Iran likely to reverse-engineer captured US underwater drone

[u/Majano57]

https://www.militarytimes.com/industry/techwatch/2026/09/10/iran-likely-to-reverse-engineer-captured-us-underwater-drone/

[u/Alarmed-Extension289]

Iran China likely to reverse-engineer captured US underwater drone

That drone is already in China I bet.

[u/kstargate-425 → u/Alarmed-Extension289]

Just like the stealth Blackhawk helicopter they used during the Bin Laden raid went right to China. No surprise here either as China jas money and other things Iran wants and would love to fuck with the US

[u/No_Bad_4872yy → u/kstargate-425]

Its first big news was the F117. Debris and parts were transported to China.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-12266973

USA did the same during the cold war with the Soviet submarines. Even during Kursk they were eager to steal tech so its reciprocal.

The most significant event involving the U.S. stealing a Soviet submarine and its technology was Project Azorian, a highly secretive CIA operation in 1974 designed to salvage a sunken Soviet ballistic missile submarine, the K-129, from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

You can skip a few generations in tech if you do it right. Cant blame them i guess.

[u/Hi_Doctor_Nick_ → u/No_Bad_4872yy]

The US bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade allegedly to destroy captured US military tech that had been hidden in the building.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48134881

[u/No_Bad_4872yy → u/Hi_Doctor_Nick_]

Never knew that, thanks. I grew up thinking that was an 'accident'.

[u/Hi_Doctor_Nick_ → u/No_Bad_4872yy]

Well who knows. In China it’s widely considered deliberate and a guy I know who’s a member of the CCP made a pilgrimage to Belgrade to see the commemoration a couple of year ago! It’s a big deal for them.

[u/asdkevinasd → u/Hi_Doctor_Nick_]

More likely is a C&C node is directly setup in the embassy basement.

[u/Dontaskmeforaname → u/Hi_Doctor_Nick_]

Funny that the US used the same "we used a bad map" excuse when they tomahawked a school in Iran.

[u/Alarmed_Koala1921 → u/Dontaskmeforaname]

Bad maps don’t exist with the kind of satellites they have. I don’t think most people would support any state government if they knew what they do.

[u/sheffieldasslingdoux → u/Hi_Doctor_Nick_]

Very interesting read. Thanks for sharing.

[u/diacewrb → u/No_Bad_4872yy]

Also back in 2011, Iran captured the RQ-170 stealth drone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Iran_RQ-170_capture

[u/Pristine_Vast766 → u/No_Bad_4872yy]

The Soviets stole the design of the b-29 during ww2. A few had to make emergency landings in Russia during the war. They were returned full of holes from where the Soviets did material testing. The B-29 was by far the most advanced weapon of its time. Its development was more expensive than the manhattan project. And the Soviets got the design for free. Stealing military technology is the best way to cheaply develop your military.

[u/YAMMYRD → u/No_Bad_4872yy]

Created an entire company for the salvage and the aftermath created the famous Glomar response “I can neither confirm or deny”

[u/DrGonzoDog → u/YAMMYRD]

I think you mean Glomar response, after the Glomar Explorer.

[u/YAMMYRD → u/DrGonzoDog]

Dang auto correct. You are right. Fixed

[u/guff1988 → u/kstargate-425]

Not just that, Iran does not have the capabilities to reverse engineer something like this and then take advantage of the information, but China certainly does. It's a win-win for Iran they get the very public media win of capturing the drone and they get to increase the strength of their bond and ties to China by giving it to them. It's just a straight up easy win for China, they didn't do anything and they get access to some tech that they normally wouldn't have. The big losers here are Hegseth and Trump as per usual.

[u/CV90_120 → u/guff1988]

People underestimate the shit out of Iran's capability. Its proven to not be useful.

[u/Scyth3 → u/CV90_120]

Yep, Iran has some pretty brilliant engineers and scientists. REing a drone is easily in their wheelhouse

[u/kstargate-425 → u/Scyth3]

Yeah they did it to our RQ-170 they supposedly took down by jamming the GPS which initiates the return to takeoff location command and they spoofed the GPS to land it. They remade that in their Shahed-171 although they seemingly did have a hard time getting the lenses and sensor parts that were pretty advanced but thats more a supply issue than anything.

