Iran has presented a new kamikaze drone capable of destroying land and naval targets. It is the second UAV to be presented this month in the Islamic Republic.
According to the Tasnim news agency, the new drone of the Guardian Corps of the Islamic Revolution was designed for maritime surveillance, but it can be armed with missiles or equipped with an explosive warhead.
What appears to be a miniature seaplane with two vertical rudders and a single large horizontal balancer, should be able to fly at very low altitudes to avoid detection (half a meter above sea level), but can climb up to nine hundred meters at a maximum speed of 250 km / h with a range of four hours.
The Simorgh class, an Iranian version of the American Sentinel
On October 3, General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Aerospace Forces of the Guard Corps of the Islamic Revolution, presented the new low-observability drone to Teheran.
"The Saeqeh, the last drone of the Simorgh class, is able to simultaneously hit up to four targets with smart bombs and with millimeter capacity. In the UAV field we are on par with the Americans. Indeed, in stealth technology Americans are trying to stay at our level. The Simorgh class is the Iranian version of the US Sentinel RQ-170 drone ".
Iran has long claimed to be able to decode the technology of the Rq-170 Sentinel, the CIA drone which - according to the Islamic Republic - would be captured in December of the 2011. The Sentinel would have been shot down, but not destroyed, after entering Iranian airspace from its eastern border with Afghanistan. The United States has always denied the episode.
Since 1980, Iran has pursued a program of military self-sufficiency and with a certain frequency announces to the world fighter jets, tanks, missiles, submarines, torpedoes and drones. It is also true that most of the media presented to the public are simple mock-ups used for propaganda purposes. Thought goes to the Qaher-313 fighter.
In September of the 2013, Teheran claimed to have completed the reengineering process from Sentinel, announcing the sale to third parties of the acquired technology. How true there is in Iranian utterances we will never know, but the United States is not exempt from blame. Indeed, Iran has considerable experience in the field of reengineering, a large part of which was provided by the US during the period when relations between Tehran and Washington were excellent. Since then, Iran has been able to purchase spare parts for much of its American hardware and has had to resort to reengineering to keep it running.
The Iranian media claim that over the years Tehran has knocked down dozens of US drones and reproduced them after a reverse engineering process. According to the Pentagon, Iran would not be able to unveil the Sentinel technology, due to security protocols included in drones operating in hostile territory. On November 11th of the 2014, Iran claimed to have managed to fly its first Sentinel.
(Photo: Tasnim)
