USAF seeks ‘exact replica’ of Shahed drone to help develop defenses

The Air Force wants industry to make an identical copy of the Shahed-136 drone, used by Russia in relentless attacks on Ukraine, to develop and test defenses against the Iranian-designed system.The service wants to buy 16 of these Shahed look-alikes, with an option to buy 20 more later, as it pursues the “next generation” of counter-drone programs, according to a request for information posted last week.“To support weapons development and integration of these weapon systems, th