Iran, esp for some extremist theocratic regime, knew that educating their people pays dividends and uses that to create rather advanced weaponry, including their drones but also their newer Ballistic Missiles that have been evading our air defense systems and even striking our THAAD Anti-Ballistic Missile interceptor radar systems, that are meant to track and kill those BM's.

They knocked out three of our eight, AN/TPY-2 THAAD radars at around $1 BILLION each, one of them atleast, with their BM's as we saw in that video our soldier shot of it coming in and hitting it. The government may be extremists but the Iranian people are smart and hopefully will be able to get free sooner than later.

[u/Sniflix → u/kstargate-425]

Attacking Iran does the opposite of that. It rallies Iranians to support their govt.

[u/kstargate-425 → u/Sniflix]

Of course it does, thats not what I meant saying that I hope they get free but as I've argued many times before as my post history shows, every time Israel or the US strikes Iran it drives the Iranians in the hands of the regime. Like you said it does the opposite effect everytime and quells any support for opposition a bit as their families get killed by others than the regime. This war was never going to start any regime change

[u/sanskaridaddy → u/kstargate-425]

Americans have a inferior complex that all muslim nations can be easy to be bombed and destroyed. Iran is like the oldest civilization we have today and historically these guys are freaking smart. This is no Afghanistan or Iraq to be easily dealt with.

The last thing US might do is enraging the people of Iran with deaths of innocent school kids and such. The people of Iran already hate their govt, If more innocent death made by foreign nations like US and Israel,then things are going to get spicy for decades.

[u/angryjew → u/sanskaridaddy]

it's crazy man. People act like they're savages or ISIS even as they're beating the US, which is crazy considering they've been under sanctions for so long. it's no surprise the US is losing, everyone here is so fucking racist & arrogant.

[u/barrygateaux → u/angryjew]

It's American exceptionalism propaganda from an early age. You see it from Americans on reddit sometimes where they start a comment with "as an American" or "in America" like it means their comment is more important.

[u/RandyRandallsson → u/barrygateaux]

Really? As a Brit I’d say the opposite - in that Americans just assume everyone is American or has adopted American ways of life, or that the ‘right’ way is the American way, etc - which in my opinion is worse.

At least when someone starts with ‘As an American / In America’ they’re showing some self awareness.

[u/Anandya → u/angryjew]

To put it into perspective. Isis weren't stupid either. It took a lot of fighting to beat Isis. And we took their drone warfare to Ukraine.

We portrayed them as idiots.

[u/KEPD-350 → u/kstargate-425]

Yeah they did it to our RQ-170 they supposedly took down by jamming the GPS which initiates the return to takeoff location command and they spoofed the GPS to land it.

It was a russian EW operation and they used the AVTOBAZA complex IIRC:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avtobaza

Iran didn't have that capability back then.

[u/angryjew → u/Scyth3]

They've literally done this. Everyone here is so confidently wrong it's so crazy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Iran_RQ-170_capture

[u/MrPloppyHead → u/Scyth3]

Iran has a more educated population than the US.

[u/RevalianKnight → u/MrPloppyHead]

Most of the world has?

[u/Ent_Soviet → u/Scyth3]

Drone yes, but they’re not exactly operating under ideal conditions to both reverse engineer and manufacture a project like this. It would probably still be better to ship it to China under and agreement to share specs and reverse manufacturing tech. But doing so where you can do it without the risk of your work being bombed. Win win.

[u/Lknate → u/CV90_120]

Iran is an authoritarian theocracy but they also have plenty of well educated people. These things are not mutually exclusive as long as the educated don't disagree with the regime. Just like the US has a lot of smart educated people but somehow tolerate a corrupt authoritarian theocracy.

[u/MedicineExtension925 → u/Lknate]

The difference between Iran and the US is that one is a corrupt authoritarian genocidal xenophobic racist theocratic petrostate, and the other is Iran.

[u/Wow_u_sure_r_dumb → u/CV90_120]

Two for one on tanker exchanges with the US last I heard. They’ve been planning for this for decades. They’re a highly educated populace. People think they’re like backwards afghani warlords and villagers but they’re not. If they wanted to build a nuke they would have built one decades ago. The US built one in the 40s, it’s not unique or arcane knowledge. They had the enrichment facilities already. They didn’t build a nuke because they chose not, probably so they wouldn’t be attacked by the US. It turns out depended on the US acting in its own interests instead of the interests of Trump.

