the late Pahlavi dynasty in the 1970s.
At this time, Iran and the United States were very close. In terms of military purchases, they could always get some very fashionable things, including American drones, but they all belong to target aircraft.
After the Islamic Revolution, the two countries began to be hostile. The continued deterioration of the external environment made Iranians quickly realize the reality and give up their fantasies, and decided to produce their own weapons as much as possible, and no longer be subject to others.
During the Iran-Iran War , Iran began to use drones to conduct calibration and strike effects reconnaissance for artillery .
Since there is no import channel, they simply hung a Japanese Canon camera on the model aircraft and remotely controlled it to the front line.
Although the photos taken by this type of "counterfeit drone" are not very clear, they still greatly help the front-line artillery. Therefore, Iran made up its mind to increase the development of drones.
Immediately, Iran established the "Jihad Self-sufficiency Committee" and placed the development of drones in an important position.
In the Bell helicopter assembly workshop assisted by the US during the Pahlavi period, the Iranians began to try drone production.
In 1985, the Iranian armed forces disclosed the first practical drone - "Mihajer-1". It is a small drone with a two-tail brace configuration, weighing 50 kilograms, and is equipped with a camera at the bottom of the nose. The aircraft uses rocket ejection takeoff and parachute recovery, which is quite practical.
"Migrator-1"
Although the regime form of Iran is the unity of politics and education, it attaches great importance to scientific research activities. The academic level of science and engineering universities and research institutes in its territory is not low.
In 1990, Iran established the Iranian University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and opened drone-related majors in various universities. It also tried its best to send international students to absorb advanced experience overseas.
At the same time, Iranian agents are also using various clever means to obtain a lot of valuable resources and intelligence information.
Iranian suicide drone, cruise missile launch screen
However, the most surprising thing is that many technologies related to Iranian drones were actively "delivered to the door" by Westerners.
For decades, there have been countless Western drones dominated by the United States that have been captured and shot down by Iran.
As mentioned earlier, Iran's science and engineering talents and scientific research capabilities are pretty good, so when they do reverse engineering, the effect is quite significant.
For example, on September 17, 2011, the Iranian military displayed the "Shahd-129" drone. Iran claims that the drone has 24-hour uninterrupted flight capabilities and is equipped with Iranian domestic missiles, which can launch missiles and long-range attacks.
The prototype of "Shahde-129" is generally considered by the outside world to be the Israeli "Hermes" 450 drone.
Three years ago, a "Hermes" 450 drone imported from Israel happened to be mysteriously missing during a secret reconnaissance mission against Iran.
Similar to the US RQ-170 "Sentinel" drone, it was completely seized by Iran before it could start the explosion self-destruction device. It was disassembled and studied all of them, and successfully copied them.
Iran’s imitation RQ-170
On May 9, 2013, Iran disclosed its own integrated detection and attack drone - the “Epic” type drone.
It is widely believed to imitate Israel's "heron" and the American MQ-9 death (nicknamed Predator).
In 2018, Iran directly successfully "seized" a complete US military MQ-9 "Death" drone.
At the press conference that year, Iran officially displayed this US military MQ-9 "Death" drone
In 2019, Iran shot down a US military Global Hawk drone , which is known as the world's most advanced.
Global Hawks like this
According to analysis, one of the important factors that the Iranians can successfully "seize" complete Western drones at some point is that they have a very powerful " programmer " - by inputting interfering programs to the other party's drones, they mistakenly believe that they have returned to the base and can land on their own.
Even if a drone that is shot down and activated with an explosion of self-destruction device is not necessarily blown up so cleanly.
Relying on these wreckages, the Iranians can still dig deep into the internal engine and material selection, bullet bay, sensor, airborne radar, aircraft transponder (enemies and enemies), as well as remaining chip data, etc., and get all of them, and get very powerful technical parameters.
Iran's drone family
It can be said that in addition to its own R&D foundation, Iran's drone technology is more "badged" by the West.
has to admit that this country that has made progress through continuous beatings is really iron-blooded.
