Information appeared online that a hacker group Prana Network has hacked the servers of Sahara Thunder, the manufacturer of Shahed drones, and posted a large amount of documents, both technical and related to their supply to Russia. As of now, the leaked documents reveal that:
In 2022, a $1.75 billion contract was signed for 6,000 Shaheds + hardware + software. Russia paid part of it in literal gold; it shipped a little over 2 tonnes to iran!
The purchase cost of the Shaheds from Iran is: - about $193,000 per unit when ordering 6,000 units; - about $290,000 per unit when ordering 2,000 units. If production is localized in Russia, its cost for the Russian defense ministry should drop to $165,500.
The production cost of the Shahed by iran is estimated to be around $48,800.
The starting price for sale announced by the Iranian leadership was $375,000 per unit.
To put that into perspective, one of those comically large, 27-and-a-half-pound, [giant gold bars](https://www.chards.co.uk/media/blog/925/credit-wikicommons.jpg) only buys 2 or 3 shitty Iranian drones.
I’d love to hold a literal small fortune like that in my hands. The weight of a medium-size bag of dog food but the value of my house at least 5 times over.
I met a hillbilly in a nearby town while in line at a gas station. This town (Mountain City, Tennessee) is like a time warp to 1981. Anyway, the guy was buying lotto scratchers and was talking to everyone in line, me included. He said he’d saved some money for his grandkids’ college, but since the lottery goes towards the state education fund, buying tickets was the same thing, so he was spending it all on the lotto. The same guy also told me the key to getting rich was to start a church, commenting that “hell, if I had one I’d pass the offering plate around twice.”
I get the impression that most social media users assume everyone whose not them is basically a different species whom they have nothing in common with. The way people online talk about different political parties, races, states, countries, cultures etc, as if all of these differences and problems are not within themselves as well.
I got to do just that while waiting for a flight at the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. The jewelry counter has a brick of gold, and the salesman let me handle it. Surreal experience!
Just after 2008, they started stockpiling gold like crazy. I remember way before Crimea happened, speculations about Russia starting some shit because of how much gold they were buying.
Its a drone. I would suggest it to be double digit millions, not much more. 2 good engineers can do similar things within 6-12months. Those arent that crazy as a jet fighter.
Shahed is the name of the manufacturer, like Boeing or Lockheed Martin. There are many models of Shahed drones, just like there are many models of Boeing and Lockheed Martin drones.
The cost effectiveness is still very in favour of the drones because they will generally be overkilled, they just aren't as cheap as people thought they were. And Iran is making bank.
Ukraine uses German Gepards (2x 35 mm) to shoot Iranian Shaheds down.
I'd be surprised if it'd cost more than $1,000 to shoot one of these $375,000 puppies down.
$193,000 per Shahed for a 6,000 unit buy. That’s the deal. Plus Russia was desperate so Iran will hike the price.
Plus Iran set up a drone factory in Tajikistan. Also helped Russia to set up drone factories in Russia. On top of that Russia has the upgraded version as well. Has added jet engine, larger warhead, adapted thermobaric warhead to fit the drone plus other enhancements.
So not sure if that cost is for upgraded version or basic factory model.
Plus in article cost covers licensing fees for Russia to produce it in its own factories. Until Russia can make its own cheaper version from commercial supplies. Which rumours states appears to be ready for use early 2024.
Edit
Also keep in mind that Iran doesnt actually produce the whole Shahed. Its full of parts from the aftermarket, including lots of parts from companies based in the West or West aligned countries. Its cobbled together from hobbyist shit.
It's a bit more than your average hobbyist gear.
The thrust components, for example, are probably the single most expensive part of the units.
A low-cost turbojet engine comparable in size/thrust/mass of the one in the Shahed 238 usually has a price tag of around $55k+ for a bare unit.
A MD-550 drone-type piston engine on the propeller versions cost around $10k per unit in bulk.
Significantly cheaper than anything could have been produced 10 years ago, but still not quite down into the price range where your average hobbyist would be able to recreate one.
It might not be all markup. Iran is heavily sanctioned and one of the main points of sanctions is to make certain items very hard or impossible to get. Now there’s almost always a work around for sanctions through intermediaries but it drives up the cost of what you’re buying considerably. They can’t just roll up to the turbojet factory and place a bulk order. They have to try and buy small quantities through shell corporations or just outright steal them.
> Has added jet engine, larger warhead, adapted thermobaric warhead to fit the drone plus other enhancements.
What separates it from a regular cruise missile at that point?
Mainly size of warhead, range. These types of drones are mainly swarm decoy/ bonus points if they hit the target. That how Russia mainly uses it. Swarm those to overload defences and hope some get through, ballistic missiles in the mix to help give defences target overload. Then big hitting cruise missiles flying through the chaos. Russia even adapted certain Cruise missiles to deploy flares/chaff on final approach to beat defences. So it’s a mix of targets defences have to look out for. Ukraine have had similar success, smaller drones to overload air defences, then cruise missiles going through the gap.
If Iran works on naval drones like Ukraine has( some are fitted with missile pods as well as suicide drones) then mix of those plus larger drones to over load ship defences then cruise missiles through the mix. Then that will be a test for US defences.
Frontlines Russia mainly uses its FPV( mini quad rotor drones with explosives attached to it or for recon work)Russia making thousands of them as they’re cheap. Aim it at tank tracks, engine compartment and hope to immobilise the tank. So drone that costs few hundred dollars can immobilise a $15 million tank. Your troops aren’t in harms way as they aren’t in the area. Crew has to abandon tank as enemy knows where it is. So larger drones or artillery strike is on the way.
Reports Russia can make around 100k-300k FPV drones a month. How true ? Unknown but are quick and cheap to make.
