The U.S. Air Force has issued a formal request for industry to build exact replicas of Iran’s Shahed-136 kamikaze drone, seeking a 1:1 copy of the reverse-engineered weapon for use in testing American defenses. The procurement effort comes as the Pentagon simultaneously deploys its own low-cost one-way attack drones to the Middle East, signaling a two-track strategy: learn how to defeat the Shahed while fielding a comparable American weapon. Together, these programs reflect how deeply Iranian drone designs have reshaped U.S. military planning.
Air Force Seeks Exact Shahed-136 Copies
A federal procurement notice posted on SAM.gov reveals that the Air Force published a Request for Information seeking a Shahed-136 replica classified as a Class 3 unmanned aerial target system. The document calls for a 1:1 copy of a reverse-engineered Shahed-136, complete with quantities, options, and performance requirements designed for realistic threat simulation. The intent is clear: give air defenders a target that flies, looks, and behaves like the real thing so they can develop and validate countermeasures against it, from radar detection and electronic warfare to kinetic intercepts.
That distinction matters because the Shahed-136 is not a theoretical concern. Variants of the drone have been used extensively in combat by Russian forces in Ukraine and by Iranian-backed groups across the Middle East, often in large salvos meant to saturate defenses. Standard target drones used in U.S. military exercises do not replicate the Shahed’s specific radar cross-section, low-and-slow flight profile, or guidance behavior. A faithful physical copy would let units train against the actual threat signature rather than a generic stand-in, closing a gap that off-the-shelf training systems cannot address and giving test ranges a repeatable benchmark for evaluating sensors and interceptors.
LUCAS: America’s Own Kamikaze Drone
While the Air Force works to copy the Shahed for defensive testing, the Pentagon has moved in parallel to field an offensive counterpart. U.S. Central Command announced the creation of Task Force Scorpion Strike, a new unit built around a squadron of Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System, or LUCAS, one-way-attack drones already operating in the Middle East. The LUCAS effort, sponsored by the Marine Corps, is explicitly framed around mass production, signaling that the Pentagon does not see these systems as boutique prototypes but as consumable munitions that can be stocked, expended, and replenished in quantity.
The logic behind LUCAS borrows directly from the Iranian playbook. Tehran has demonstrated that cheap, expendable drones produced in large numbers can overwhelm expensive air defense systems and impose a lopsided cost exchange. A single Shahed reportedly costs a fraction of the interceptor missile used to shoot it down, forcing defenders to spend more per engagement than the attacker. By fielding its own low-cost attack drones, the U.S. military is adopting that same economic pressure in reverse, giving forward-deployed commanders an expendable strike option that does not risk a pilot or a multi-million-dollar aircraft and that can be used liberally without depleting high-end precision missile inventories.
Testing at Yuma Proving Ground
Before reaching the Middle East, LUCAS went through evaluation at U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground, where testers flew the system with inert payloads. According to the Army’s account, the trials focused on validating basic flight characteristics, launch and control procedures, and overall reliability before any live warhead integration. Yuma’s expansive desert ranges and instrumented corridors provided the controlled environment needed to measure performance in detail, from navigation accuracy and endurance to how the drones handled desert heat, wind, and dust.
The inert-payload phase is a standard step in weapons qualification, but it also underscores how quickly the LUCAS program has moved from concept to field use. Transitioning from developmental trials at a stateside test range to operational deployment under a combatant command in a compressed timeline suggests the Pentagon treated the effort with unusual urgency. That speed tracks with the broader pressure military planners face: Iranian-designed drones are already in active use by adversaries, and every month without a fielded American equivalent is a month where U.S. forces lack a symmetric response option that can be launched on short notice, flown into contested airspace, and written off if it fails to return.
First Ship-Based Launch in the Arabian Gulf
The program hit a concrete operational milestone on December 16, 2025, when the U.S. Navy launched a LUCAS one-way attack drone from the USS Santa Barbara in the Arabian Gulf. The Navy described it as the first time an attack drone of this type had been employed at sea by U.S. forces, with Task Force 59 operating LUCAS as part of the broader Task Force Scorpion construct. Rather than treating the sortie as a one-off demonstration, the launch was integrated into ongoing maritime security operations, indicating that commanders see the system as a practical tool rather than a technology showcase.
A ship-based launch capability changes the calculus for how these drones can be used. Land-based one-way attack drones require forward operating bases, which can be targeted and which limit geographic reach to fixed radii around those airfields. Launching from a vessel at sea means the strike radius can shift with the fleet, and the drone force is no longer tethered to a location an adversary can easily map and plan around. In the constrained waters of the Arabian Gulf, where Iranian naval forces, coastal defenses, and proxy groups operate in close proximity to U.S. ships, a ship-launched kamikaze drone adds a flexible layer of offensive reach that can be repositioned daily and used for rapid, precise strikes against time-sensitive or high-risk targets.
Defensive Replicas and Offensive Copies
Most coverage of these programs treats them as separate stories: an Air Force procurement here, a Navy milestone there. In practice, the two tracks are deeply connected. The replica Shahed-136 program exists because the U.S. needs to understand exactly how to defeat the drone, including how its structure and propulsion affect radar returns, infrared signatures, and acoustic cues. The LUCAS program exists because the U.S. also wants its own version of the low-cost, attritable attack concept that Iran has proven in combat. Running both simultaneously means the Pentagon is studying the Shahed-style threat from both sides of the engagement, as a problem to be neutralized and as a model for a new class of American weapons.
That dual approach carries trade-offs but also clear strategic logic. Building faithful Shahed replicas for test ranges allows U.S. forces to refine layered defenses that combine sensors, jammers, guns, and missiles, potentially driving down the cost of interception and improving the odds of stopping large salvos. Fielding LUCAS and similar systems, meanwhile, gives commanders a way to impose those same dilemmas on adversaries, forcing them to decide whether to spend scarce, expensive interceptors on relatively cheap drones. Together, the efforts signal that the United States is not only reacting to the proliferation of Iranian-style kamikaze drones but also internalizing their lessons, treating them as both a threat to be countered and a template for reshaping how America fights in the air.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