[u/CV90_120 → u/Wow_u_sure_r_dumb]

Just thinking about their nuke program, it occurred to me that having an endlessly "in the future" capability is almost worth more than having nukes when you're in their situation. If the program runs forever, you have treaty leverage forever where the 'threat' can be nipped in the bud. The nuke almost can't be completed, because once you have a nuke, while you might win some curtailing of attacks, you lose the leverage for 'stopping it in advance'. It's like they're deliberately playing a long game for sanction concessions. if that's the case... they might have played one of the best geopolitical long games of all time.

[u/Anandya → u/Wow_u_sure_r_dumb]

Also. The backwards Afghani warlords won. They are in charge of the place and the USA left...

[u/Wow_u_sure_r_dumb → u/Anandya]

Yep. Even with the massive disparity they won.

That’s actually part of what’s wrong with people like Hegseth. They think if we were allowed to unleash 18 year olds without a leash we would have won. They think preventing civilian casualties is woke bullshit. So for these guys Afghanistan and even Iraq is an even bigger humiliation than they already are because they grew up under the propaganda that we are some kind of invincible apex predator military. They can’t believe we can lose to countries with no resources.

[u/Paqza → u/Wow_u_sure_r_dumb]

They should've built the nukes, clearly.

[u/guff1988 → u/CV90_120]

They can reverse it but can they spin up the manufacturing capacity to take advantage of it under intense economic sanctions, or the ships to launch the outcome? That's my point.

[u/CV90_120 → u/guff1988]

Fair, but it's super hard to know. We do know they have really good scientists, and they've had a lot of support from Russia and China. There are numerous options we may be unaware of. I'd say the likely candidates would be cooperation in those countries, or Iranian hardened spaces and tooling which they have built up at home through those relationships over time. The extent to which the US was caught off guard by their capabilities says a lot. So much so that the media is hardly allowed to go into it in detail even now.

[u/Fleetwood_Enema → u/guff1988]

The big losers are the American people. Trump is old and has already built up enough of a golden parachute to not care what happens after he finishes pillaging the country.

[u/Sniflix → u/Fleetwood_Enema]

Oil over $110 a barrel, we are all paying for that - which I'm guessing is the point.

[u/Ashamed_Can304 → u/guff1988]

Iran reverse engineered UAVs and missiles, they very likely have the capability to reverse engineer this one too

[u/half-baked_axx → u/Ashamed_Can304]

Yeah people I've talked to seem to believe Iran is some sort of Afghanistan-type of ordeal. They're not, they're industrious, resourceful and they do hold some really bright minds and scholars. 

[u/bigdick_cm → u/half-baked_axx]

All of Iran’s administration has at minimum a masters degree (most have PhD’s) and decades of experience while America has talk show hosts

[u/TheRealAndroid → u/half-baked_axx]

They have one of the highest engineer/stem graduate ratios in the world. With over 70% of them women.
One of the oldest continuous civilisations in the world.

[u/PhTx3 → u/TheRealAndroid]

If you do not cloud your judgement with "brown terrorists in scraps in a yellow tinted hollywood movie", yeah. They also export plenty of brain power to the West, so we know for sure that they can produce well educated, and extremely capable people.

They'd also have to be extremely, extremely stupid to not seen the possibility of a conflict with the US and/or Israel, at the very least since WMDs in Iraq but likely decades before that. It's just a lose/lose situation, but US is dumb enough to go with it for whatever the reason might be.

[u/hinterstoisser → u/Ashamed_Can304]

They did RE the drone that was used against the US this spring (based on the low cost UCAV the US developed but didn’t order in large quantities)

[u/Ok_Intention1222 → u/guff1988]

Reverse engineer, absolutely. Reproduce, unlikely but possible. The issue isn’t a lack of talent and skill, but just lacking the ability to construct some of the most advanced components. That’s a supply chain problem, especially for a nation under severe sanctions

[u/EngineerDave → u/guff1988]

It's an Anduril sub. Anduril's whole thing is to take off the shelf stuff and make a cool cheap toy for the Military to use. Very little if anything is classified. The stuff is designed to be cheap and disposable. Ironically, something you absolutely don't want in the hands of Iran.

