The HESA Shahed 136 (Persian: شاهد ۱۳۶, lit. 'Witness 136'), also known by its Russian designation Geran-2 (Russian: Герань-2, lit. 'Geranium-2'), is an Iranian-designed one-way attack drone, also referred to as a kamikaze drone or suicide drone, in the form of an autonomous pusher-propelled drone. It is designed and manufactured by the Iranian state-owned corporation HESA in association with Shahed Aviation Industries.
The munition is designed to attack ground targets from a distance. The drone is typically fired in multiples from a launch rack. The first public footage of the drone was released in December 2021. Russia has made much use of the Shahed 136/Geran-2 in the Russo-Ukrainian war, especially in strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure, and mass-produces its own version.
Description
The aircraft has a cropped delta-wing shape, with a central fuselage blending into the wings, which have vertical stabilizing rudders at the tips. The nose section contains a warhead estimated to weigh 30–50 kilograms (66–110 lb). An Iranian-made Mado MD-550 engine sits in the rear of the fuselage and drives a two-bladed pusher propeller. The MD-550 is reverse engineered from the Limbach L550E, a 550cc four-cylinder two-stroke petrol aircraft engine made in Germany. The munition is 3.5 metres (11 ft) long, with a wingspan of 2.5 metres (8.2 ft), flies at over 185 kilometres per hour (115 mph), and weighs about 200 kilograms (440 lb).[16] The drone's appearance resembles that of the Drohne-Anti-Radar (DAR) developed by Dornier Flugzeugwerke in Germany in the 1980s, but whether there was actual copying is an open question.
Its range has been estimated to be anywhere from between 970–1,500 km (600–930 mi) to as much as 2,000–2,500 km (1,200–1,600 mi). The U.S. Army unclassified worldwide equipment guide states that the Shahed 136 design supports an aerial reconnaissance option, although no cameras were noted in the Geran-2 in Russian service.
Electronics
The Shahed 136 navigates by a commercial-grade inertial guidance system, corrected by civilian GPS and GLONASS. December 2023 remains from the drones were found with SIMs and 4G modems of the type used in mobile phones.
Deployment
Because of the portability of the launch frame and drone assembly, the entire unit can be mounted on the back of any military or commercial truck. The aircraft is launched on rails at a slight upward angle with initial rocket launch assistance. The rocket is jettisoned immediately after launch, whereupon the drone's conventional piston engine takes over
Loitering munition
A loitering munition (LM) is a type of self-destructive unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) equipped with a warhead that is typically designed to remotely loiter by a human operator using electro-optical targeting sensors or camera suite and data-link until a target is designated, then crash into it and detonate. Anti-radiation (anti-radar) loitering munitions are a type of loitering munition that employ either an anti-radiation seeker by itself or in tandem with an electro-optical targeting system to locate enemy radar by loitering and destroy it after detection. Common terms like suicide drone, kamikaze drone, or exploding drone are used for both loitering munition and one-way attack drones. They enable attacks against hidden targets that emerge for short periods without placing high-value platforms near the target area. Unlike many other types of munitions, their attacks can be changed mid-mission or aborted. Loitering munitions are typically aerial platforms, but include some autonomous undersea vehicles with similar characteristics.
Loitering weapons emerged in the 1980s for the suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) role, and were deployed for SEAD by some military forces in the 1990s. In the 2000s, they were developed for additional roles, from long-range strikes and fire support to short-range tactical systems that fit in a backpack.
Megathreads and spaces to hang out:
- 🐻 Link to all Hexbear comms https://hexbear.net/post/1403966
- 🐼 Hexbear Matrix Chat https://matrix.to/#/#Hexbear:matrix.org
- 📀 Come listen to music and Watch movies with your fellow Hexbears nerd, in Cy.tube](https://live.hexbear.net/c/movies
- 🔥 Read and talk about a current topics in the News Megathread https://hexbear.net/post/7856493
- ⚔ Come talk in the New Weekly PoC thread https://hexbear.net/post/7892820
- 🏳️⚧️ Talk with fellow Trans comrades in the New Weekly Trans thread https://hexbear.net/post/7888278
- 👊 New Weekly Improvement thread https://hexbear.net/post/7883991
- 🧡 Disabled comm megathread https://hexbear.net/post/7886148
- ☕ Parenting Chat https://hexbear.net/post/7881812
- 🐉 Anime & Manga discussion thread https://hexbear.net/post/7546692
- 🎩Fashion megathread https://hexbear.net/post/7228810
reminders:
- 💚 You nerds can join specific comms to see posts about all sorts of topics
- 💙 Hexbear’s algorithm prioritizes comments over upbears
- 💜 Sorting by new you nerd
- 🐶 Join the unofficial Hexbear-adjacent Mastodon instance toots.matapacos.dog
Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):
Aid:
Theory:
Financial Support to the Bearsite
Why do the japanese do that thing where they say words from other languages and confuse R/L sounds and P/F sounds and why do the people translating usually do the Absolute Worst Job Ever in deciding which to go with
I.e. this REALLY GOOD YURI ANIME that was out this past season called Roll Over And Die called the main character FLUM APRICOT and it's like. A Flum isn't even a thing! Plum! Plum Apricot!
Or like, holy shit, watching the live action One Piece and for the first time in 35 years I see it written as "Laugh Tale" and it's like, OH, THAT'S WHAT ODA WAS CALLING IT? i thought it was fucking Rafftale this whole fucking time. What the fuck
It was so bad back in the day! Somehow translators would telephone a western name written in katakana into something not recognizable
I just googled this because I was curious, but apparently the answer is that the r and l sound in Japanese are actually not distinct, and it’s a sound that’s apparently somewhere in between the two. I guess English speakers only notice it because it’s strictly speaking incorrect for English words, so I guess to us it always sounds like an inversion.
In One Piece the name of the island was a reveal and a key detail hinting at the nature of the treasure and foreshadowing for a big something that comes proximately afterwards in the narrative (and is the moment in my pfp). I can think of one contemporary example, but the world is supposedly replete with Japanese wordplay even going so far as to have someone's nose (hana) produce flowers (hana)
cutting edge manga spoilers
In Elbaph the Nidhogg, protector of the tree, has kanji that can also be read as thunder dragon. Lo and behold, it's the thunder dragon fruitoh okay so calling it rafftale for like 20 years was on purpose in this instance
Absolutely. Another fun one that is a bit more abstractly related to Japanese wordplay in One Piece: when Luffy puts on sports uniforms, his number is 56 which is for go (5 五) and mu (6 六) or "gomu" for his gomu gomu no mi - the rubber fruit
that makes more sense than someone realizing 20 years later that it was a flum-->plum situation I guess
japanese doesn't have distinct R/L sounds, but that doesn't excuse godawful translation jobs refusing to acknowledge and account for that fact
yeah like I understand why the Japanese do that I just don't understand why it isn't something that is like, ever double-checked and corrected and they just roll with "haha it's an L" when it should clearly be an R or whatever
I think you can just chalk it up to a poor understanding of translation as a practice. It's all part of the keikaku (keikaku means plan).
i hate how dumb the keikaku line was, for the translator to put in, but also how much I find it funny and literally always will
the truest of comedy
I think it is mostly a labor thing. Like translators are tradionally not given enough information to get context clues nor enough time to research them. For the privilege of being under paid and overworked they also do seem to have a bunch of weird industry co strains beyond that I don't know about either