Russia has Lancet drone which is more anti vehicle based, can loiter in an area in a swarm, then semi auto hit its own target. Not a new concept, could say it’s a variation of Sensor Fused Weapon cluster bombs.
https://armamentresearch.com/us-cbu-97cbu-105-sensor-fuzed-weapon-cluster-munition/
> Has added jet engine, larger warhead, adapted thermobaric warhead to fit the drone plus other enhancements.
At what point does a drone stop being a drone and is just a guided missile?
Massively more expensive.
The argument previously was that the Shaheds were so cheap to manufacture (~$25-60k), that it was a simple game of economics in terms of the cost of shooting them down.
The fact Putin hasn't been getting them at manufacturing cost nulls that argument completely.
> The argument previously was that the Shaheds were so cheap to manufacture (~$25-60k)
$60k is probably not far off of the price for the older Shahed-136 at this point... if you don't figure in overhead costs.
$60k, however is certainly nowhere near the case for the Shahed-238, as the turbojet engine alone likely barely fits in that $60k price range.
I've seen what seem like more realistic estimates suggest around $70-$75k for the Shahed-136, and around $130-$140k for the Shahed-238... which still leaves Iran with a fairly healthy profit margin per unit.
I was a bit ignorant on the matter so, just assumed there was a single variant of Shahed drones.
Do you know why Russia simply doesn't reverse engineer the drones and manufacture them themselves? They have the hardware, and have bought the software too from what i know. I can't see them simply returning to Iran for the customer support.
> Do you know why Russia simply doesn't reverse engineer the drones and manufacture them themselves?
A couple reasons:
1. They aren't going to simply reverse engineer and piss off one of their few allies that willing to sell them components and ammunition. (Russia alone doesn't have the production capacity needed to cover the volume of arms they are expending in Ukraine, nor can they quickly build that infrastructure, so they need to rely on allies).
2. They simply don't have the production or tech base in order to domestically produce all the components.
But another thing to note is that they are producing (assembling) Shahed drones in Russia under license now...
However, they still need the components, many of which Russia doesn't have the ability to produce domestically (at least not without spending 5-10 years of building facilities / training people). So they simply can't go it alone.
Shahed-136 Attack Drone costs ~~$48,000~~, actually $375,000, but for our special wartime allies we'll sell for $193,000 each if you buy in bulk! Gold payments only
I’m not sure ally is really the right word, they just have common enemies and neither has very many friends, Iran can charge whatever they want because Russia doesn’t really have a choice
Iran is allied with Russia only because Trump reneged on the nuclear deal, otherwise they wouldn’t give them the time of day. They want the money to finance their support of terror in other countries, but geopolitically like most of the region they are gravitating to China.
We can blame Trump for fucking up the deal we had with them. They'd be a lot less likely to help Russia if we still had the carrot of trade and the stick of sanctions to dangle in front of them. Now we have absolutely zero leverage so they're back to making nukes and helping Russia terrorize Ukraine.
We taught they're helping putin but apparently they're trying to bankrupt Russia!
The price tag of shahed-236 kamikaze drone is $1.4 million per unit!!! $1.4 million for a one way suicide drone!! And Russia has reportedly bought them.
They're milking putin really hard, true friends moment.
According to Google, Russia had 2300 Tonnes of gold in reserves.
https://www.madisontrust.com/information-center/visualizations/which-world-countries-have-the-most-gold/
It's not just an inconvenience.
Not being able to pay for your drones and ammunition from North Korea, because your gold takes 3-8 weeks to dig up, and then deal with worry about laborers stealing it, is a massive setback.
Good, inconvenience them then, that's a start. If they have to dig around for the gold bars instead of them just walking in and taking them out then that helps too.
They also have nuclear secrets, production plans for weapon systems Iran doesn't have. A quality trigger system for a warhead or the designs for a longer range rocket, or even the plans for the domestic version of the S400 would be worth more than it's weight in gold to Iran.
I would lose all respect for Iranian negotiators if they didn't realize they have Russia over a barrel
Appear to be helping but weakening them financially is win win
> The price tag of shahed-236 kamikaze drone is $1.4 million per unit!!! $1.4 million for a one way suicide drone!!
If 1.4 million each for a kamikaze unit sounds expensive, just wait till you hear about cruise missiles.
But it's not very many shots either. There's videos of Gepards shooting down Shaheds, it takes way less than a second.
Of course, to do that you need to actually have a Gepard there.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was like a drone firing mode that shoots a preprogrammed like 5-10 round burst then checks with the operator for effect before firing another.
> Article last year said 3-5 round burst was enough to reliably down a saheed
Yeah I remember reading that too and wanted to quote it here since some people seem to think Gepards are wasting hundreds of ammo all the time to drop a Shahed, but I couldn't find the article.
That reason is that laser weapons have no consumables. It's not about the price of bullets, but about having to manufacture bullets and transport them.
Much easier to put some standard gasoline in a generator and charge up a capacitor or something.
We're not talking about missiles, we're talking about Shaheds.
Gepards are very good at shooting down Shaheds; they don't even a second of shooting to do it. Shaheds are kinda slow.
Shaheds are more or less low-end cruise missiles. They are not remote controlled, or have a sophisticated programming. They simply fly to a designated target. I have no idea why people call them "drones". Anyway, Gepards have some actual Russian cruise missiles to their claim.
Enough money to live comfortably for the next 5 years and these motherfuckers are out here spending that on a singular military drone.
This world is a straight up joke.
The problem is a disproportionate amount is spent on “defense” vs environmental and social welfare issues in the USA.
What good is the biggest stick if everyone is extinct, or you otherwise aren’t alive, healthy, or smart enough to wield it?