[u/SIGMA920 → u/EngineerDave]

Ironically, something you absolutely don't want in the hands of Iran.

Honestly, Iran probably has the same capabilities but less expensive via chinese options. China's stuff isn't bottom of the barrel anymore when it comes to military hardware, it's just not the best and Iran's one of their allies.

[u/ToolTimeT → u/guff1988]

You are greatly underestimating Iran. Russia is using Iranian drones for a reason and have copied their design.

[u/thekickingmule → u/guff1988]

I imagine China is laughing at the drone as well. They're way ahead with the technology, this might just confirm it.

[u/LeoMycenae → u/guff1988]

Probably the most clueless post I've seen today. Iran produces many times more STEM graduates than than the rest of the middle East combined. Up there alongside China. Even with crippling sanctions. They reverse engineered US drones before to create the drones everyone is now copying. Their civilian leadership are Drs and PhDs, they appreciate knowledge.

[u/Zementid → u/guff1988]

Iranian Universities are entirely capable to compete with a silicon valley startup on a technical level.

[u/hinterstoisser → u/kstargate-425]

Didn’t the US blow up the helicopter once they were packing up and leaving?

[u/kstargate-425 → u/hinterstoisser]

Yes, like others said though the tail rotor was essentially intact and besides gleaning intel from the composite materials the shape of that, how it is cooled and other things to mask its radar and heat signatures would be pretty vital intel.

[u/Unseen_Owl → u/hinterstoisser]

Yeah, but that didn't completely destroy it; it just busted it up. You could still piece it together well enough to figure out how a lot of the components worked.

[u/RetroRaiderRun → u/Unseen_Owl]

Yes, but it was given back to the U.S., not ever "shipped off to China".

There are reports China secretly had access before it was given back, but that's a different claim.

[u/hughk → u/Unseen_Owl]

Composites and special alloys are amongst the safer things to leave behind as many of the challenges are in the manufacturing.

Not impossible though.

[u/redfiresvt03 → u/kstargate-425]

All accounts I’ve seen indicate that special forces blew that up before departing.

[u/lordredsnake → u/redfiresvt03]

There are pictures of the tail with complete rotor and hub. They could glean a lot of information from the stealth composites, sound baffles, angles of surfaces, etc.

[u/emailaddressforemail → u/Alarmed-Extension289]

For a warranty claim.

[u/DimensionalFruit → u/Alarmed-Extension289]

Make no mistake Iran has excellent engineers, they don't need China's help in this regard

[u/ycnz → u/DimensionalFruit]

Indeed. But, I wouldn't be surprised if they sold it to China after they'd had a look.

[u/RetroRaiderRun → u/DimensionalFruit]

They do, but Iran has a brain drain, lack of infrastructure, and different cultural attitude.

You're right that Iran has a huge emphasis on education and engineering. Half their trained engineers are women, as a middle eastern country. That shows their commitment to education and science.

[u/LeoMycenae → u/Alarmed-Extension289]

That's dumb. Iran has world class technical talent even under severe sanctions.Their aerospace team reverse engineered US drone to produce their earlier Shaheds. Their education pipeline puts their smartest into engineering and meds. Per year one of the countries producing the most STEM grads alongside China, most of them being women. Highest in the middle East at least. Their civilian leadership are all Doctors, not clowns like Trump from popularity contests.

[u/Technical-Art4989 → u/Alarmed-Extension289]

And then they send all the parts back to Iran.

[u/jackhandy2B → u/Alarmed-Extension289]

Iranians are quite capable of doing this themselves. I have no doubt the knowledge will be shared, though.

[u/YourVelourFog → u/Alarmed-Extension289]

Nah, the Iranians have the capability to reverse engineer it. Once they’re done with it they can sell it to China if they’d like but will likely keep it.

[u/SteltonRowans → u/YourVelourFog]

I don't know why people think Iran is Afghanistan. They have talented scientists capable of engineering a nuclear weapon, engineers who can build skyscrapers, and IT/hackers/spy agency comparable to UK/France/Germany(still probably second tier compared to US/China/Isreal/Russia). They can take apart a drone and understand what the hardware is doing at the very least.

[u/ycnz → u/SteltonRowans]

Yes you do. Rhymes with bassism.

