Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov reports that Ukraine has shot down the first Shahed-238 with a jet engine

Military expert on electronic warfare and electronic warfare Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov reported on his social media pages about the first confirmed use of an Iranian kamikaze drone with a jet engine in Ukraine. The main threat of this drone is its increased speed (instead of 200 km/h, it can reach speeds of 400 to 600 km/h), which makes it much more difficult to shoot down by mobile air defence units. On the other hand, it has a much higher price, which offsets the main advantage of the Shaheds in their low cost, and is, on the contrary, an easier target for hand-held MANPADS such as the Stinger or Igla or the Polish Piorun due to the high thermal radiation of the jet engine.

Illustration by Serhii Beskrestnov

The first information about the new Shahed-238 appeared in December 2023, when the first photos from Iran were released. The Ukrainian publication Defence Express reported that the Shahed-238 is a version of the Shahed-136 with a jet engine. "The use of a jet engine could certainly increase the speed of the drone, but it seems to have reduced the payload placed in the nose of the drone," the publication concludes. The Defence Express authors suggested that, given Iran's approach to the Shahed-136, they also looked to the Chinese market for a jet engine. Where they could find freely available products from SW Jet, which has a whole line of small turbojet engines. In particular, the SW800pro engine, which provides 81 kgf of thrust, has very compact dimensions: 20.8 cm in diameter and 45.4 cm in length, while the engine weighs only 8.5 kg. The declared characteristics of this engine, to a first approximation, fully satisfy the requirements for the Shahed-238.

Source: @serhii_flash, photo: @nasir_military