Iran Unveils Its First UAV Bomber

ms_gen writes "Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiled today the first UAV bomber produced by Iran. The drone, named Karrar (farsi for Striker) can carry various types of bombs. It can reach up to 900 km/h in speed and has a range of 1000 kilometers (620 miles). The Iranian president mentions that 'Karrar is a symbol of the progress of defence technology in Iran.'"

Comments

V-1 with turbojet

[Wyatt Earp]

Video of a test launch and production.

http://vodpod.com/watch/4282312-iranian-karrar-drone

Looks alot like a V-1 or Loon but with hard points on the wings and turbojet instead of pulse jet. So late 50s technology designed with CAD. Probably a 30-40% failure rate on them too, that's standard for first or second generation cruise missiles/drones.

Re:V-1 with turbojet

[Wyatt Earp]

There have been alot of break throughs.

Engine technology has really taken off since the late 1950s.

F-4E, so a late 1960s aircraft powered by J79-GE-17A - 11,905 lbf (52.9 kN) dry; 17,835 lbf (79.3 kN) with afterburner and weighs 3,850 lbs.

Now F-22 has a F119-PW-100 - 23,500 pound feet of thrust 35,000+ lb with afterburner (156+ kn) weighs 3,900 lbs.

So more then double the thrust at the same weight.

F119 allows for supersonic flight up to Mach 1.35 without afterburner, the J79 required afterburner for supersonic flight.

Materials used in aircraft have also advanced quite a bit, more advanced steels, titanium alloys, composites as well as RAM have increased the durability of the aircraft and reduced the cross-section.

Re:V-1 with turbojet

[LWATCDR]

No.
Turbofan engines, composite construction, FBW, advanced avionics. And F-22 or even F-15 really is in a totaly different class then an Mig-19, F-8, of F-105.

Re:V-1 with turbojet

[phayes]

Shermans were much more commonly nicknamed "Ronsons" for their likelyhood to brew up when hit yet Shermans won the great majority of their fights against the "better designed" Panzers. As a captured german tank commander one said: Each of our Panzers is better than 10 of yours. Unfortunately for us, you always seem to have a dozen to every one of ours.

The reason that the US had so many Shermans is that they froze the design early and ramped up production. The Germans were continually tweaking their designs, making them "better" and more complicated thereby slowing production to a relative crawl.

The one thing most returning tank commanders regretted about the shermans after the war was not the motor & it's gasoline engine but that it was undergunned. Had they produced more Fireflys with the british 17 pounder many fewer US tanks would have been lost as they would not have had to close to short range (& take the neccesary casualties) to finish off the panzers.

Re:Left out the best part

[icebike]

Looks like a German V1 if you ask me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_flying_bomb

Except the Germans had the sense to put the bomb inside.

Re:Limited Value

[belmolis]

I don't know about this particular area, but Iran's industrial sector is more advanced than you might think. There is an extensive auto industry. Though it manufactures under licenses from foreign companies (the most common vehicle is a variant of the Peugeot 206), modifications have been designed and implemented in Iran. Iran is no banana republic.

Re:Irrelevant

[ScentCone]

eventually the US is going to have to realize that the west/Russia simply can't have a nuclear monopoly

What are you talking about? You do understand that there are many other countries with nuclear weapons, right? First, there's that funny litte country out east ... "China" or something like that. I suppose you'd rather forget about the UK, and France, and Pakistan, and South Africa, and India ... why, I'm not sure. But you have an odd working definition of "monopoly" (which is funny, because even in the way you used it, you implied that the US and Russia are somehow a single entity. Which is ridiculous.

War breeds more war, diplomacy can keep peace. Look at WWI which bred WWII

What are you talking about? It was diplomacy that bought Germany enough time to gear up for WWII. Google for "peace in our time" just for a refresher.

WWII which bred the Cold War

Have you actually ever studied any of this? The Cold War was between, essentially, the Soviet Block and everyone else (primarily the US and NATO allies). This wasn't about anything that happened in WWII, it was about the communist totalitarians running the USSR looking to forcibly model the rest of the world in the same fashion. It was the deterrent threat of an unwinnable nuclear war that ended that horrible regime.