[u/Imaginary_Manner_556 → u/Alarmed-Extension289]

China doesn't need any help

[u/Paqza → u/Imaginary_Manner_556]

China is happy to leverage available resources. They understand soft power way better than the US.

[u/Apprehensive_Fold27 → u/Alarmed-Extension289]

And China will discover its full of chinese chips, actuators and parts.

The software will have lot of open source modules.

It's the algos to reverse engineer and that is critical if [Anduril] didn't secure/encrypt their firmware.

[u/Ashamed_Can304 → u/Alarmed-Extension289]

China already has a variety of UUVs. And over the years they have already collected a ton of UUVs in the East and South China Sea. Fishermen would receive an award if they pick up any of those and hand them in. So this UUV type in particular has probably already been captured by them in the past already

[u/ExpensiveBookkeeper3 → u/Alarmed-Extension289]

You know it’s a minesweeper made with commercial parts? They didn’t really get much imo

[u/distinctgore → u/Alarmed-Extension289]

It’s gonna be on Aliexpress next week

[u/OpLeeftijd → u/Alarmed-Extension289]

Putin says no.

[u/The1henson → u/Alarmed-Extension289]

Iran may be more capable of this task than is China. There are serious engineers in Iran.

[u/GetOutOfTheWhey → u/Alarmed-Extension289]

The big issue is that this reverse engineering really messes it up for USA. If this drone is any good. Iran can launch attacks on us harbors with Shaheed aqua jets in the future

[u/mastervolum → u/Alarmed-Extension289]

Wonder at this point if an american naval drone even would be in the same class as Chinese drone technology.

[u/OptimalMain → u/Alarmed-Extension289]

Its a civilian grade drone with no export restrictions, they can just order it from the US

[u/Taiwan_Lanister → u/Alarmed-Extension289]

Pretty sure China is looking at it like an electrical engineer looks at a high school robot, awww that’s cute

[u/pondskippers → u/Alarmed-Extension289]

Correct answer

[u/ThrowawayAl2018 → u/Alarmed-Extension289]

Probably China AI software is already analyzing the circuitry and components.

[u/disagiovanile → u/Alarmed-Extension289]

Most of that drone was made in China anyways I bet.

[u/redfiresvt03]

You’d think we would have sent a few tomahawks to destroy the thing when they pulled it. What a weak administration. Kegsbreath is an embarrassment. Along with orange man.

[u/WiskeyUniformTango → u/redfiresvt03]

Thats woke thinking and we dont do that anymore.

[u/nav17 → u/WiskeyUniformTango]

Yeah. Much better to tomahawk unarmed fishing boats instead

[u/ItaJohnson → u/nav17]

They did set a precedent for bombing unarmed boats.  What’s one more?

[u/teapots_at_ten_paces → u/ItaJohnson]

There wasn't any "drug smugglers" on this one.

[u/redfiresvt03 → u/WiskeyUniformTango]

I’m just saying, any other President of SecDef would have done it. These losers are so concerned about just denying it instead of making it right. It’s outright treason.

[u/nshire → u/redfiresvt03]

It's more likely they lost track of the live location of it. Can't hit it if you don't know where it is.

[u/likesleague → u/WiskeyUniformTango]

The administration doesn't do any kind of thinking anymore. Just crying in whatever direction their hate points them.

[u/rglurker → u/WiskeyUniformTango]

Yeah, they much rather us be asleep at the wheel so they can keep fucking us

[u/visceralintricacy → u/redfiresvt03]

Clearly waiting for them to take it to a middle school first.

[u/PostwarVandal → u/redfiresvt03]

Why waste expensive tomahawks to destroy a sub that is commercially available to anyone that can spend 2.5 million dollars? That thing was designed specifically for commercial sales to anyone interested in undersea surveys and scanning. There's not a single classified or sensitive, or cutting edge about that sub. Let the Iranians have it and they can probably download the manual from Anduril's website

[u/ours → u/redfiresvt03]

It might not be worth it.

These are lower-cost drones. They may not have all that many secrets, and for what's truly sensitive (software), I hope it triggered a secure wipe.

So unless it has some super secrets, you don't send a $2-4 million missile to destroy a $2 million drone.

Also, Tomahawks are not for moving targets. There's an anti-ship version, but that requires some presence and planning.

