Matte black Shahed-238: will the Geranium jet get new capabilities?
According to the results research, conducted by the telegram channel “Military Informant” based on open Ukrainian sources, since the beginning of the Northern Military District, the Russian army has launched over 3000 kamikaze drones of the Shahed-136/Geran-2 type toward the enemy. Every month, on average, the Russian Armed Forces launch just under 200 unmanned aerial vehicles on their first and last flight.
Roy
We have already touched on the topic of the rapid evolution of Russian attack drones earlier, telling about the emergence of a new generation of “Geraniums” equipped with a jet engine. Comments in the spirit of the fact that the author, so-and-so, as well as the honored military pilot Major General Popov, are allegedly unable to distinguish between the “Lancet” with a warhead of 3-5 kg and the “Geranium” with half a centner of explosives, let them remain on the conscience of those , who writes something like this without understanding the issue at all.
In this publication, I would like to talk in more detail about why the designers needed to create a technically advanced, but complex and expensive version of the Geranium with a jet engine. What is this - an initiative of engineers or a vital necessity?
As has already been noted more than once, the appearance of budget kamikaze drones of Iranian origin in the Russian Armed Forces last summer was a very unpleasant surprise for the enemy, and not only for him. It turned out that neither the Ukrainian air defense/missile defense system nor our own were ready for small, low-speed targets flying at low altitude, when the Ukrainian Armed Forces began sending kamikaze drones towards Russian cities. The effect of combined attacks on the critical infrastructure of Nezalezhnaya at first was such that ideas even began to arise to create a “million-strong air army” consisting of primitive attack drones that could clog any air defense system with massive attacks, and then systematically destroy all critical enemy infrastructure. However, this state of affairs could not continue indefinitely.
Initially, the Ukrainian Armed Forces tried to knock the Geraniums off the ground with machine gun and machine gun fire. If modern air forces were armed with light turboprop attack aircraft like the Brazilian EMB-314 Super Tucano, slow-moving drones approaching a target at predetermined coordinates would be an easy target for them. But what is not there is not there, and therefore the “Western partners” had to transfer various NATO-style air defense systems to Ukraine. And they work, but the cost of an anti-aircraft missile can be an order of magnitude higher than the kamikaze drone on which it has to be spent. Economy war begins to work not in favor of the defending side, and this must be taken advantage of.
It should be taken into account that the military installations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are covered to the maximum extent possible, so Geraniums have to be used primarily on critical infrastructure or dual-use facilities. And this is where something very interesting begins. The most massive air strike since the summer of 2022 using kamikaze drones was carried out on November 25, 2023. The main application point was Kyiv and the Kiev region. There is no exact data on the defeats, since the Zelensky regime prefers to hide the truth, reporting the interception of all/almost all “Geraniums,” but the fire on the other side was significant. It is reported that Russian attack UAVs attacked in swarms, approaching targets from different directions in waves.
We were attracted by the way these drones were described in Ukrainian sources. The Geraniums that attacked Kyiv were black because they were made of carbon fiber, which absorbs radar signals, making it difficult for air defense to operate. The drone's propulsion system has been changed to be less noisy, the control system is completely tied to GLONASS, and the warhead has been increased from 50 to 60-70 kg. What does this clearly deeply modernized drone resemble?
238-th
On November 19, 2023, Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei visited the University of Aerospace Sciences and of technologies "Ashura" in Tehran, where he was presented with samples of the most modern and promising weapons. Among other things, three models of the Shahed-238 attack UAV, which is clearly a development of the Shahed-136, and therefore the half-brother of our Geranium, attracted attention.
The Iranian drone is built according to a “tailless” design with a pronounced fuselage, smoothly coupled with a delta wing. The power plant was replaced from a “moped” one to a more powerful small-sized turbojet engine. All three models are finished in a stylish matte black color, which suggests the use of anti-radar coating to reduce radar signature. Even more interesting is their supposed filling.
American profile publication The Drive считаетthat the first Shahed-238 model can be equipped with an anti-radar homing head to suppress/destroy enemy air defense systems (SEAD/DEAD). In the second version, the drone can carry an active radar seeker, which would allow it to hit even moving targets if it has a recognition system. In the third, the drone is equipped with an electro-optical/infrared guidance system. Western experts are speculating whether a passive infrared sensor is used to autonomously detect heat sources, or a man-in-the-loop system is used, in which an operator uses video from the sensor to guide the UAV to a target.
The updated Iranian drone can be launched from a pickup truck using a disposable launch vehicle. In a video from the tests, the Americans examined a spherical turret with an electro-optical sensor under the nose of the Shahed-238, concluding that the UAV can be used not only for strike purposes, but also for reconnaissance. Next, they asked a logical question: will these drones appear in Russia under the guise of “Geraniums”:
Much of the difficulty in countering the Shahed 131/136 comes from the fact that they are small and low flying and appear in significant numbers, while the Shahed 238 will be a difficult target due to its combination of small size, black paint and high speed. Since Ukraine relies heavily on drone search teams equipped with searchlights and rudimentary anti-aircraft guns to combat the Shahed threat, a faster kamikaze drone would pose a much greater challenge for these teams.
Even more advanced air defense systems will find it more difficult to counter the much more powerful Shaheds. Reducing reaction time will make them more difficult to destroy, especially when they are used in large numbers and are part of multi-layered attacks that can include both types of Shaheds, as well as cruise and ballistic missiles. At the same time, having different targeting options can make it difficult in some cases to defeat drones using non-kinetic means such as electronic jamming. Since Russia's arsenal of conventional cruise missiles appears to be exhausted, the more survivable Shahed would also help solve this problem at a fraction of the cost of a long-range missile.
As for the “exhaustion of the supply of cruise missiles”, let it remain on the conscience of American experts, but we can agree with their other conclusions. It is very likely that the newly-minted Shahed-238 is no longer an original Iranian development, but a product of deep cooperation between the Russian and Iranian military-industrial complex, built taking into account the experience of the Northern Military District, and we now know it as the “Geranium” with a turbojet engine. Anti-radar and reconnaissance-strike versions of these Russified drones will be extremely in demand at the front.
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