{"id":49799,"date":"2026-03-06T11:59:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T06:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=49799"},"modified":"2026-03-06T16:23:58","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T10:53:58","slug":"shahed-drones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/shahed-drones\/","title":{"rendered":"Shahed Drones"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Shahed Drones Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The United States recently raised serious concerns about the capabilities of Iran&#8217;s Shahed attack drones.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Shahed Drones<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Shahed (meaning witness in Farsi) drones are <\/span><b>low-cost, one-way-attack unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> developed by <\/span><b>Iran<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Often referred to as &#8220;<\/span><b>kamikaze&#8221; or &#8220;suicide&#8221; drones<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, they <\/span><b>function essentially as guided missiles<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that<\/span><b> fly towards a pre-designated target<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>explode on impact.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Most widely used <\/span><b>variants: Shahed-131 and Shahed-136\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Russia refers <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to the Shahed-131 and Shahed-136 as <\/span><b>\u201cGeran-1\u201d and \u201cGeran-2,\u201d respectively.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Each Shahed<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is reported to have an estimated <\/span><b>cost between $20,000 and $50,000, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">making them <\/span><b>cheaper than most other long-range, OWA UAVs.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Ballistic and cruise missile<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">s, by contrast, can<\/span><b> cost millions of dollars <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">each.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This <\/span><b>low cost<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, along with a <\/span><b>low-altitude flight profile and self-sacrificial nature,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> has seen Shaheds labelled \u201cthe<\/span><b> poor man\u2019s cruise missile\u201d.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Produced in large numbers, <\/span><b>swarms of Shahed drones can overwhelm air defences<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> by saturating them from multiple directions at once.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Shahed Drones <\/b><b>Features<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>Shahed-131 <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">has a <\/span><b>range of 700\u2013900 km,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> while the <\/span><b>Shahed-136<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> has the longer range, i.e., between <\/span><b>2,000 and 2,500 kilometres.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are between 2.5 and three metres long and weigh around 200 kg at launch, most of which is the fuel and payload.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are<\/span><b> launched using a disposable rocket booster fitted to their underside. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Shortly <\/span><b>after launch<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the <\/span><b>booster is jettisoned, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and a <\/span><b>piston-driven engine takes over<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to provide propulsion.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They can be launched from both static rail mounts as well as vehicles.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For <\/span><b>navigation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, it uses a combination of <\/span><b>civilian GPS\/GLONASS<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and an <\/span><b>inertial navigation system (INS) <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">often <\/span><b>pre-programmed with coordinates <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">before launch.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They can be equipped with various warheads, including high-explosive fragmentation, thermobaric, and shrapnel-filled munitions, maximising damage to both personnel and equipment.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: <\/span><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/videos\/international\/irans-shahed-drones-too-deadly-for-american-defences-trumps-admission-alarms-pentagon\/videoshow\/129095275.cms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TOI<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shahed Drones are low-cost, one-way-attack unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) developed by Iran. Read more about Shahed Drones, Speed, Range, Attacks, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":49768,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,796,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-49799","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-prelims-pointers","9":"tag-shahed-drones","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49799"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91299,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49799\/revisions\/91299"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}