Espreso. Global

Weapons from West Asia in the hands of the Russian army: how Mohajer and Shahed drones perform in the war against Ukraine

3 October, 2022 Monday
00:14

The Russian army started to actively use its new weapon against Ukraine in September - unmanned aerial vehicles, which Russia received from Iran. Let's find out what kind of UAV they are and how successfully the Russian enemy uses them.

What Iranian drones does the Russian army have

Currently, Iran supplied the Russian Federation with two types of drones: the Mohajer-6 reconnaissance and strike drone and the Shahed kamikaze drone (in the Shahed-131 and Shahed-136 versions).

The Mohajer-6 drone is designed for reconnaissance and launching strikes on targets from the air. With a take-off weight of 600 kg, this UAV is capable of carrying up to 4 weapons (it can carry a payload of up to 100 kg). Mohajer-6 is equipped with Qaem bombs (estimated range - declared up to 20 km, but in practice probably no more than 8 km), as well as Almas anti-tank missiles (range - 8 km).

Other tactical and technical characteristics of this UAV are as follows: wingspan - 10 m, length - 5.7 meters. The maximum speed is 200 km/h, the flight height is up to 6 km. It can stay in the air for up to 12 hours and cover a distance of up to 200 km, but it is worth noting that the range can be increased thanks to additional stations. It is used from runways.

The Shahed drone is a kamikaze drone designed to directly attack targets. Russia currently uses two such UAVs against Ukraine – Shahed-136 and Shahed-131.

Let's immediately note that the Shahed-131 is actually a smaller copy of the Shahed-136 kamikaze drone. So, if the Shahed-136 has a weight of 200 kg and a warhead of up to 40 kg, the Shahed-131 has these characteristics much smaller: 135 kg and 10-15 kg, respectively.

As for other characteristics, the developer claims that the maximum flight range of this UAV is 2,500 km, which is probably a serious exaggeration. This indicator is actually approximately hundreds of kilometers, not thousands (at least 200 km, since Russians launch these kamikaze drones across the south of Ukraine from the territory of Crimea).  The declared speed is about 180 km/h and Shahed can fly at an altitude of 60 to 4000 m. A ground platform is used to launch Shahed.

Mohajer-6 and Shahed in the war against Ukraine

There is not a lot of Information regarding the use of Mohajer-6 drones by the Russian army in open sources - at least, currently it is not known whether Russia uses these drones as strike or purely as reconnaissance drones, and in general, how actively it "raises" these UAVs in the sky.

At the same time, the Russian Federation has already lost at least one such drone - on September 23, the Air Force Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that Ukrainian anti-aircraft fighters shot down an Iranian Mohajer-6 UAV.

In general, if we take into account that the range of the Mohajer-6 weapon does not exceed 8 km, then it should become a fairly easy target for Ukrainian air defense, in particular, for MANPADS calculations, so there is no need to invent anything new when countering this drone.

At the same time, the situation with Shahed is somewhat different - Russians actively use these UAVs, both directly for the destruction of weapons and military equipment, and for attacks on infrastructure facilities. In particular, on September 23, Shahed kamikaze drones struck Odesa for the first time - in total, Russians used three UAVs for the attack, one of which was shot down, two more l hit an administrative building in the port area. In total, six Iranian Shahed kamikaze drones were shot down by the air defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine that day.

When it comes to how to effectively counter these drones, there are two points worth noting. On the one hand, these drones are very loud - the sound during flight resembles the operation of a moped engine, and these kamikaze drones can easily be heard from afar. On the other hand, they can fly very low, which greatly complicates the work of air defense calculations.

At the same time, as Nataliya Humenyuk, the head of the press center of the security and defense forces of the "South" operational command, noted during a briefing at the Military Media Center, as of September 28, 22 Shahed kamikaze drones were shot down in the area of ​​responsibility of the "South" OC, while only 10 hit the target, but even from this ten, not all shots were effective.

In addition, the air defense units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine effectively repelled the attack of Shahed-136 kamikaze drones on September 30 – five out of seven UAVs were shot down.

Currently, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, together with their partners, are working out options for effective countermeasures against this threat - according to rough estimates, Iran could transfer from several hundred to a thousand Shahed kamikaze drones to Russia.

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