In The Iran war Cheap Drones is The wild Card
There are many different models of the drone known as the Shahed, but the most commonly used is the delta wing Shahed-136 , which is in many ways a slow, rudimentary cruise missile . Just over 8 feet wide and around 12 feet long, with a top speed of 115 miles per hour, it launches from a rail-based rack off the back of a military or commercial-grade truck. Once in the air, the Shahed has a range of up to 1,500 miles and uses GPS to find the target for its 90-pound warhead. All at an estimated cost of $35,000 per drone. To combat the threat posed by the Shaheds, Gulf States are firing interceptors that cost millions apiece and scrambling fighter jets that must slow down almost to stall speed to deal with the puttering low-tech machines. They also have Apache attack helicopters machine-gunning them out of the sky. Even if Iran’s ability to manufacture drones were to be severely degraded, it may be able to count on assistance from Russia. Gordon B. Davis, a senior fellow ...
