Iranian UAVs | News and Discussions

[VEVAK]

They fired an optically guided weapon from inside the weapons bay of a relatively light jet powered UCAV with a relatively light, low cost composite Airframe!!!!

It looks like an improved version of the Saegheh with an internal weapons bay! Hopefully improved versions of the Simorgh capable of dropping two 1000lb Air to Ground Missiles will be in the works next!

Great job IRGC Aerospace Forces! As always you continue to embarrass every other branch of Iran's Armed Forces!!! Ay vallah! Please don't stop! Agheh dorost betoon bodjjeh medodan cheh mekardeen?

This evolved Saeghe variant looks great.

- It seems to be small enough to be powered by a Tolou micro-turbojet variant.
- Its flying wing design is large enough to provide sufficient fuel reserve for more fuel-consuming turbojet engine and still offer long ranges.
- It now seems to have a landing gear, but could be rocket/catapult launched and parachute recovered.
- Its added belly can now house to weapon bays plus probably optics in the front. However its penalty to stealth performance is one question.
- Fiberglass construction and the likely Tolue engine enable cost effective serial production
- That means it is expandable and the loss of technology stays low in case of capture.
- 2 Sadid PGMs is not a great payload but if they can reach their target with next to no warning due to stealth features and with the long range of the fuel loaded flying wing design, it becomes a important capability.

There is a chance that Iran has mastered micro turbofans via Kh-55 cruise missiles and improved their lifetime. In such a case the range performance would be really great. Maybe that's the goal, to have a expandable drone that can strike targets as far as Israel. IRGC did such a effort back in 1998 with the Shahab-3.

Anyway making such an effort to have UAV with weapon bays for two Sadid PGMs tells a story. I think a story about a special capability weapon for special targets (given that the added belly does not cause much higher RCS).

They fired optically guided Sadid's from the internal weapons bay of a jet powered UCAV!!!! That says a lot and all done in a relatively short time span with nothing to reverse engineer them from!(Internal weapons bay)

They should be able to build bigger version based off that!

On Shahed 129's they lock on and the camera's on the Saddid point and lock on location before release and a UAV that fly's at 200kph
On this the weapons would have to lock on after while being dropped at much higher speeds and a relatively unstable platform on the Sadid with a jet that moving away at high speeds (Sadid PGM will shake for a good while after release)

It's Amazing

 

[TheImmortal]

It looks like an improved version of the Saegheh with an internal weapons bay! Hopefully improved versions of the Simorgh capable of dropping two 1000lb Air to Ground Missiles will be in the works next!

Do you ever read what you write?

A simorgh that can carry two 1000lbs in its weapons bay? The only fighter jet that can do that is the F-22.

Nonetheless, a Heron has a payload of 2,700kg and the Reaper 1,700KG. (External hard points).

What Iran needs is Sofreh Mahi with 3000KG Payload capacity and 3000KM combat radius. It would need to be roughly 20% the size of a B-2 to accomplish this using an internal weapons bay.

 

[VEVAK]

Do you ever read what you write?

A simorgh that can carry two 1000lbs in its weapons bay? The only fighter jet that can do that is the F-22.

Nonetheless, a Heron has a payload of 2,700kg and the Reaper 1,700KG. (External hard points).

What Iran needs is Sofreh Mahi with 3000KG Payload capacity and 3000KM combat radius. It would need to be roughly 20% the size of a B-2 to accomplish this using an internal weapons bay.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_X-47B

Yea and the X47B has 2 internal weapons bay's for up to 4500 lb payload that practically requires an F-15 engine!

So at least for now when it comes to powerplants 2 1000lb bombs or 4 500lb bombs or 4 250lb SDB's like munitions or larger number of lighter ordinance is more than sufficient and rather than making 1 $20 Million USD UCAV's it would be preferable to have a larger number of cheaper UCAV's using cheaper engines and Airframes that you can afford to lose
At least for now for the immediate future!

Sofreh Mahi is clearly built to be more manurable which you'll need for Air to Air operation so if produced that's what is should be restricted too!

 

[TheImmortal]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_X-47B

Yea and the X47B has 2 internal weapons bay's for up to 4500 lb payload that practically requires an F-15 engine!

So at least for now when it comes to powerplants 2 1000lb bombs or 4 500lb bombs or 4 250lb SDB's like munitions or larger number of lighter ordinance is more than sufficient and rather than making 1 $20 Million USD UCAV's it would be preferable to have a larger number of cheaper UCAV's using cheaper engines and Airframes that you can afford to lose
At least for now for the immediate future!

Sofreh Mahi is clearly built to be more manurable which you'll need for Air to Air operation so if produced that's what is should be restricted too!

How about you read the link you actually posted! That program cost 813 million back in 2012, meaning 1 BILLION dollars today!

You are better of building stealth based cruise missiles that can carry large (250-500kg) warheads!

Like I said Nazi Germany found out too late the secret to winning WW2 was a intercontinental stealth bomber!

Iran shouldn’t make the same mistake! Instead of trying to get a UAV to deliver 1,000 or 2000 lbs of munitions. It should go for a more massive UAV bomber That can deliver 10,000-15,000lbs of payload!

1,000lb Payload won’t change the Battlefield. Go see how many sorties Russia had to fly to change the Syrian civil war.

 

[VEVAK]

How about you read the link you actually posted! That program cost 813 million back in 2012, meaning 1 BILLION dollars today!

You are better of building stealth based cruise missiles that can carry large (250-500kg) warheads!

