Arash-2: Shahed's Bigger Brother

The Evolution of Affordable Mass from Strategic Harassment to Strategic Strike. Deep Dive: Reverse-engineering the tech, production and strategy behind what's next after the Shahed drone.

Mar 09, 2026

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2026 might mark the advent of asymmetrical overmatch through the introduction of strategic-strike affordable mass.
—Marc C Lange

While the West and its allies in the Gulf are trying hard to cope with the fact that Iran is striking key assets with relative ease, using cheap, simple deep-strike OWA UAV, the media and closed-door conversation focus is still very much on the Shahed. This is, of course, not the only drone the IRGC is employing. The Shahed family alone is many times larger than the 131, 136 and 238, and contains copycat Global Hawks and knock-off Reapers, and more. But those are old news.

The state and amount of information on Wikipedia as of the date of publication of this article.

As the Iran war continues to spill over into further and further reaches of the Middle East, early evidence of Iran’s use of a drone about which little information is available in the public domain is starting to emerge. Despite its reported existence since at least 2019 or 2020 and advertisement in 2022, it wasn’t until the reported strike on the Azerbaijani airport of Nakhchivan, widely attributed in open-source intelligence (OSINT) circles to the Arash-2, until the drone and its potential were brought into focus of the media lens.

Let’s talk about the Arash-2, its origins, its specs, its use in the Iran War, and the implications for NATO and allied forces, industry, and investors. Welcome to the Arash-2 TECH WARS Deep Dive, the first comprehensive analysis of the rumored bigger brother of the Shahed.

What You Will Learn In This Deep Dive

Executive Summary: A Wake-up Call for the Defense Industry and Procurement
What Is the Arash-2?
- The Nakhchivan Incident
- The Reported Arash Strike on the US Naval Fleet Base Al Udeid
Many Fathers: The Origins of the Arash-2
- Three Shahed Step-Siblings
- The Kian Drones
Why? The Strategic Imperative for the Arash-2
The RUMINT Specs
- Nothing Special: A Bigger Shahed
- Something Special: Core Limitations Overcome
What Makes a Bomb, What Makes a Cruise Missile? The A2-class’s Potential Capabilities: Affordable Mass’s Evolution from Strategic Harassment to Strategic Strike
- Navigation
- EW Resistance
- C2 Links for Precision
- Supersized Ceiling
- Radar Cross-section
A Smaller Bang, a Larger Impact
- More than Just Explosive
Purpose: the Compounding Advantages of a Higher Payload Capacity
- Ground-hugger?
- Mission Profiles Aplenty
- Moving Targets?
The Spread of the Arash-2 Is Already Happening
- Why No Use in Ukraine?
Recommendations
- Ministries of Defense
- Industry and Investors
Wrap-up: Arash the Archer, a Cautionary Tale

Thirty pages worth of insights: the article.

A ship-launched Arash-2 at a naval exercise. All images from the Iranian government unless started otherwise.

Executive Summary: A Wake-up Call for the Defense Industry and Procurement

The BLUF is that this system’s level of potential strategic importance is completely disproportionate to the level of its current discussion in military circles. The Arash-2 has the potential to serve as a light bomb replacement while simultaneously resetting the cost-exchange ratio compared to similar measures at a comparable significance to the Shahed, under full adherence to, and further development of, the scalable, survivable, and distributed manufacturing core to Iran’s Mosaic Defense Strategy (MDS); the strategy which centers around decentralized command, logistics, planning, etc., in order to make Iran’s military more survivable during an attack (with obvious caveats). In this article, we argue that NATO and its allies must take action specifically pertaining to Arash-2-style threats, which we argue warrant designation of their own class similar to the widely discussed Shahed-class.

The Shahed, while efficient and effective against urban centers and other targets, has only yielded potentially decisive strategic impact in that it has been a part of what forced Ukraine to the negotiating table (without final concessions having been made), while it has of course had a significant and horrible impact on the lives of the Ukrainian people, Ukraine’s spending, the development of interceptor drones, and the entire talent pipeline and supply chain, plus other nations starting to produce deep-strike drones themselves. While this is an impact we do not want to understate, it is important to note that it has only been achieved after years of sustained Shahed strikes in high numbers on urban clusters, and that it is hard to attribute the impact of the Shahed onto Ukraine’s strategy and goals for the war and its resolution directly to the Shahed. The Shahed and its siblings have been successfully used to strike targets of significant relevant, such as energy nodes and fuel storage depots. However, their target portfolio has been limited by their strike capabilities (hence the recent upgrades to 90-kg-payload configurations) to lightly hardened and explosive targets.

In this article, we suggest that, should the analysis of the Arash-2 confirm its performance attributes or not, designating a class for this kind of mass-produceable deep-strike drone makes sense now. We recommend designating the Arash-2-class or A2-class in order to facilitate further analysis and ease discussion of supersized Shahed-style drones. We recommend this due to the potential of this type of weapons class presenting one the first type of loitering munitions capable of campaign-level impact against hardened targets. If the specs especially around its payload of 250 kg hold true or are achieved in the near future, the Arash-2 would potentially approach the payload class of a small glide bomb, but with ~10x the range and at ~1/100th the cost of a multi-role fighter (deliberate oversimplification).