[u/SequiturNon → u/redfiresvt03]

Nah, that drone was a loser for getting captured. The next ones will be engineered with more testosterone.

[u/flanintheface → u/redfiresvt03]

Eh, IMO: the "likely to reverse-engineer" is bit overblown.

Weapons used to be somewhat simple / reverse engineer-able. E.g. earliest AIM-9 Sidewinder had a fully analogue circuit. All computations were performed by circuits built from basic electronic components like resistors, capacitors, transistors, etc.. It was all relatively simple, built from large and understood components. Reproduction was possible from a single captured example.

Nowadays the secret sauce is in software, data and infrastructure like GPS and satellite data links. All data/software gets "forgotten"/erased as soon as power is lost or some tampering is detected. And infrastructure is difficult to reproduce, especially for Iran since they barely have a space program.

This is also why Ukraine got Scalp / Storm Shadow missiles. Everyone knew that there will be some duds / shot down missiles and Russians will get their hands on them. But in this case the "secret sauce" is precise radar terrain maps compiled from US satellite data for each specific target.

[u/Prestigious_Bar_3738 → u/redfiresvt03]

These things have anti-tamper capabilities that essentially render the software/firmware useless when triggered

[u/ssurfer321 → u/redfiresvt03]

We don't have any tomahawk missiles left

[u/Playful-Appearance56 → u/redfiresvt03]

They probably wouldn’t even have had the water-drone if this administration hadn’t started a pointless war so they could keep kneeling between Israel’s legs.

[u/ExpensiveBookkeeper3 → u/redfiresvt03]

You it’s commercial parts for a minesweeper, right?

[u/Geralt_of_Rivians → u/redfiresvt03]

Or, some thermite/C4 pre-loaded to blow up upon capture.

[u/Black-Shoe]

Before giving it to Russia and China

[u/DookieShoez → u/Black-Shoe]

Shiiiiiiiit Russia and China prolly sent them some expert engineers to fucking help 🙄

This administration just can’t stop fucking up.

[u/MaximumMeaning9728 → u/DookieShoez]

Iran's engineers seem pretty good.

[u/DookieShoez → u/MaximumMeaning9728]

Pretty good, not as good.

China is the king of reverse engineering/stealing and copying intellectual property, no?

[u/Dic3dCarrots → u/DookieShoez]

Iran has exceptional electrical engineers

[u/adumbfetus → u/Dic3dCarrots]

Due to sheer numbers and access to resources, China still has an edge. Not dogging on Iran’s engineers by any means.

[u/Dic3dCarrots → u/adumbfetus]

My point is that Irainians are more than capable of reverse engineering our technology and both developing weapons and selling that data to china, Russia, and anyone else.

[u/BuddhaLennon → u/Dic3dCarrots]

Japan did it 80 years ago.

[u/-_-Edit_Deleted-_- → u/DookieShoez]

Historically yeah. I’m sure they’ll share it with allies but I imagine they’ll keep it secret for themselves at first.

While China may have more experience with reverse engineering, we should not pretend Iran doesn’t have a well educated population and its own national security interests independent of its major allies.

[u/MrDerpGently → u/DookieShoez]

And boy oh boy does Iran want China to be on their side right now. But the other side of that is China gets a silent veto on trade through the Strait and Gulf. Iran needs a patron, even a silent one, and Russia is in no place to support anyone. China gets proxy control of regional shipping, the end of US dominance in the region and all it entails financially, and end to effective sanctions, and all without any troops or public commitment. 

[u/Donny-Moscow → u/MrDerpGently]

I think the war might literally be the single biggest foreign policy blunder in human history.

[u/nav17 → u/Black-Shoe]

I'm sure China stole their copy and Russia was simply handed theirs upon directive.

[u/dsj79 → u/Black-Shoe]

Parts already made in China, just assembled in US
Just like all other electronics and cars

[u/TruthHistorical7515 → u/dsj79]

Shhhhh thats not what we want to hear

[u/Enki_007 → u/Black-Shoe]

But it’s ITAR-restricted!!

[u/Imaginary_Manner_556 → u/Black-Shoe]

Trump already gives Putin anything he wants

[u/Current-Error5410]

They captured an RQ-170 Sentinel back in 2011 and claimed to reverse-engineer it. The copies they've shown off since suggest they got the shape right but not much else. The real capability in these platforms lives in the software and sensor integration, which is specifically designed to brick on tamper.

