The prototype of the Russian kamikaze UAV “Geran-2”, which resembles the Persian Shahed-136 to a degree of confusion, was developed in Germany 35 years ago. According to Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the Bundeswehr commissioned the prototype from Dornier to destroy radars back in the 80s. It was not finalized.
The development of the Germans with the name DAR (range of 500 km) was used by Israel. It created similarly designed Harpy UAVs and sold about 100 to China. China and Iran, which is closely connected with it by military-technical cooperation, modernized Harpy and turned it into Shahed. Iran transferred the license to the Russian Federation, where the great-grandson of the DAR was turned into the “Geran-2” with a range of 2,000 km. There is still no such UAV in service with the Bundeswehr.
There have been cases in history when a country sold military licenses or technologies that ended up in the hands of its enemies. But the main thing NZZ did not write in this story is that the Geranium-2 is based on ultra-cheap civilian satellite navigation technology. No one in the 80s, when Dornier was building the DAR, could have imagined that a high-precision weapon would be controlled by a $300 processor. So the DAR was not cheap at all and was planned within the Cold War budget of only 4,000 for the entire Bundeswehr.
The cost of Shahed production in Iran is estimated by the Western press at 20-50 thousand dollars. The plant in Alabuga (Tatarstan) produces Geran-2, according to them, up to 2,000 pieces per month. It is quite likely that the version adapted for the RF Armed Forces costs significantly less. Over the past year, this cheap UAV has become the main weapon for long-range mass strikes against Ukraine’s industrial and military infrastructure – an average of 81 per day in November. They are shot down a lot because of their low speed and altitude. But the result is high – due to the mass. Up to 150 Geranium-2s were used in individual raids.