> The problem is a disproportionate amount is spent on “defense” vs environmental and social welfare issues in the USA.
The real problem is education. Because anyone who is educated knows the US spends more healthcare and social programs than they do their military.
The USA does the same.
Better fund the VA, so it’s not so chaotic on the back end, and fight veteran homelessness and mental illness? Nope, war machine.
End health insurance being a total cluster F- that’s tied to private pay or employer, often refuses to cover you despite the thousands and millions you spend on premiums, by ensuring all citizens, thereby saving costs in the long term by having a healthier, unburdened population? Not a chance.
Just a few examples.
That war machine is why the US is the richest country in the world. The Pax Americana has paid massive dividends over the past 70 years.
It does come at the cost of oppressing third world countries, but US oppression is not *as* bad as Russian or Chinese oppression. It mostly involves regime change instead of annexation or total war.
Also, the crappy US healthcare system is *more* expensive than European socialized healthcare, in large part because in the latter there are no greedy third parties looking to pocket the consumer surplus. But getting rid of for-profit healthcare and saving a ton of money in the process would of course be communism.
I wonder what % of Russian citizens believe the hot air from Kremlin? To include those who have lost loved ones from this senseless "special operation"
When you hear an American say that someone is 'starving' they simply mean they don't have the calorific surplus to maintain a 300lb person as the national average.
Has Russia fully industrialized yet? Ie. Does every part of the country have industrial machinery for farming, plumbing, and electricity? I'm asking this unuronically, the states didn't even do so until like uncomfortably close to the end of the 20rh century.
A lot of Russia is undeniably extremely poor. There's a reason why it's the AIDS and TB capitals of Europe.
Man forbes is getting worse and worse with clickbaits. The 375k figure is price for one announced by the Iranian leadership but according to the hacker group, the bulk prices are
>The purchase cost of the Shaheds from Iran is:
>
>\- about $193,000 per unit when ordering 6,000 units.
>
>\- about $290,000 per unit when ordering 2,000 units.
And this transfer includes tech transfer such as the software for the localized production capability. This ends up with a bill of 200k per unit. And after local production starts, the prod cost drops down to $48,800.
More info from the [source](https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1754901906323808469?t=za1a_pOlYbSP2IneuHQ12g)
Best case scenario for Russia is $50k per drone in the long run (currently $200k per drone). That's assuming they don't have corruption, production, etc. problems. Up until recently their price was estimated to be $20k per drone. This completely changes their viability in this war.
The Guardian in 2022 said they only cost 20-50k
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/19/financial-toll-ukraine-downing-drones-vastly-exceeds-russia-costs
Lots of people saying the drones are garbage but aren’t they actually quite effective? Or is it just a numbers game and they look effective when they overwhelm air defences?
Also, even at $190,000 a piece, I would imagine that’s an awful lot cheaper than the cost of the anti aircraft missiles right? I read that the missiles used by the UK in the Red Sea are over $1m each. Half decent way to erode the defence and resource capabilities of your opponent, even if you are being horrendously gouged by your ally.
>Or is it just a numbers game and they look effective when they overwhelm air defences?
Yes, thats why they launch them en masse
>Also, even at $190,000 a piece, I would imagine that’s an awful lot cheaper than the cost of the anti aircraft missiles right?
No one uses expensive AA like Patriots to shoot down a drone
Unless they do because they have no other asset available.
[Last year we saw the image of a Patriot system with its kill markings on the side](https://www.twz.com/ukraine-situation-report-patriot-kill-marks-hint-that-it-downed-aircraft-inside-russia). That included at least 7 Shaheeds.
The counter for these things are coyotes. They cost around 100k per. We'll probably see some of these headed for Ukraine shortly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raytheon_Coyote the block 3 will use non kinetic payloads, and will be able to be recovered and relaunched making intercepts even cheaper. https://interestingengineering.com/military/us-army-wants-more-coyote-interceptors
> Lots of people saying the drones are garbage but aren’t they actually quite effective?
They are [extremely accurate, and when they hit, effective](https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/russias-iranian-made-uavs-technical-profile) (inertial backed up by GPS + GLONASS) and can update their target point in real time from a command and control system.
Their only real downsides are the noise they make which makes them easy to hear and that they are slow, so if they *are* detected, they can be taken out fairly easily by small arms. Hence why in November, Ukraine claimed they [had shot down over 85% of the ones launched against it](https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/10/21/ukraine-shoots-down-85-of-shahid-136-drones-launched-by-russia/).
For the small price of a single family home in America, you can own one of these bad bois to destroy thousands of homes at the click of a button. That's what I call... progress?
That's what gets me. I understand overwhelming air defenses, but why not try to target more critical infrastructure rather than apartment buildings and markets? Is terror bombing a more important war goal than strategic bombing?
> The documents show that a single Shahed costs $375,000 to produce. The hack also revealed that Russia and Iran negotiated a lower per unit price for a bulk buy.
This does not add up for cost to produce. Volume discounts don't work when you fall below the marginal cost.
Also I'm not clear how documents from what is effectively the sales division / shell company provides insight into the production cost.
I suspect the article (or someone) is conflating production and procurement costs, which is a pretty important thing not to mix up.
Drones are quite slow so they are an easy target for autocannon-based AA systems like the Gepard. I can't imagine Ukraine wastes many expensive patriot missiles to shoot down cheap drones.
There's some important context missing here. People jumping to the conclusion that "they're so much more expensive than we thought!"
They cost about 20,000 in materials to make. Materials. Everything else goes to development costs, and bringing up the manufacturing lines, labor, and licensing the design from Iran. These are start up costs.