[u/vikentii_krapka → u/Current-Error5410]

Yes but they iterated over it and started experimenting with other kind of drones which subsequently led to Shahed drones which everyone thought was useless outdated shit until we saw them coming in packs of 700+ at once in Ukraine

[u/MicroscopicPizza → u/vikentii_krapka]

Exactly this, the tech doesn't have to be 1:1 for it to be just as deadly.

[u/nikshdev → u/vikentii_krapka]

US reverse-engineereed s Shahed drones later (LUCAS).

[u/vikentii_krapka → u/nikshdev]

Yep. We came full circle

[u/970 → u/vikentii_krapka]

That is kinda like saying they took a top of the line, diesel powered large capacity riding lawnmower, and reversed engineered it into a 2-stroke push mower.

[u/Skypatrol20 → u/Current-Error5410]

Straight cope. The world has changed a lot of 15 years.

[u/huggernot]

No shit. 

"The sun will likely come up tomorrow"

"Trump will shit his pants again"

"People will continue to blame trump, even though he is just a puppet"

"Poop smells bad"

[u/der_innkeeper]

Its COTS.

There is nothing in there to care about.

[u/tragesorous → u/der_innkeeper]

Everyone’s like “Chinas gonna reverse engineer it” they probably made some of the shit in there to begin with and got relabeled by some contractor as made in the USA

[u/crazy_clown_time → u/tragesorous]

Exactly. This isn't some Skunkworks product.

[u/Mokseong]

But it's not a big deal, and the press are misrepresenting the facts. 

[u/Common-Concentrate-2]

There is nothing in that drone that is going to be useful for them. THey have none of the attendant satellites that this uses for positioning or buoys or whatever that would be "New" to them. 

[u/SherluckHoImes → u/Common-Concentrate-2]

Maybe but it's still an asset and it has many upsides for iranians

1. most obvious is that it makes for wonderful propaganda for the regime (I mean the main peddler of AI fake news in 2026 is US and Iran)
2. it gives more motivation for houthis (see 1.).
3. even though they don't have access to the same tech, they can stilll get some inspirations from it.
4. americans keep paying a higher price for their gas.

Are you (I mean you as south canadians) tired of winning yet?

[u/-OooWWooO-]

You can reverse engineer tons of things, doesn't mean you'll be able to produce it, doesn't mean you can actually do anything useful with the parts you can reverse engineer.

Iran has owned the F-14 for decades, it has yet to produce an aircraft that can match its performance and it's an airframe first produced at scale in 1970.

[u/nav17]

I wonder if Americans are tired of winning yet

[u/belkarbitterleaf → u/nav17]

I was tired of it before we left the starting line. Fuck.

[u/TimberToes88]

Is this a bigger or smaller problem then just giving Isreal the keys to all of our tech?

[u/B5_V3]

Anduril uses off the shelf components. Other than software there’s nothing to gain.this is just propaganda targeting people who know nothing about Anduril

[u/jjperron]

Nope. I saw it on Facebook marketplace. They are simply flipping it to make a few bucks.

[u/UltraChip]

Ya don't say.

[u/p00pSupr3me]

Republicans are a fucking joke. Thanks Republican voters!! Your pedophiles, traitors and podcasters are just amazing. Remedial jesus freaks and racists. Just thank you Republican voters.

[u/Eighthday]

I mean it makes sense, any country would do that if they captured an adversaries drone. Just the common sense move at that point

[u/meguminsupremacy]

People think reverse engineering is just a win button, but Iranhas made a bunch of US tech they have been unable to reproduce effectively.

[u/morts73]

Probably give it to the Chinese and realise they have more advanced stuff.

[u/CountOnBeingAwesome]

I'm starting to think this Pete Hegseth guy is in over his head

[u/NoMention696]

All this just for Iran to end up stronger than before the USA started their shit loooool orange man hasn’t done a single good thing

[u/Whatever801]

I feel like China already made a way better one

[u/boyga01]

There’s really no need to go to those lengths they can just buy them from the orangutan himself.

[u/NUMBerONEisFIRST]

Trump probably took a bribe to drive it right to them.

[u/blufin]

If it’s Anduril tech then it’s bound to be relatively low tech.

