photo above: US made LUCAS loitering munition

One of the most surprising weapons in the current war in Iran is the U.S. Army’s LUCAS suicide drone, which only entered service in September 2025 and is already influencing the course of the war. This drone is unusual: it is essentially the American copy of the Iranian Shahed-136 drone, which Iran unveiled in 2021 and soon afterward supplied to Russia in large quantities. Today, Russia manufactures it domestically under the name Geran-2.

In June 2025 the United States unveiled the new Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (LUCAS). In July 2025 the Secretary of Defense approved accelerated procurement, and by December 2025 the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced the establishment of a dedicated task force to operate it — Task Force Scorpion Strike (TFSS) — along with the deployment of the first operational squadron in the Middle East. Ten days ago, when the joint Israeli-American attack on Iran began, CENTCOM released a special statement: “For the first time in history, TFSS has deployed one-way attack drones. These low-cost systems were developed based on the Iranian Shahed and are manufactured in the United States.”

A Training Concept That Became a Weapon

How did it happen that the United States copied an Iranian design and began producing it? And is the design Iranian at all — or Israeli? Let us begin with the United States. Behind these inexpensive attack drones stands SpektreWorks, a company based in Phoenix, Arizona. The Pentagon asked the company to develop a training platform that would allow air-defense crews to practice intercepting attack drones. To assist the development process, the company was provided with an Iranian Shahed drone captured in the Middle East.

SpektreWorks conducted a comprehensive examination of the Iranian design. To provide an authentic training experience, the company performed reverse engineering and produced an American version of the Iranian drone. Not coincidentally, it named the system FLM-136, hinting at its Iranian origin (Shahed-136).

The platform is small, weighing about 80 kg, and equipped with a small, inexpensive rear internal-combustion engine that gives it a flight range of slightly more than 800 km at a speed of 130–140 km/h. It carries a payload of up to 20 kg and can cover its maximum distance within about six hours of flight.

The model achieved one of its most important goals: an extremely low price. The platform proved so successful that the U.S. Army decided to procure it as a weapon, not merely as a training system. The price played a decisive role in that decision, since it allows the launch of hundreds or even thousands of drones, creating an effect of deception, confusion, and shock — thereby breaking the asymmetry that often characterizes conflicts between sophisticated armies such as the Israel Defense Forces and the U.S. Army and their adversaries.

The Liberty Ship Model

In an interview with a U.S. Army publication, the Director of Experimentation at the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering, Colonel Nicholas Law, explained that the inspiration came from the Liberty Ship production model, which enabled the rapid manufacture of thousands of cargo ships during World War II. “LUCAS will fulfill a similar role in the new era of warfare,” he said. “There is a price point at which we want to produce large numbers of these systems very quickly.” It is not a single manufacturer: the system is designed to move to multiple manufacturers so it can be built in mass quantities.

The combat version differs slightly from the training version. It carries an 18-kg warhead and has a range of 650–800 km. The American version also includes AI-based navigation and mission-management capabilities, enabling operation as part of a swarm. The most important detail is the price: about $35,000 per unit, compared with roughly $20,000 for the Iranian version.

An Idea from Israel Aerospace Industries

Sharp-eyed observers have noticed the strong resemblance between the Iranian Shahed drone and the Israeli Harpy attack drone developed more than 30 years ago by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). Like its Iranian counterpart, the Harpy is a loitering munition with a broad delta wing and a small rear internal-combustion engine.

Both are launched using a booster rocket that separates after launch, both fly autonomously according to pre-programmed route data, and both can be launched from trucks and ships. However, the Harpy was more sophisticated and more expensive because its primary mission was detecting electromagnetic emissions in order to destroy radar systems.

There is no any official confirmation of the widespread assumption within the industry that the Shahed is a low-cost copy of the Harpy. Nevertheless, its history provides several possible points where the Iranians might have obtained the knowledge necessary for some form of reverse engineering. The first is the Chinese deal: in 1994 Israel sold Harpy drones to China in a transaction that caused a crisis with the United States and eventually led to the resignation of Israel’s Defense Ministry Director-General, Amos Yaron.

Under U.S. pressure, the Chinese drones were not upgraded in 2004 as originally planned. Later reports suggested that China conducted reverse engineering on them and developed its own version called ASN-301. The Harpy is used by several militaries, including those of India, Morocco, Turkey, and Azerbaijan (which borders Iran). Azerbaijan used the system in its battles with Armenia, and during those conflicts there were reports of drones that strayed from their course or were shot down.

Close military ties between China and Iran, along with the loss of drones in Azerbaijan, could help explain how design knowledge from the Israeli UAV — which was the first of its kind in the world — might have found its way into the Iranian drone. However, fully copying the Israeli concept does not necessarily require complete reverse engineering: its core characteristics — such as a broad delta wing, slow long-range flight, a small rear pusher engine, and container launch using a booster rocket — can be replicated even without reverse engineering.

Israeli Doctrine vs. Iranian Doctrine

There are also notable differences between the two platforms. The Israeli Harpy uses a Wankel engine produced by Elbit, which is very efficient and extremely quiet but expensive to manufacture. The Iranian Shahed is based on a small scooter like piston engine, which is cheap and noisy. It is so widely available. Similar engines can be purchased worldwide, even through online model-aircraft parts stores. In general, the Shahed relies on cheap, easily obtainable civilian components, while the Israeli drone is built from military grade expensive components.

The largest difference lies in the avionics systems: The Israeli Harpy searches for specific radiation sources and can navigate toward them; if it does not detect a radar signal, it can abort the mission. The Iranian Shahed, by contrast, is equipped with what might be described as “poor man’s avionics”. A set of coordinates is entered into the system, and the drone flies toward them using GPS. The bottom line is that the differences between the two are less about technology and more about combat doctrine. In this sense, the American LUCAS drone has adopted the Iranian operational concept almost in full.