Above: video still of what appears to be a Shahed 171 scale prototype in test flight
Iran today released a composite of video clips on television news programming claiming to depict its Shahed 171 UAV in flight.
The Shaded-171 is based on an example of a Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel captured by Iran 04DEC11 near the city of Kashmar in northeastern Iran.
In comments published today at Fars News Agency, IRGC-ASF Commander Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh stated Iran plans to have four production-type Shahed 171 UAVs operational by the end of the Persian year. He also claimed the role of the Shahed 171 would include the capability of a bomber aircraft.
Whatever the claims, it's apparent Iran continues to devote resources into their reverse-designed RQ-170 type UAV program; whether for promotional usage or actual operational applications is yet to be discerned from this observer's standpoint.
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8 comments:
yes, this indeed is what it is that the Iranian regime devotes its ever-shrinking resources.
empty gestures suitable for trying to impress the gullible and to distract them from the reality that Iran is being squeezed by sanctions aimed at a nuclear weapons development program that their Fearless Leader claims will never lead to nuclear weapons but which Fearless Leader won't end or allow to be fully inspected because it would be disrespectful of the world to not take his word as sufficient.
Unfortunately, Defense spending in Iran is necessary no matter who is in charge for a simple reason of unstable and yes crazy neighbourhood, characters, and leaders...
Oh like it is only Iran which invests in defenses....let me remind you the entire world is arming and as Iran lives in a dangerous area it should arm as well...nothing strange there..if people need to starve....then it is better to starve but survive and be armed so they cannot be taken over by super powers or criminal groups like ISIL.
This BS of not being armed is not going to work as propaganda towards Iranians, you need to change your strategy, people today are smarter than 40 years ago when you were running the same propaganda and managed to cancel Iranian ordered F-16s and submarines reaching Iran.
replicas of US drones won't serve Iran all that much.... as long as Iran can't produce modern aircraft engines. drones will little aid in defending the country
quite a few of those " unstable and yes crazy neighbourhood, characters, and leaders"...: are Iranian, including the Fearless Leader and the thugs of the IRGC
Replicas of anything will always serve as you skip the costly and lengthy R&D associated with the product. So let US invest in R&D and let Iran reverse engineer it. Believe me, if it didn't serve Iran they would have given Iran these things for free....so obviously these are important assets as they are not even exported to US allies.
Anon 12:54PM
True, no matter the age of the copied blue-print, the finished product always provide some use, but it will be less useful against a technologically superior foe. Indigenously manfucatured Iranian naval vessels, for instance, are copies of something designed in the 1960s. However, despite the fact that Iran's newly-built warships are of obsolete design, they are still of some value nonetheless, as it allows Iran to perhaps match the military hardware that serve in some neighbouring countries.
You are completely right on that....but imagine you put "extra ordinary weapons systems and manpower" on those, according to you outdated design vessels, and then suddenly they will give a synergistic effect in which the sum of the whole is much more than the individual components added together. This is Iran's strategy in order to costly be able to expand its technological advances in the military sphere. So instead of investing huge money in R&D for developing a new untested design, in certain areas, it copies and then it adds its own unique "system view" of the design including asymmetric strategy, dedicated and well trained manpower and unique state-of-the-art weapons systems. So those vessels are nothing else than "launching platform" for some pretty advanced sea-to-air, sea-to-sea and sea-to-ground weapons systems which will surprise any adversary when the right time comes.
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