Shahed 136 🇮🇷 Iranian ingenuity at the service of destruction

Shahed 136 - Geran 2 Loitering munition UAV

1.Introduction 00:00
2.Description 00:40
3.Deployment 01:33
4.Electronics 02:14

The HESA Shahed 136 ("Witness 136"), or Geran-2 ("Geranium-2") in Russian service, is an Iranian loitering munition in the form of an autonomous pusher-prop drone. It is designed and manufactured by HESA in association with Shahed Aviation Industries.
The munition is designed to attack ground targets from a distance, fired in multiples from a launch rack (in batches of five upwards) to overwhelm air defenses by consuming their resources during the attack.

Description:
The aircraft has a cropped delta-wing shape, with a central fuselage blending into the wings and stabilizing rudders at the tips. The nose section contains a warhead estimated to weigh 30–50 kilograms (66–110 lb). The engine sits in the rear of the fuselage and drives a two-bladed pusher propeller. The munition is 3.5 metres (11 ft) long with a wingspan of 2.5 metres (8.2 ft), flies at over 185 kmh (115 mph), and weighs about 200 kilograms (440 lb). Range has been estimated to be anywhere from between 970–1,500 km (600–930 mi) to as much as 2,000–2,500 km (1,200–1,600 mi).

Deployment:
Because of the portability of the launch frame and drone assembly, the entire unit can be mounted on the back of any military or commercial truck.
The aircraft is launched at a slight upward angle and is assisted in initial flight by rocket launch assistance (RATO). The rocket is jettisoned immediately after launch, whereupon the drone's conventional Iranian-made Mado MD-550 four-cylinder piston engine (possibly a reverse-engineered German Limbach L550E, also used in other Iranian drones such as the Ababil-3 takes over.

Electronics:
Despite no markings, experts believe the munition uses a computer processor manufactured by the American company Altera, RF modules by Analog Devices and LDO chips by Microchip Technology.
Inspection of captured drones used by Russia during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine revealed that some Shahed-136 electronics were manufactured from foreign made components, such as a Texas Instruments TMS320 processor, a Polish made fuel pump on behalf of UK-based company TI Fluid Systems and a voltage converter from China.