Like I said Nazi Germany found out too late the secret to winning WW2 was a intercontinental stealth bomber!

Iran shouldn’t make the same mistake! Instead of trying to get a UAV to deliver 1,000 or 2000 lbs of munitions. It should go for a more massive UAV bomber That can deliver 10,000-15,000lbs of payload!

1,000lb Payload won’t change the Battlefield. Go see how many sorties Russia had to fly to change the Syrian civil war.

Yea because allied forces won WW2 because they had stealth bombers!!!!!!!!!! Come on man!
Germany lost because they kept invading countries whos population wanted nothing to do with them and that idiot even invaded Russia! Only a fool would think he could fight Russia, U.S. & it's neighbors at the same time and not to mention that what really did it for them was the U.S. getting the Nuke 1st!

Iran is NOT the U.S. where the Janitors working at the facility alone gets almost 40K a year! Let alone the engineers, scientists, CEO's,.....
And requirements are different! That UAV requires SATCOM ours would NOT! It needs to land on a carrier, use multimillion usd engines,.....
Plus the defense companies make the prices out to be far more than they truly were for various reasons because their 1st and foremost goal is making a profit and they have shareholders to answer too!

10,000lb-15,000lb payload! You do understand that an F-5 can only carry 7000lb and you want a UAV that can carry twice as much! And how much should we pay for such a UAV? How much did you plan on paying for the engines alone?

Where as 2 1000lb bomb's wouldn't even require $100K USD powerplant(s) The platform would cost a fraction of the cost of the Kowsar Jet and would be FAR easier to produce with far cheaper materials allowing you to produce in far greater numbers
where you can probably produce 20 for the price of ever one compared to what your suggesting...
If you wanna go heavy you need manned bombers that have escorts near by protecting them! And if the enemy manages to hit a handful of the type of UCAV your suggesting it would break our back.... So you see it's just not a very economically sound decision

 

[mohsen]

Let's hope for something new!

 

[WinterNights]

Let's hope for something new!

Are you referring to the new about unveiling of new UAV?
If so, it seems the news is not relating to IRGC? In that case it's hard to be excited...only the IRGC seems to bring the good stuff.

 

[skyshadow]

Iran Relocates Radar and Expands UAV Airfield on Qeshm

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2018/03/13/iran-relocates-radar-expands-uav-airfield-qeshm/

 

[skyshadow]

 

[Hack-Hook]

I wonder after we saw what happened tto Arabs air force against Israel and we saw how Iraq tried to do the same with our air force and failed why we still park those drones in open instead of fortified bunkers.

And also don't forget those silos as it shown in Syria are useless against any attack . and here we are talking about one of our best drones not just some cheap expendable drone.

 

[skyshadow]

I wonder after we saw what happened tto Arabs air force against Israel and we saw how Iraq tried to do the same with our air force and failed why we still park those drones in open instead of fortified bunkers.

And also don't forget those silos as it shown in Syria are useless against any attack . and here we are talking about one of our best drones not just some cheap expendable drone.

i totally agree with your comment Israeli attacks on Iranian forces at airports were catastrophic for us

 

[VEVAK]

I wonder after we saw what happened tto Arabs air force against Israel and we saw how Iraq tried to do the same with our air force and failed why we still park those drones in open instead of fortified bunkers.

And ao don't forget those silos as it shown in Syria are useless against any attack . and here we are talking about one of our best drones not just some cheap expendable drone.

Even our Helo's need to be bunkered regardless of location

Look at this

Iran is the 4th largest cement producer in the world and we are still storing valuable military equipment out in the open like that!

and they can easily build relatively low cost easy to build shelters or bunkers for them especially for the twin propellered hello's that wouldn't require wide shelters...

But like this all it would take is for two modern cluster bombs to get though at each of the top 4 helo bases and a large portion of our Helo Force is gone!
If they had simply budgeted themselves to build just 2 conjoined shelters a month over the past 20 years today most of our fleet (480 Helo Shelters) would have been protected to a point where taking out each Helo would have required at least a 250lb PGM which would of required a larger more detectable fleet to come at them....

One can only hope the IRGC doesn't make the same mistake and we don't look back 20years from now and wished we had taken small steps back then

 

[TheImmortal]

Based on recent US strikes, they wouldn’t use PGM but an onslaught of cruise missiles which would attack the weakest point of the shelter (doors and sides) rather than the strongest point (the top hardened layer).

One just needs to look at CM strikes against Syria’s airbases to see.

Not sure how well a aircraft shelter would do against multiple low flying cruise missiles attacking the same bunker, but it is certainly better than being out in the open.

 

[Aramagedon]

Just because you found two of them outside that doesn’t mean all of them are outside or all of them are in silos.

 

[skyshadow]

Even our Helo's need to be bunkered regardless of location

Look at this
View attachment 507316

Iran is the 4th largest cement producer in the world and we are still storing valuable military equipment out in the open like that!

and they can easily build relatively low cost easy to build shelters or bunkers for them especially for the twin propellered hello's that wouldn't require wide shelters...

But like this all it would take is for two modern cluster bombs to get though at each of the top 4 helo bases and a large portion of our Helo Force is gone!
If they had simply budgeted themselves to build just 2 conjoined shelters a month over the past 20 years today most of our fleet (480 Helo Shelters) would have been protected to a point where taking out each Helo would have required at least a 250lb PGM which would of required a larger more detectable fleet to come at them....

One can only hope the IRGC doesn't make the same mistake and we don't look back 20years from now and wished we had taken small steps back then

Jesus. look at them as if they were going سینزده به در