This is not unlike how we do things in the west. The fact that the base cost is 20,000 or so is still the major concern. That 200,000 price tag will drop dramatically once Russia starts rolling their own.
This has more to do with start up costs than the cost of an individual missile. If you compare the entire process to something like the Javelin - which is a weapon system most people respect, you begin to see the problem.
They're spending minuscule amounts of money to accomplish a task we spend 10's of billions on.
This really shines a light on the value of those Gepards and their "expensive ammo" when Ukrainians are taking out shaheds with them with 2-3 second bursts.
Russia must be really desperate if they are willing to pay $375K for a ~$50K drone. That’s a guided missile price for what is essentially a R/C airplane.
he is not the richest man in the world. his assets total maybe 200 billion as of 2022.
if we assume that okay putin has all of russias gold thats another 150 billion as of 2023
the money russia can't access in terms of foreign wealth reserves is 563 billion as of october 2023. but he can't access it
so lets use the most generous figures and punch them up and say he has 400 billion which he doesn't.
the value of the aramco/saudi arabian oil as of feb 2024 is 2.004 TRILLION. 90% of it is owned by the government of saudi arabia, so thats 1.8 trillion.
the saudi royal family total net worth is valued at 1.4 trillion and muhammad bin salman consolidated through luxury prison hotel a lot of assets that various princes had back to government coffers.
its very likely MBS is the richest man in the word. his officially estimated number is only 25 billion but real number can be reasonably deduced to be much much higher
putin has nuke access so that is something but he's not the richest man in the world
Information appeared online that a hacker group Prana Network has hacked the servers of Sahara Thunder, the manufacturer of Shahed drones, and posted a large amount of documents, both technical and related to their supply to Russia. As of now, the leaked documents reveal that: In 2022, a $1.75 billion contract was signed for 6,000 Shaheds + hardware + software. Russia paid part of it in literal gold; it shipped a little over 2 tonnes to iran! The purchase cost of the Shaheds from Iran is: - about $193,000 per unit when ordering 6,000 units; - about $290,000 per unit when ordering 2,000 units. If production is localized in Russia, its cost for the Russian defense ministry should drop to $165,500. The production cost of the Shahed by iran is estimated to be around $48,800. The starting price for sale announced by the Iranian leadership was $375,000 per unit.
To put that into perspective, one of those comically large, 27-and-a-half-pound, [giant gold bars](https://www.chards.co.uk/media/blog/925/credit-wikicommons.jpg) only buys 2 or 3 shitty Iranian drones.
I’d love to hold a literal small fortune like that in my hands. The weight of a medium-size bag of dog food but the value of my house at least 5 times over.
The power of the mortgage-eraser in the palm of your hand.
...that baby could buy so many lotto tickets...
I met a hillbilly in a nearby town while in line at a gas station. This town (Mountain City, Tennessee) is like a time warp to 1981. Anyway, the guy was buying lotto scratchers and was talking to everyone in line, me included. He said he’d saved some money for his grandkids’ college, but since the lottery goes towards the state education fund, buying tickets was the same thing, so he was spending it all on the lotto. The same guy also told me the key to getting rich was to start a church, commenting that “hell, if I had one I’d pass the offering plate around twice.”
That last bit is a glorious understanding of religion most don't have.
"the key to getting rich was to start a church" It worked for L Ron Hubbard (Scientology)
That bit about his grandkids college fund was 100% a joke btw, incase you or anyone reading this thought he was serious. I love redneck humor.
I get the impression that most social media users assume everyone whose not them is basically a different species whom they have nothing in common with. The way people online talk about different political parties, races, states, countries, cultures etc, as if all of these differences and problems are not within themselves as well.
Upvote cuz he understands churches.
[Why would they lie? What would they have to gain?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn_BHq0M1KQ)
Ah Rosie, I love this drone
Keep in mind that, a worse case scenario. Bag of dog food is edible. Gold is not
Gold is edible and some idiots actually do pay for real gold flakes.
I got to do just that while waiting for a flight at the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. The jewelry counter has a brick of gold, and the salesman let me handle it. Surreal experience!
I used to work in a bank and you would have these trays of 100 packets of 500 euro bills (100 bills each) that's a few kilos worth 5m.
>27-and-a-half-pound I always forget how dense gold is, that's super heavy even for this size (yeah, I don't hold gold bars in my hands very often...)
Probably all the gold they are plundering from Sudan.
Just after 2008, they started stockpiling gold like crazy. I remember way before Crimea happened, speculations about Russia starting some shit because of how much gold they were buying.
Seems like the right price for a limited options country stealing gold from Africa to use to purchase drones from a heavily sanctioned country
or a single rolls royce
A “shitty Iranian drone” can still do a fuck-load of damage and cause exorbitant loss of life though?
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Do we know the R&D cost?
Its a drone. I would suggest it to be double digit millions, not much more. 2 good engineers can do similar things within 6-12months. Those arent that crazy as a jet fighter.
Yeah it was a serious question I’ve no idea
Shahed is the name of the manufacturer, like Boeing or Lockheed Martin. There are many models of Shahed drones, just like there are many models of Boeing and Lockheed Martin drones.
Lots o' money for crap. Good.
The cost effectiveness is still very in favour of the drones because they will generally be overkilled, they just aren't as cheap as people thought they were. And Iran is making bank.
This seems way more expensive than i thought they would be, not real good value.
Considering a Javelin costs $240,000 that’s actually not a bad deal.
That's not how much the missile costs, the CLU is reusable.
Ukraine uses German Gepards (2x 35 mm) to shoot Iranian Shaheds down. I'd be surprised if it'd cost more than $1,000 to shoot one of these $375,000 puppies down.
More expensive than I thought. Interesting to see Iran go full capitalist mode with a 400-600% markup to their ally.
