Iran boosts long-range drone fleet with 1,000 unmanned aircraft

Iran has expanded its capabilities for strikes against ‘distant targets’

Iran's army commander Maj Gen Abdolrahim Mousavi, left, and Iranian Defence Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh during an inauguration ceremony of 1,000 new drones joining the Iranian Army in Tehran, Iran. EPA

Iran’s army has taken delivery of 1,000 new long range drones, likely to guard against any future conflict with Israel.

The drones would increase “the army's long-range strike power against distant targets”, state-linked Tasnim news agency said. Iran said that the drones had a range of 2,000km and included Arash drones, which have been used in attacks against Israel.

In April, Iran launched hundreds of ballistic missiles, low flying cruise missiles and drones against targets in Israel, almost all of which were shot down by a quickly assembled coalition including the US, Britain and France. The cost of intercepting the huge attack was put at about $1 billion and in some cases US F-15s involved in the operation ran out of missiles going after drones, shooting them down at close range with autocannons.

Israel retaliated, prompting a second major attack in October, and large-scale Israeli air raids against air defences and military sites.

Army commander Maj Gen Abdolrahim Mousavi announced the drone acquisition, alongside Defence Minister Brig Gen Aziz Nasirzadeh, on Sunday.

Iran already has one of the world’s largest drone arsenals, and has supplied a variety of domestically designed and produced drones to the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran-backed militias in Iraq. Iran has also supplied its drone technology to Russia, which mass produces the weapons for its war in Ukraine at the Alabuga special economic zone.

Tasnim said the drones have the “capacity for sustained, autonomous flight without a need for external control.” Iranian drones such as the Shahed 136 can reach targets on complex preprogrammed routes, causing problems for air defence units which are forced to spread out over vast areas. They fly “nap-of-the-earth,” at very low altitude to avoid radar beams, which can be obstructed in hills and valleys.

To do this, they use satellite navigation, but weak signals from the US GPS system or Russia’s GLONASS satellite navigation system can easily be jammed or “spoofed”, to trick receivers on drones into changing course.

Israel has disrupted satellite communications during security threats to thwart drone attacks. The drones have a backup inertial navigation system, which calculates the position of the drone based on internal measurements of altitude, bearing and speed, but this is said to be inaccurate, according to Ukrainian defence analyst Oleh Katkov, especially over longer distances.

Newer drones such as the jet-powered Shahed 238 also feature inertial navigation systems. According to Conflict Armament Research, an NGO which has studied wreckage of Iranian drones, and the Institute for Science and International Security, a think tank, their navigation systems rely almost entirely on smuggled Western microelectronics.

Iran said the drones were stealthy due to their “small radar cross section”, a feature of the relatively small weapons which are often not detected at long range.