Why the US is using a cheap Iranian drone against the country itself

Iran invented the relatively simple Shahed 136 attack drone, but it now fends off American copies launched against it in combat. Why, when the US military has expensive, cutting-edge, high-tech weapons, is it manufacturing flimsy drones powered by a motorcycle engine?

Iranian company Shahed Aviation Industries initially designed the 136. It is 2.6 meters long and can carry payloads of 15 kilograms over distances of around 2,500 kilometers. It travels at a relatively modest speed of around 185 kilometers per hour – much slower than cruise missiles or bomb-carrying aircraft. But it has the advantage of being extremely inexpensive – perhaps as low as $50,000 per unit.

The Shaheds are now used by the hundreds in daily strikes against Ukraine by Russia, requiring multiple layers of air defense – including fighter jets, machine guns, missiles and interceptor drones – to try to bring them down before they reach civilian or military targets. They are even used by Houthi forces in Yemen.

Iran this week used Shahed drones and a range of other hardware in attacks around the Gulf, in retaliation for US and Israeli strikes. In return, the US military used its Unmanned Combat Attack System (LUCAS), produced by Arizona-based Spektreworks, for the first time in combat against Iran, which is a reverse-engineered copy of the Shahed 136. This means that Iran’s own design is now being used against it.

LUCAS is modular, making it possible to equip reconnaissance or communication equipment or a warhead for ground strikes. Spektreworks calls it the FLM 136, apparently a nod to the Shahed 136, from which it was cloned.

The United States reportedly reverse-engineered the drone after capturing Iranian-backed militia units in Iraq and Syria, and it was successfully tested from a U.S. Navy ship last year.

Anthony King, of the University of Exeter, UK, says cheap and relatively simple attack drones like the Shahed are essentially modern versions of the “doodlebug” – the V-1 flying planes that Nazi Germany used to bomb the UK during World War II.

Such munitions are cheap and easy to produce on a large scale, and can be used in numbers that overwhelm an adversary, absorbing even the most sophisticated air defenses until they fail, or until they consume enormous resources and make the fight unsustainable. This leaves an opponent vulnerable to further attacks.

“You’re dropping them out of the sky with munitions that are much more expensive, not only than the Shahed, but sometimes more expensive than the Shahed actually hits,” King says. “There have been many cases where the target that the Shahed is aiming for is cheaper than the Patriot missile. [used to take it down]. The appearance of this type of remote systems, rudimentary but effective, modifies in an interesting way the economic calculation of war.

Interestingly, there is reason to believe that Iran copied the original Shahed 136 design from a Cold War aircraft. A 1980s project between Germany and the United States for a similar device capable of hitting Soviet radar stations or absorbing air defenses to protect other aircraft led to the Dornier design called Die Drohne Antiradar – literally “the anti-radar drone”.

Ian Muirhead of the University of Manchester, UK, who spent 23 years in the military, says Shahed drones will never replace manned aircraft or highly advanced missiles, but they are increasingly finding their place in combat and Western militaries are learning lessons from the war in Ukraine and adopting similar weapons.

“Many modern weapons are extremely complex and expensive, and if you’re facing large-scale conflicts like this, having a large number of cheap, expendable weapons – especially if you no longer have large armies – is more effective,” says Muirhead. “If you can send a thousand, you can overwhelm the defenses with cheap ammunition.”

“It’s just a question of economics: if it costs you 10 times more for your defense than it does for your attackers, you will never be able to get ahead of the other side,” explains Muirhead.