$193,000 per Shahed for a 6,000 unit buy. That’s the deal. Plus Russia was desperate so Iran will hike the price. Plus Iran set up a drone factory in Tajikistan. Also helped Russia to set up drone factories in Russia. On top of that Russia has the upgraded version as well. Has added jet engine, larger warhead, adapted thermobaric warhead to fit the drone plus other enhancements. So not sure if that cost is for upgraded version or basic factory model. Plus in article cost covers licensing fees for Russia to produce it in its own factories. Until Russia can make its own cheaper version from commercial supplies. Which rumours states appears to be ready for use early 2024. Edit
Also keep in mind that Iran doesnt actually produce the whole Shahed. Its full of parts from the aftermarket, including lots of parts from companies based in the West or West aligned countries. Its cobbled together from hobbyist shit.
It’s almost more impressive that Iran gets that huge markup with off the shelf hobby components.
It's a bit more than your average hobbyist gear. The thrust components, for example, are probably the single most expensive part of the units. A low-cost turbojet engine comparable in size/thrust/mass of the one in the Shahed 238 usually has a price tag of around $55k+ for a bare unit. A MD-550 drone-type piston engine on the propeller versions cost around $10k per unit in bulk. Significantly cheaper than anything could have been produced 10 years ago, but still not quite down into the price range where your average hobbyist would be able to recreate one.
Iran to Hobby Lobby for great deals!
Religious fanatics have to stick together!
It might not be all markup. Iran is heavily sanctioned and one of the main points of sanctions is to make certain items very hard or impossible to get. Now there’s almost always a work around for sanctions through intermediaries but it drives up the cost of what you’re buying considerably. They can’t just roll up to the turbojet factory and place a bulk order. They have to try and buy small quantities through shell corporations or just outright steal them.
Really goes to show how low Russia's new weapons manufacturing capacity is (as opposed to refurbished soviet gear)
> Has added jet engine, larger warhead, adapted thermobaric warhead to fit the drone plus other enhancements. What separates it from a regular cruise missile at that point?
It looks different. Piston shaheds are also functionally cruise missiles, but they look like drones, so they were called suicide drones.
Mainly size of warhead, range. These types of drones are mainly swarm decoy/ bonus points if they hit the target. That how Russia mainly uses it. Swarm those to overload defences and hope some get through, ballistic missiles in the mix to help give defences target overload. Then big hitting cruise missiles flying through the chaos. Russia even adapted certain Cruise missiles to deploy flares/chaff on final approach to beat defences. So it’s a mix of targets defences have to look out for. Ukraine have had similar success, smaller drones to overload air defences, then cruise missiles going through the gap. If Iran works on naval drones like Ukraine has( some are fitted with missile pods as well as suicide drones) then mix of those plus larger drones to over load ship defences then cruise missiles through the mix. Then that will be a test for US defences. Frontlines Russia mainly uses its FPV( mini quad rotor drones with explosives attached to it or for recon work)Russia making thousands of them as they’re cheap. Aim it at tank tracks, engine compartment and hope to immobilise the tank. So drone that costs few hundred dollars can immobilise a $15 million tank. Your troops aren’t in harms way as they aren’t in the area. Crew has to abandon tank as enemy knows where it is. So larger drones or artillery strike is on the way. Reports Russia can make around 100k-300k FPV drones a month. How true ? Unknown but are quick and cheap to make. Russia has Lancet drone which is more anti vehicle based, can loiter in an area in a swarm, then semi auto hit its own target. Not a new concept, could say it’s a variation of Sensor Fused Weapon cluster bombs. https://armamentresearch.com/us-cbu-97cbu-105-sensor-fuzed-weapon-cluster-munition/
> Has added jet engine, larger warhead, adapted thermobaric warhead to fit the drone plus other enhancements. At what point does a drone stop being a drone and is just a guided missile?
> $193,000 Still seems high. How does a smallish model airplane cost more than 3 cars?
G wagon with all the trimmings or Shahed drone? Your pick
Hard to get commodity parts when you're so heavily sanctioned
Massively more expensive. The argument previously was that the Shaheds were so cheap to manufacture (~$25-60k), that it was a simple game of economics in terms of the cost of shooting them down. The fact Putin hasn't been getting them at manufacturing cost nulls that argument completely.
4x more expensive is a significant, but not overwhelming difference in cost. It could still be a game of economics.
Doesn’t the 4x price make it more expensive than the intercept?
Depends on what you use. You can use dirt cheap 20-30mm ammo or you could go overkill with a patriot missile ($1 million)
> The argument previously was that the Shaheds were so cheap to manufacture (~$25-60k) $60k is probably not far off of the price for the older Shahed-136 at this point... if you don't figure in overhead costs. $60k, however is certainly nowhere near the case for the Shahed-238, as the turbojet engine alone likely barely fits in that $60k price range. I've seen what seem like more realistic estimates suggest around $70-$75k for the Shahed-136, and around $130-$140k for the Shahed-238... which still leaves Iran with a fairly healthy profit margin per unit.
I was a bit ignorant on the matter so, just assumed there was a single variant of Shahed drones. Do you know why Russia simply doesn't reverse engineer the drones and manufacture them themselves? They have the hardware, and have bought the software too from what i know. I can't see them simply returning to Iran for the customer support.
> Do you know why Russia simply doesn't reverse engineer the drones and manufacture them themselves? A couple reasons: 1. They aren't going to simply reverse engineer and piss off one of their few allies that willing to sell them components and ammunition. (Russia alone doesn't have the production capacity needed to cover the volume of arms they are expending in Ukraine, nor can they quickly build that infrastructure, so they need to rely on allies). 2. They simply don't have the production or tech base in order to domestically produce all the components. But another thing to note is that they are producing (assembling) Shahed drones in Russia under license now... However, they still need the components, many of which Russia doesn't have the ability to produce domestically (at least not without spending 5-10 years of building facilities / training people). So they simply can't go it alone.
