Iran Offers The "Shahed-136A" To Prospective Customers At LIMA 2025 Exhibition in Malaysia
🇮🇷 Iran seeks export customers as the market segment becomes increasingly crowded
The Iranian exhibit at the LIMA 2025 (20-24 May 2025) military industrial exhibition in Malaysia notably included a subscale model of the Shahed-136 single-use propeller-driven strike drone. With the Iranian display at the earlier IQDEX 2025 exhibition in Iraq having featured a full-scale Shahed-136, the distinctive, cropped delta wing Iranian single-use propeller-driven strike drone design appears to be available to export customers beyond Russia and Belarus (which appears to have exclusively received Russian-built Geran-2 specimens). Iran, it seems, is keen on monetizing this conceptually innovative but not very sophisticated strike drone design at a time when multiple countries have already emulated the Shahed-136 as a strike munition design and as a strike munition concept, and as measure-countermeasure dynamics unfolding in the Russia-Ukraine War undermine the viability and effectivneess of the least expensive baseline version(s) of the Shahed-136.
The subscale Shahed-136 model on display at LIMA 2025 notably had the “136A” designation inscribed on the wing stabilizers. The full-scale Shahed-136 on display at the IQDEX 2025 military industrial exhibition in Iraq, which was notably displayed alongside an official specification sheet, did not feature the Shahed-136A subdesignation.
The previously unseen subdesignation of Shahed-136A notwithstanding, the sub-scale model on display at LIMA did not feature any discernible changes of the airframe or the installation of sensors in the nose section, which Iran has previously unveiled on both the Shahed-136 and its original jet-powered derivative, the Shahed-238 (which may have evolved into a substantially different design that Iran appears to simply designate as the “Shahed-136 jet”.) It is, therefore, possible that the designation “Shahed-136A” reflects internal changes, with one option being the trading of range for greater payload.
With Russia not requiring the reported nominal maximum range of 2000 kilometers of the baseline Shahed-136 for use in the Russia-Ukraine War, an unknown percentage of Shahed-136/Geran-2/Garpiya specimens employed against Ukraine are coming off production lines with larger 90 kilogram-class warheads—instead of 50 kilogram-class warheads—installed. Although this results in a reduction to the nominal maximum range, it results in a far more appealing strike munition design that can be productively used against a broader set of target types. While Iran is likely to deploy one or more versions of the Shahed-136 that are equipped with a heavier warhead—and perhaps an extended-range version that is equipped with a lighter warhead and carries additional fuel—there is no public indication of this as of this writing. The subscale model designated Shahed-136A on display in Malaysia may or may not reflect a reduced range, heavier payload member of the Shahed-136 design family.
Another possibility is that “Shahed-136A” reflects a rebranding of the Shahed series of strike drones. While the subscale model on display in Malaysia marks the first publicly known use of the Shahed-136A designation, Iran unexpectedly unveiled a very different single-use propeller-driven strike drone design with the designation “Shahed-136B” at a major military parade in September 2024. The Shahed-136B does not share the cropped delta wing airframe associated with the Shahed-136 and its smaller predecessor, the Shahed-131, and appears to be a much larger and longer-range design in the vein of something intended to target Diego Garcia and perhaps the Saudi Red Sea coastline when launched from southeastern Iran.
It is possible that Iran is intent on capitalizing on the brand recognition of the Shahed-136, not least at a time when it seemingly wants to monetize on both the design and the brand before a growing number of competitors flood the market with analogous if not superior strike drone designs—there is little scope for product differentiation in the world of low-cost armaments and Iran does not benefit from any intellectual property protections. Much as the jet-powered Shahed-238 appears to have evolved into the “Shahed-136 jet,” Shahed-136A may be a post-hoc formulation intended to justify the unusual designation of Shahed-136B for a wholly unrelated strike drone design.