The War in the Ukraine

FairAndUnbiased

FairAndUnbiased

Brigadier
Registered Member
Abominable said:
It's definitely cheaper than a guided missile for the same range.

The most expensive component would be the engine which costs around $10,000. alibaba and taobao aren't listing prices anymore, but I saw a similar one for that price. Electronics won't add too much, the airframe doesn't need to be too sturdy as its single use. I don't know what price Iran would be selling them for but I think the BOM is less than $20,000.

As I've said before, there is no cost effective way to defeat drones like these right now. They can be detected and intercepted by most SAMs, but is it worth firing missiles that cost millions at a target that costs the same a second hand car? It's cost effective just to use them as SAM decoys.

I wonder if Russia still has any of those suitcase nuclear primaries lying around....
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with the slow speed they fly at I'm thinking gun based AA. The biggest weakness of AA guns is bullets tracking fast targets at altitude, not a problem for drones. I remember some "experts" "veterans" were laughing at AA guns as "useless cold war era relics".

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Chilled_k6

Junior Member
Registered Member
Abominable said:
About the Shahed-136, there's not much available online but I found this:

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Comparing it to similar Chinese loitering drones, I think the warhead would be around 25kg. So pretty substantial.

The engine apparently is sold on aliexpress. I think most of it is made in China apart from the warhead and airframe, which is pretty easy to construct. If it was up to me I'd have the warhead made in Russia as they know what they're doing and it'll be safer transporting it.

Much bigger warhead (5x), plus the fuel itself is an explosive. KUBs are battery powered. It should be able to take out anything on the battlefield in one hit.
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Looks quite similar in terms of size (slightly larger) than the IAI Harop. That has a 23kg warhead per wikipedia. The link you have claims the Shahed-136 has a range of >1800km whereas the Israeli drone has 1000km, so it may be that the Iranians sacrificed some warhead size for more loitering endurance.

The Azeris used Harop to devastating effect against Armenia. Not sure the Ukrainians have a real counter to a similar type drone other than finding and deploying their own versions.
 
FairAndUnbiased

FairAndUnbiased

Brigadier
Registered Member
Chilled_k6 said:
Looks quite similar in terms of size (slightly larger) than the IAI Harop. That has a 23kg warhead per wikipedia. The link you have claims the Shahed-136 has a range of >1800km whereas the Israeli drone has 1000km, so it may be that the Iranians sacrificed some warhead size for more loitering endurance.

The Azeris used Harop to devastating effect against Armenia. Not sure the Ukrainians have a real counter to a similar type drone other than finding and deploying their own versions.
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they don't have AA guns since a certain country's doctrine is that AA guns are Cold War era relics that only dictatorships use, so they can try firing stingers at it lmao.
 
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gelgoog

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
Russia has the ZALA strike drones but they are a lot smaller. Probably not enough destructive effect in the warhead to destroy a vehicle reliably.

ZALA Lancet:
1663561018384.png

ZALA KUB-BLA:
1663561071399.png

These drones have like 3kg warhead.

ZALA is a subsidiary of the Kalashnikov company.

Russia has had historical lack of production of small aircraft engines, most of those used to be imported, and they only started trying to solve that problem recently. The drones above use electric engines and the Iranian drone we are talking about uses a piston engine I think.
 
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Tam

Brigadier
Registered Member
Speaking of drones, there was some mention that the Ukrainians are buying Chinese drones from Aliexpress. On top of that, they are painting red stars on the wings to make them look Russian and are used on the attacks in the Crimea. The Russians managed to figure out this ploy and shoot them down to confirm their identity. The drone in question is the Skyeye 4500mm. The darn thing can even carry 20kg of payload, which means 20kg of bomb.

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You can go upscale and go with the Skyeye 5000mm. This one has a range of up to 900km.

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From what I can see on Aliexpress, there are a whole host of drones that are more than DJI quadcopter types.
 
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Chilled_k6

Junior Member
Registered Member
FairAndUnbiased said:
they don't have AA guns since a certain country's doctrine is that AA guns are Cold War era relics that only dictatorships use, so they can try firing stingers at it lmao.
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Yea maybe this is where the hand me down Gepards can come into play, though I'm not sure how many the Ukrainians actually received. The unit cost of the stinger itself would probably be cheaper than the Shahed-136 actually. Most of the time, it probably won't fly at it's highest altitude either where it's out of reach.

At the end of the day, it's so small with huge gaps in the air space to exploit. If Russia can deploy these with good numbers it'll be a wrecking ball, especially on Ukrainian mechanized formations that don't regularly use air defense. It also seems like a natural counter to HIMARs, though that I'm more skeptical of since at first I thought Russia would have been able to take care of most of them fairly quickly with the VKS.
 
sheogorath

sheogorath

Major
Registered Member
lucretius said:
Looks like the Ukrainians bagged themselves their first T-90M. Wont make much difference on it's own, but the fact is that this abandoned tank was unlikely to have been operated by conscripts. No apparent attempt to destroy it either.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1571531776178245635
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Not to rain on your parade, but with the Ukranian tendency to plant the flag take selfies even with fake border posts, the fact that there isnt a single Ukranian flag, graffiti or soldier with either a questionable flag or patch, casts doubts on the validity of the claims.

Of course, Reddit ran away with it
 
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lucretius

Junior Member
Registered Member
sheogorath said:
Not to rain on your parade, but with the Ukranian tendency to plant the flag take selfies even with fake border posts, the fact that there isnt a single Ukranian flag, graffiti or soldier with either a questionable flag or patch, casts doubts on the validity of the claims.

Of course, Reddit ran away with it
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This appears to be the same tank under tow. Looks legit to me.

I wonder how long it will be before it shows up in a western proving ground.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/xhsgy8
 
Broccoli

Broccoli

Senior Member
With only unguided rockets and bombs for most of their available assets, and initial sorties resulting in several losses to MANPADS and Gepard fire, the VKS appears to have made only a token effort to prevent the Ukrainian counter-offensive from reaching Kup’yansk and precipitating the collapse of the entire Izyum front.
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