New Video Draws Attention To Iranian Strike Drone Employment, Ongoing Shahed-131 Deployment
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Note: The following text was originally posted on my X/Twitter account.
This newly released video from Tasnim News features, among other things:
Footage of the nose-mounted sensor version of the Shahed-136.
A Shahed-136 with a radio antenna that is indicative of a human-in-the-loop operating mode, which makes sense if/when the version with the nose-mounted sensor is used.
Lots of Shahed-131 launch footage, which indicates that the Shahed-131 remains deployed to attack more proximate targets.
Multiple instances of a Shahed-131/136 being launched from a pickup truck speeding down a runway.
An underground facility storing a large number of Shahed-131/Shahed-136, simple rail launchers, and the pickup truck-based launchers.
It is unclear whether the smaller, lighter, and shorter-range Shahed-131 properller-driven fixed-wing strike drone—which forms the basis for the larger, heavier, longer-range and better-known Shahed-136—remains in production. While the Shahed-131 can be productively employed in a niche role of its own, Iran—specifically the IRGC's Aerospace Force—may have turned to a reduced-range, heavier-payload version—with a 90 kg vs. a 50 kg warhead—of the Shahed-136 for use against more proximate targets. It is, therefore, possible that the Shahed-131 specimens featured in the video merely reflect the presence of "legacy" equipment in Iran's arsenal.
The challenge that Iran—and every else—faces is that measure-countermeasure dynamics are driving up the cost and complexity of what used to be very inexpensive low-end strike munitions, with the cost growth being primarily driven by the need for GPS/GNSS antenna arrays that are more resilient to evolving electronic warfare capabilities (i.e., more resilient against GNSS jamming and spoofing). If the guidance system used on a Shahed-131 costs as much as the guidance system used on a Shahed-136, the appeal of the larger, heavier, longer-range strike drone design increases, not least in a context in which there is considerable scope to trade range for payload—install a 90 kg vs a 50 kg warhead. With the Shahed-136 likely to have been built in much larger numbers than the preceding Shahed-131, Iran may well have determined that economies of scale and much greater operational flexibility—as well as a substantially greater payload-range—justify the procurement and deployment of the Shahed-136 for use against more proximate targets even if it is likely to be somewhat more expensive than the Shahed-136.