One of the most worrying aspects of this development (and that much is evident: Iran has been developing such a weapon foe years) is the potential for promising a “self-propelled light bomb“-equivalent impact to the paradigm-shifting FPV strike drones’ “self-propelled artillery/mortar shell” impact. Just as the FPV strike drone has cannibalized and simultaneously extended the mission profile of the (initially; 3-5 km) mortar and (later/today; 40-60 km) self-propelled howitzer or gun (SPH/SPG), it is imaginable that the A2-class will cannibalize and simultaneously extend (or substitute and simultaneously complement, if you will) the mission profile of the fighter jet and bomber for the lower end of strategic strikes.

Furthermore, the nature of drones and their development, and experience with the Shahed’s various payload iterations, provides ample indication that the mission and target profiles of an A2-level payload are not limited to delivering a 250-kg HE-bomb, potentially extending far beyond the definitions of what a bomb can do and how deep a drone can penetrate an enemy’s air defenses and territory. Further options, some of which we will discuss in this TECH WARS Deep Dive, are on the table when thinking not just in terms of a single system or class, but in terms of what we have termed Combined Unmanned Systems Warfare, or Combined Drone Warfare (CUSW/CDW). The sky is the limit, and the potential for substitution of some of the more expensive assets currently layered in between drones, for example in Russia’s daily strike waves, by A2-class drones is imaginable, further shifting the cost-exchange ratio towards favoring the attacker.

The effects of this development, especially the kind of access, this would enable asymmetrically underdeveloped adversaries, cannot be understated. While bombers and fighters are capable of flying at higher altitudes and speeds, and have other stealth and survivability characteristics, they represent precious, expensive, and long-lead assets which require highly trained pilots and an entire advanced ecosystem of supply chains, manufacturers, and highly skilled workers. The timidness in Russia’s employment of its fighter-bombers and bombers during its ongoing glide bomb campaign - restricting its aerial operation largely to territory it controls to avoid Ukrainian air defense - and the recent upgrades of its UMPK glide-bomb kits for its Fab soviet-era unguided bombs from around 60-80 km to around 95 km in range are evidence of the preciousness of these assets, as are the impact of the targeting and destruction of parts of Russia’s bomber fleet and fighter-bomber aircraft by Ukrainian drones. Decoupling the delivery of light-bomb-sized effects (Fab-250: 250 kg) from the risk of losing rare and expensive airframes would mark a significant shift in terms of affordability, scalability and risk-benefit analysis, and thus of the likelihood, proliferation and scale of bombing campaigns and strategic strikes (potentially contributing to Russia’s intention of procuring the system from Iran in 2022).

Entertaining the unlikely comparison of the Shahed against the Arash-2 in a fictional scenario of a sustained campaign similar to the Russian one (the assumed ease of manufacturing, cost, and operation in mind), the A2-class represents remarkable potential not just for strategic strikes against single targets, but for a dangerous temporal compression of psychological warfare campaigns, which have only grown in importance and strategic significance during the recent wars and conflicts (Syria, Nagorno-Karabakh, Palestine, Ukraine, Iran etc.). In the case of NATO nations and its allies, the risk for being caught off-guard and unable to ramp up production of significant means of deterrence (more on those in the article) is relative to the impact of such campaigns over time, which understrikes the importance of a deep discussion of the subject of A2-class drones.

More worrying still, we have seen evidence for the geographic proliferation of this class of system long being underway. This presents a new globalized challenge, the deterrence-relevant defense-economic implications of which currently almost no Ministry of Defense, industry actors or strategic investors are prepared or actively preparing for; especially in the EU.

While it is impossible to predict the A2-class’s future impact in the global defense picture, one may attempt to break the system down into its constituent parts (applying a system of systems approach, taking into all defense-economic factors such as research & development, supply chain, production, logistics, training and operation) in order to venture a conjecture about the magnitude of its potential, which is what this article aims to do. We will also attempt to reverse-engineer the potential strategic thinking and defense-economic decisions behind the A2, and compare it to similar strike vehicles, both from Iran and other nations, to underline its hitherto unique nature, and thus its asymmetrical overmatch potential.

In this TECH WARS Deep Dive, join us as we detail what might happen when, not if, the adversaries of NATO and allied nations add yet another unsophisticated but dangerous arrow to their quiver of strike options, and how one might attempt to not just counter this threat, but design future-proof innovation, production and procurement pipelines that enable them to catch up with, and eventually to outpace, asymmetrical overmatch.

Which of your colleagues might gain from reading this article?

Questions?

Answers. Better call Marc!

More about Marc.

Disclaimer/Teaser

You’ll read more of this throughout this piece, so we will try to make it interesting to you by including teasers of the more exciting information shared further down in the article.