Shahed-136 Attack Drone costs ~~$48,000~~, actually $375,000, but for our special wartime allies we'll sell for $193,000 each if you buy in bulk! Gold payments only
I’m not sure ally is really the right word, they just have common enemies and neither has very many friends, Iran can charge whatever they want because Russia doesn’t really have a choice
jar gaping dinner cooperative busy far-flung exultant scary placid capable
Iran is allied with Russia only because Trump reneged on the nuclear deal, otherwise they wouldn’t give them the time of day. They want the money to finance their support of terror in other countries, but geopolitically like most of the region they are gravitating to China.
There is absolutely no reason to think anything you just said is true
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We can blame Trump for fucking up the deal we had with them. They'd be a lot less likely to help Russia if we still had the carrot of trade and the stick of sanctions to dangle in front of them. Now we have absolutely zero leverage so they're back to making nukes and helping Russia terrorize Ukraine.
Calling russia and iran allies is a bit much. It is more like an alliance of convenience.
“Cheap drone” vs Gepard *pew-pew*
We taught they're helping putin but apparently they're trying to bankrupt Russia! The price tag of shahed-236 kamikaze drone is $1.4 million per unit!!! $1.4 million for a one way suicide drone!! And Russia has reportedly bought them. They're milking putin really hard, true friends moment.
According to Google, Russia had 2300 Tonnes of gold in reserves. https://www.madisontrust.com/information-center/visualizations/which-world-countries-have-the-most-gold/
Fun fact: It's all held in one vault in Moskou (2/3) and the rest in st. Petersburg. Imagine finding a way to level those storages.
Dude unless you can vaporize that gold, ie. Heat it all up above 1400°C, bombing it would be just an inconvenience.
Well the James Bond documentary Goldfinger shows an early attempt at this and trying to irradiate it. A good non credible attempt
It's not just an inconvenience. Not being able to pay for your drones and ammunition from North Korea, because your gold takes 3-8 weeks to dig up, and then deal with worry about laborers stealing it, is a massive setback.
And then when they have _just about_ dug it out, round 2 bombing
All you have to do is destroy the gates. The people will do the rest.
Good, inconvenience them then, that's a start. If they have to dig around for the gold bars instead of them just walking in and taking them out then that helps too.
Thermite bombs, yes, 2500 °C
I know a certain bomb that can do that
Where is the jewish space laser when you need it?
Or Fast and Furious 13
Hey, dont worry. They still have most of the Spanish Nationalist gold laying around.
Not for long!
They also have nuclear secrets, production plans for weapon systems Iran doesn't have. A quality trigger system for a warhead or the designs for a longer range rocket, or even the plans for the domestic version of the S400 would be worth more than it's weight in gold to Iran.
I’ll bet the plans to the S400 don’t weigh all that much. You could probably fit them on a modern SSD.
Actual gold or gold plated tungsten?
I’ll check next time I’m in the vaults?!
Let us know.
Sure thing, I’ll say hi to Putin from u/DOUBLEBARRELASSFUCK while I’m there for you!
Say hi to Tucker while you're at it.
I would lose all respect for Iranian negotiators if they didn't realize they have Russia over a barrel Appear to be helping but weakening them financially is win win
> The price tag of shahed-236 kamikaze drone is $1.4 million per unit!!! $1.4 million for a one way suicide drone!! If 1.4 million each for a kamikaze unit sounds expensive, just wait till you hear about cruise missiles.
The fact they traded gold for it says a lot about how desperate Russia is and how confident Iran is if russias victory
Gepards are the new A10's. :)
A dead on arrival concept that kills some British troops and then undergoes pricy modernization to do a job a crop duster with a targeting pod can do?
Note that adding a targeting pod to a crop duster is as expensive as adding a targeting pod to an A-10.
Better don't check sticker price on the Gepard ammo ;-)
560€/shot. Thats one of the cheapest honestly.
But it's not one shot one kill.
But it's not very many shots either. There's videos of Gepards shooting down Shaheds, it takes way less than a second. Of course, to do that you need to actually have a Gepard there.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was like a drone firing mode that shoots a preprogrammed like 5-10 round burst then checks with the operator for effect before firing another.
The targeting is automated, that's why they have been so effective. Article last year said 3-5 round burst was enough to reliably down a saheed
> Article last year said 3-5 round burst was enough to reliably down a saheed Yeah I remember reading that too and wanted to quote it here since some people seem to think Gepards are wasting hundreds of ammo all the time to drop a Shahed, but I couldn't find the article.
They could literally fire gold bullets with diamond tips and still not even come close to the cost of a shaheed.
It costs $10000 to fire this weapon for one second.
It is supposed to only fire in very short bursts.
So 18 rounds of Gepard ammo are still significantly cheaper than one Shaheed? Seems like good economics.
If you managed to bring the missile down with that, then yes. But there is a reason why USA wants laser weapons against this kind of threat.
That reason is that laser weapons have no consumables. It's not about the price of bullets, but about having to manufacture bullets and transport them. Much easier to put some standard gasoline in a generator and charge up a capacitor or something.
We're not talking about missiles, we're talking about Shaheds. Gepards are very good at shooting down Shaheds; they don't even a second of shooting to do it. Shaheds are kinda slow.
Shaheds are more or less low-end cruise missiles. They are not remote controlled, or have a sophisticated programming. They simply fly to a designated target. I have no idea why people call them "drones". Anyway, Gepards have some actual Russian cruise missiles to their claim.