And I'm sure if you looked further you could see that there were conflicts which caused WWI

You're completely missing the point. It wasn't previous conflicts (as is, past battles/wars) that "caused" WWI. It was fundamental differences between regional cultures, economies, resources, etc. Physical conflict errupted as a means by which to resolve those differences - because talking about them did not, of course, actually change anything. The entire history of Europe involves thousands of years of territorial, religious, and familial squabbling over turf, power, and resources. War (against the Germans, twice) was what ended that. War with the Soviets never happened, and their system collapsed under its own ponderous, confiscatory, non-productive, Nanny State weight.

Karrar is not Farsi OR Persian

[linumax]

Whether you call it Farsi or Persian, Karrar is neither. It's Arabic and while many Arabic words and phrases are used in everyday Farsi, "Karrar" is definitely not one. As a native Farsi speaker with some knowledge of Arabic, I had to look the meaning up. Generally, the government has some fetish of putting Arabic names on everything, especially anything military related to make them sound more "holy" since Arabic is language of Islam.

Re:Left out the best part

[roman_mir]

looks more like Tu-143 or Tu-141

Also

[Sycraft-fu]

Air war is as much about intelligence these days as anything else. Long gone are the days of the dog fights. Now, at least if you are talking the US, you engage targets beyond visual range with extremely smart guided missiles.

So if you want to have an airforce that can deal with the US you need four things:

1) Something to counter their AWACS. It might be stealthy jets, it might be good jamming hardware, whatever the case you have to have something to stop that. Otherwise, they'll know ever every single thing in the air is, with pinpoint accuracy. This can be crossdecked directly to new fighters, or simply told to older ones, so their jets can come in without ever turning on a radar. They don't even need them on to fire with AWACS coverage.

2) Something to pick up their planes. The US has a bunch of stealthy craft these days. Even the F/A-18Fs aren't easy to pick up and the F-22As are close to invisible unless the fire, never mind the B2-Bs. You need to have some technology to be able to find those, otherwise they'll pick off your planes, destroy your bases, etc and you won't be able to do anything about it. I don't know if there is such a technology, but you'd need to have some reasonable way to find their craft to kill them

3) Good night fighting ability. The US loves night attacks, because they are really good at it and most people are really bad at it. So you need the equipment and the training to have your jets as effective at night as during the day. Otherwise they'll simply wait until your air cover becomes weak at night and destroy the air bases.

4) Long range, highly effective missiles. Even if you can find their craft and so on you still have to engage them at a long range. The US has long range missiles that are hard to jam, you have to have the same if you are to have a realistic chance in air combat.

Without those four things, the US WILL have air superiority. They'll simply shoot down any fighters, bomb air bases (which can be done with extreme accuracy) and then blast SAM sites.

Re:Left out the best part

[zill]

Don't get started on the names of recent Middle East US military operations... they're almost oxymoron.

I personally found the name "Operation Iraqi Liberation" quite straight-forward and descriptive.

Re:You are the worst person in the world.

[chrb]

"Hezbollah did not appear out of Iran's magic crystal ball. It appeared directly as a result of Israeli and American forces invading Lebanon in 1982."

Bullshit. Hezbollah was born from the Shi'ite minority in Lebanon from the civil war they helped start.

Hezbollah first emerged in 1982 as a militia in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, also known as Operation Peace for Galilee, set on resisting the Israeli occupation of Lebanon during the Lebanese civil war.

The PLO imploded through their own ineptitude and inability to strike a deal with Israel.

The governing PLO was viewed as a terrorist organisation by Israel and the U.S. and was constantly undermined and accused of corruption. The people were subject to sanctions. Israel and the U.S. refused to negotiate with the PLO and said there would be no "additional Palestinian state..." (Jordan already being a Palestinian state), and "no change in the status of Judea, Samaria and Gaza other than in accordance with the basic guidelines of the [Israeli] Government". Maybe it is hard to strike a deal when the other side refuses to negotiate?