The current information landscape can hardly be described as anything else than white noise, and that AI fakes, disinformation campaigns and misinterpretations are abound during the initial weeks of the Iran War. False information, massively multiplied, is dangerous, and thus it is crucial for us to note that until the specifications of the Arash-2, as well as its components, its performance, and its production are independently verified, this article is a thought exercise about the potential of the emergence of a 250-kg drone class, the potential impact of its production at scale, as well as its strategic, operational, tactical and defense-economic implications and follow-up questions. There are more than a few open questions pertaining to its specifications, its use against US and Azerbaijani targets, and around its similarity (and potential conflation) with the Kian-2 drone (more on this drone below). We know that it might be slightly more annoying to read an article full of the words “could”, “might”, “potentially”, and “alleged”, but we believe that if you subscribe to this publication, you, like us, would rather go the extra mile in order to not act upon unconfirmed threats. We are certain, however, that our care taken in ensuring the factuality of information is adequately declared does not diminish the usefulness and urgency of the observations, calculations and recommendations contained in this article. As a matter of fact, there are multiple pieces of evidence pointing to both the existence and use of the Arash-2 in the Iran War, and there is certainly no shortage of drones of its form factor/airframe on video. What’s more, recent independently verified (CNN et al) footage from strikes against the El Udeid Naval base and other targets shows a drone whose elongated fuselage makes it highly unlikely to be a Shahed or another drone we have witnesses in attacks against similar targets with similar effects before.

With this out of the way, and our sincere thanks for your readership as always, let’s get to the meat of the matter.

Right after RATO.

What Is the Arash-2?

The Arash-2 is the second, larger version of the Arash-1, which has been called an upgraded version of the Kian-2 loitering drone, officially said to be developed for the suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD), with a corresponding payload radar-homing guidance system. The program appears to be associated with Iran’s Defense Industries Organization (DIO), part of the MODAFL defense conglomerate, a conglomerate of more than 300 mostly state-owned companies, which also contains the company HESA (the manufacturer of the Shahed drone family), and which is responsible for a large part of Iran’s materiel production, including sophisticated kit like components for its fissile material enrichment centrifuges.

The Nakhchivan Incident

Iran’s strike (twice) on and near the Azerbaijani airport (the second one near a girl’s school) should have been a relatively low-risk one. Nakhchivan is only around ten kilometers from the Iranian border. This fact, combined with the dive profile visible in terminal descent of both of the strikes, likely means that either a ground-hugging flight profile, which could explain the lack of reported detection by Israel’s over-the-horizon (OTH; long-range) back-scatter ELM-2040 OTH-B radars or by Azerbaijani ISR systems, though at the short duration of the video and the relatively low descent altitude that can be gathered from it, it is also possible that trapezoid flight profile was employed (more on flight profiles below). In terms of detection risk, the strike on Nakhchivan could have been a test of the weapon; for instance of short-range terrain-masking (ground-hugging) detectability by enemy ISR assets. It could, however, also have been a (hardly) deniable “accident” (see the excuses by the Iranian president) intended to draw Azerbaijan into the conflict, which has transitioned its army into high alert. It is important to note that almost simultaneously with reports of the use of the Ashad, reports of the use of a Shahed were issued. The video has thus far not yielded definitive analysis by OSINT analysts on the matter.

The Reported Arash Strike on the US Naval Fleet Base Al Udeid

Al Udeid, one of the largest naval bases in the world with ca. 10.000 military personnel, was hit by a drone which was reported by CNN and early OSINT analysis to have been an Arash-2.

Many Fathers: The Origins of the Arash-2

Despite being called a successor to the Kian-2 drone, the Arash-2 does not only bear lots of similarities to the Shahed-136 drone, but also evidently incorporates learnings from the development of the infamous loitering munition, including some of the more recent experience and feature iterations of the Russo-Ukrainian war. As a matter of fact, in terms of its original purpose (SEAD, radar homing) and some of its key design features (warheads, delta wings) and potentially expansive mission portfolio, the Arash-2 can be considered a successor to both of these drones, or a further step towards the Iranian deep-strike drone portfolio maturation into different targets and ranges, and a possible high-payload evolution of the Shahed concept. While not officially called a Shahed successor by the Iranian government and while its airframe is not directly derived from its design, we will argue below why it makes a lot of sense to call the Arash-2 a strategic sibling, or bigger brother, of the Shahed-136 (and 131 and 238).

Three Shahed Step-Siblings

We have documented the Shahed-131, -136 and -238 (the jet-powered, more expensive, and rarer variant) and the recent appearance of the Shahed 107 in our respective TECH WARS Deep Dives, so in order to avoid unnecessary redundancies, we will embed them below this paragraph. The most important point is that the Shahed is to be seen as a capability, more than as a technology. What makes the Shahed so successful in its role as a long-range loitering drone is its simplicity (a feature which is not shared across most Iranian drones), from its parts to its manufacturing and its operation. While the A2 bears a lot of similarities with and has a lot of technological lineage to its smaller brothers, it dramatically expands on the definition of a deep strike drone and its potential. Continue reading to find out exactly what we mean by that, and what our underlying analysis of all things Arash-2 looks like.

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