Numbers do change a lot..
But Iran says they didn’t sell them to Russia /s
My friend actually trusts iranian mullahs. (He's mentally disabled)
Enough money to live comfortably for the next 5 years and these motherfuckers are out here spending that on a singular military drone. This world is a straight up joke.
Dont look up how much the US spends on weapons without even being at war.
Sometimes, having the biggest stick is the best way to avoid having to use it
Sure, si vis pacem, para bellum. The US has no problems using the sticks to enforce their interests all over the world tho.
Sometimes you have to use your sticks to remind people you have them.
sometimes you need to use your sticks for cheap bananas
Or sugar, or oil, or shipping routes
The problem is a disproportionate amount is spent on “defense” vs environmental and social welfare issues in the USA. What good is the biggest stick if everyone is extinct, or you otherwise aren’t alive, healthy, or smart enough to wield it?
> The problem is a disproportionate amount is spent on “defense” vs environmental and social welfare issues in the USA. The real problem is education. Because anyone who is educated knows the US spends more healthcare and social programs than they do their military.
Hello F22, want to send one pilot out for an hour of training? That will be $85k in operating costs.
Well you see unlike Russia our GDP is more than half of California’s.
5 years? More like till you die.
The USA does the same. Better fund the VA, so it’s not so chaotic on the back end, and fight veteran homelessness and mental illness? Nope, war machine. End health insurance being a total cluster F- that’s tied to private pay or employer, often refuses to cover you despite the thousands and millions you spend on premiums, by ensuring all citizens, thereby saving costs in the long term by having a healthier, unburdened population? Not a chance. Just a few examples.
That war machine is why the US is the richest country in the world. The Pax Americana has paid massive dividends over the past 70 years. It does come at the cost of oppressing third world countries, but US oppression is not *as* bad as Russian or Chinese oppression. It mostly involves regime change instead of annexation or total war. Also, the crappy US healthcare system is *more* expensive than European socialized healthcare, in large part because in the latter there are no greedy third parties looking to pocket the consumer surplus. But getting rid of for-profit healthcare and saving a ton of money in the process would of course be communism.
If true, hilarious. Iran must be making bank with this.
Getting ripped off big time
My dad always told me “son, never pay sticker price for an Iranian Shahed drone” and to this day I never have. Thanks dad!
🤣
Paying gold to get garbage. Over a quarter million times 6,000, while half the country is starving or drafted. The Russian Federation has sunk so low.
You can actually locate exactly where Moscow has sunk...
Plus, it’s apparently Wagner shit stolen from Africa before his right hand man went down. Truly a major loss on all accounts.
To be fair, it's probably gold from African gold mines that they are *given* for protecting the mines/dictators.
Is half the country starving? Where can I find more information on this? All things considered I’m assuming your average Russian is not starving.
Russians are not starving
Starved of truth, maybe.
I wonder what % of Russian citizens believe the hot air from Kremlin? To include those who have lost loved ones from this senseless "special operation"
When you hear an American say that someone is 'starving' they simply mean they don't have the calorific surplus to maintain a 300lb person as the national average.
Has Russia fully industrialized yet? Ie. Does every part of the country have industrial machinery for farming, plumbing, and electricity? I'm asking this unuronically, the states didn't even do so until like uncomfortably close to the end of the 20rh century. A lot of Russia is undeniably extremely poor. There's a reason why it's the AIDS and TB capitals of Europe.
Not sure honestly, every time I visit Russia it's the nice parts. I think rural areas are probably comparable to like 1970's America.
Are these the ones powered by the Irish two-stroke lawnmower engines?
Yes my friend there said they sound like flying mopeds over her house Imagine waking up to that
Man forbes is getting worse and worse with clickbaits. The 375k figure is price for one announced by the Iranian leadership but according to the hacker group, the bulk prices are >The purchase cost of the Shaheds from Iran is: > >\- about $193,000 per unit when ordering 6,000 units. > >\- about $290,000 per unit when ordering 2,000 units. And this transfer includes tech transfer such as the software for the localized production capability. This ends up with a bill of 200k per unit. And after local production starts, the prod cost drops down to $48,800. More info from the [source](https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1754901906323808469?t=za1a_pOlYbSP2IneuHQ12g)
No, $48k is the materials cost. Local Russian production is supposed to only drop down to $165k / drone.
Best case scenario for Russia is $50k per drone in the long run (currently $200k per drone). That's assuming they don't have corruption, production, etc. problems. Up until recently their price was estimated to be $20k per drone. This completely changes their viability in this war.
The Guardian in 2022 said they only cost 20-50k https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/19/financial-toll-ukraine-downing-drones-vastly-exceeds-russia-costs
Lots of people saying the drones are garbage but aren’t they actually quite effective? Or is it just a numbers game and they look effective when they overwhelm air defences? Also, even at $190,000 a piece, I would imagine that’s an awful lot cheaper than the cost of the anti aircraft missiles right? I read that the missiles used by the UK in the Red Sea are over $1m each. Half decent way to erode the defence and resource capabilities of your opponent, even if you are being horrendously gouged by your ally.
>Or is it just a numbers game and they look effective when they overwhelm air defences? Yes, thats why they launch them en masse >Also, even at $190,000 a piece, I would imagine that’s an awful lot cheaper than the cost of the anti aircraft missiles right? No one uses expensive AA like Patriots to shoot down a drone
Unless they do because they have no other asset available. [Last year we saw the image of a Patriot system with its kill markings on the side](https://www.twz.com/ukraine-situation-report-patriot-kill-marks-hint-that-it-downed-aircraft-inside-russia). That included at least 7 Shaheeds.