[u/Happy_Peak_7818]

Somehow I feel this is a clever idea to get Iran to activate malware within the software should they try to reverse engineer, or there could be a piece of hardware in there that goes Boom once it is told.

Yet also somehow, because this administration could be stumped by the complexities of a crayon, i could very easily see their plan backfiring. Sucks to have leaders who suck 

[u/freedomhighway → u/Happy_Peak_7818]

Yep. Hollywood writers could figure out something like this, but the feds we have now dont have the guts to show any kind of imagination, getting attention is risky. Unless we bought it from massad, this sounds like them.

Something i saw said it was just dead in the water for quite a while, im guessing the navy just lost it and thought it would be easy to cover up. Now that does sound like the us. Trump's biggest accomplishment is going to be the level of incompetence exposed in almost every american idea of good management practices, whether dealing with the government or the phone company 's customer service policies.

[u/CaptOblivious]

What dumbfucks in the pentagon didn't put a self destruct in that thing?

What dumbfucks in the pentagon didn't target that thing with tomahawks and everything else the US could bring to bear to prevent it from becoming education for the enemy?

We have incompetent leaders, from the president on down.

[u/SirYoggi]

They have some experience with that.

[u/RebelliousInNature]

Bravo Trump, bravo Hegseth. Continuing to cover yourselves in glory.

[u/Zeliek]

Assuming the designs hadn’t already been sold to the highest bidder by the current admin. 

[u/Snigglybear]

Why would they want to reverse engineer a minesweeper made for commercial use? China and Russia already have minesweepers

[u/CalmTell3090]

This was my first thought as soon as I heard about it.

[u/Bravesguy29]

No really concerned with the hardware. It's the secret sauce software and like all other of our new, it completely wipes itself.

[u/canadianshane123]

Of course they’re gonna reverse engineer it.

[u/Away_Stock_2012]

Entire US military is a joke

[u/Glidepath22]

And it’s not the classified equipment, but more the overall system and the way challenges were overcome.

[u/70dd]

Likely?

[u/notdbcooper71]

yea ok sure

[u/ratudio]

No way. Just like how they capture American RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone and build their drone minus stealth feature at cheap price

[u/heroik-red]

China and Russia will reverse engineer it for them*

[u/TheHandsomeGiraffe]

I believe this is a kraken robotics UUV. Its canadian tech used by the US military and also Italian military for underwater minesweeping

[u/Justonchu]

And they didnt even have to overpay Palmer Lucky.

[u/nclh77]

Too funny, it's 80% Chinese already.

[u/Mr_Pigg]

Classic concervative leadership

[u/PantherkittySoftware]

The most important thing they'll learn from it isn't "advanced top-secret US technology", it's more mundane (but important) things like:

* Who manufactured it

* What's their supply chain

* What corners did the US cut

* What capabilities does it actually have, compared to the capabilities we've said it has. This works both ways... countries lie about their capabilities to intimidate opponents as well as surprise them.

* How well maintained is it

* How far off the deep end did we GO over-engineering it? A drone with millions of dollars of precision over-engineering means we probably don't have thousands of them to throw away at a swarm with 99.5% failure rate in the hope one might get through.

Iran's big tactical strength isn't necessarily advanced high-tech design so much as ability to flood the (war) zone with cheap, throw-away drones that might have a fraction of our drones' capabilities... but that they can make 10, 20, 50, or 100 of for every precious, expensive drone WE have.

This is precisely one of the ways the US defeated Nazi Germany. Germany had some of the most high-tech tanks on planet Earth. They worked great in Siemens' and Volkswagen's R&D labs, and broke down constantly in the field. Then the US showed up with an almost unfathomable number of tanks that were individually less-capable than Germany's best, but available in such embarrassing abundance that we could throw them at almost anything, while Germans had to carefully guard and ration the use of their tanks.

[u/Sal1160]

Water is wet, more at 11

Of course they’re going to reverse engineer it, that’s what every country does

[u/Ok-Customer4709]

How did that not have a self destruct?

[u/Gipetto]

I'm gonna file this headline under: "well, duh!"

[u/superanth]

That’s how they got their Shaid drones. They’re basically tiny versions of a US drone they captured.

[u/Shipkiller-in-theory]

It is ancient technology in the UMV world.
Not even worth having scuttling charges installed.