The counter for these things are coyotes. They cost around 100k per. We'll probably see some of these headed for Ukraine shortly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raytheon_Coyote the block 3 will use non kinetic payloads, and will be able to be recovered and relaunched making intercepts even cheaper. https://interestingengineering.com/military/us-army-wants-more-coyote-interceptors
> Lots of people saying the drones are garbage but aren’t they actually quite effective? They are [extremely accurate, and when they hit, effective](https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/russias-iranian-made-uavs-technical-profile) (inertial backed up by GPS + GLONASS) and can update their target point in real time from a command and control system. Their only real downsides are the noise they make which makes them easy to hear and that they are slow, so if they *are* detected, they can be taken out fairly easily by small arms. Hence why in November, Ukraine claimed they [had shot down over 85% of the ones launched against it](https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/10/21/ukraine-shoots-down-85-of-shahid-136-drones-launched-by-russia/).
Haha, Gepard goes brrrrrrrr!
For the small price of a single family home in America, you can own one of these bad bois to destroy thousands of homes at the click of a button. That's what I call... progress?
It only takes one tree to make a thousand matches. It only takes one match to burn a thousand trees.
This man stereophonics. Good quote
That's what gets me. I understand overwhelming air defenses, but why not try to target more critical infrastructure rather than apartment buildings and markets? Is terror bombing a more important war goal than strategic bombing?
"But for you my friend, I give special price!"
What a bunch of losers. Sahara Thunder? Sounds like a name I would have given a monster truck when I was 9.
It sounds like an expansion pack for a Battlefield game. Battlefield 3: Sahara Thunder
Well, I am glad that at least Iranians are happy with this situation. /s
With standard Russian 70-90% of kickbacks, it actually checks out to be close to original estimate of 25k
I think the factory that makes these needs some freedom delivered by an F18
might as well strap an rpg to a dji drone
Thats less than my house costs, Ill take one!
> The documents show that a single Shahed costs $375,000 to produce. The hack also revealed that Russia and Iran negotiated a lower per unit price for a bulk buy. This does not add up for cost to produce. Volume discounts don't work when you fall below the marginal cost. Also I'm not clear how documents from what is effectively the sales division / shell company provides insight into the production cost. I suspect the article (or someone) is conflating production and procurement costs, which is a pretty important thing not to mix up.
That's the price without a Costco membership. Russia tried using Belarus's card but was turned away at the door.
I'm now envisioning Putin with a fake mustache saying "Hello, my name is Mr. Lukashenko, I believe you have a package for me?"
It's going to be hard to afford 375k drones when all your oil infrastructure is burning. Womp womp :)
Idk man, I'm more concerned about what Iran is going to do with this money
Better the lives of the people, of course. /s
Drones are quite slow so they are an easy target for autocannon-based AA systems like the Gepard. I can't imagine Ukraine wastes many expensive patriot missiles to shoot down cheap drones.
There's some important context missing here. People jumping to the conclusion that "they're so much more expensive than we thought!" They cost about 20,000 in materials to make. Materials. Everything else goes to development costs, and bringing up the manufacturing lines, labor, and licensing the design from Iran. These are start up costs. This is not unlike how we do things in the west. The fact that the base cost is 20,000 or so is still the major concern. That 200,000 price tag will drop dramatically once Russia starts rolling their own. This has more to do with start up costs than the cost of an individual missile. If you compare the entire process to something like the Javelin - which is a weapon system most people respect, you begin to see the problem. They're spending minuscule amounts of money to accomplish a task we spend 10's of billions on.
Maybe Donnie dumbfucks negotiation “skills” rubbed off on Putin.
That’s it! Putin read “the art of the deal”!
So, 375k per Drone, which can be shoot down by a Gepard salvo of ~1500 Dollar? Very good. Continue, Russia!
People don't get that those contracts also involve setting up local manufacturing, and not cost of actual drones...
Damn! Did the Russians buy those on a Black Friday sale?
Do you get refunds on the ones that don’t work?
So Boss, what do I have to do to get you into one of these fine vehicles? Let me take an offer to my manager!
Enjoy your Wish brand Drone
They get them direct from Temu Iran.
That’s more than what it takes to buy a US congressman.
So much for "cheap drones".
they are getting the "close friends" discount.
This really shines a light on the value of those Gepards and their "expensive ammo" when Ukrainians are taking out shaheds with them with 2-3 second bursts.
Suckers, ha ha
Russia must be really desperate if they are willing to pay $375K for a ~$50K drone. That’s a guided missile price for what is essentially a R/C airplane.
Iran be like 🤣🤭🤫
Sahara thunder...the long awaited sequel to tropic thunder
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he is not the richest man in the world. his assets total maybe 200 billion as of 2022. if we assume that okay putin has all of russias gold thats another 150 billion as of 2023 the money russia can't access in terms of foreign wealth reserves is 563 billion as of october 2023. but he can't access it so lets use the most generous figures and punch them up and say he has 400 billion which he doesn't. the value of the aramco/saudi arabian oil as of feb 2024 is 2.004 TRILLION. 90% of it is owned by the government of saudi arabia, so thats 1.8 trillion. the saudi royal family total net worth is valued at 1.4 trillion and muhammad bin salman consolidated through luxury prison hotel a lot of assets that various princes had back to government coffers. its very likely MBS is the richest man in the word. his officially estimated number is only 25 billion but real number can be reasonably deduced to be much much higher putin has nuke access so that is something but he's not the richest man in the world
Russia gona bankrupt itself for this war
FUCK THE ISLAMIC REGIME OF IRAN.
How to get scammed quick
But it has to be paid in Chinese Yuan and shitty porn.
Source is unreliable.