Eine billige iranische Drohne hat einen 25-Millionen-Dollar-Helikopter der US-Armee abgeschossen – vielleicht durch Zufall
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/06/cheap-iranian-drone-downed-25-million-us-army-helicopter-maybe-by-chance/
Eine billige iranische Drohne hat einen 25-Millionen-Dollar-Helikopter der US-Armee abgeschossen – vielleicht durch Zufall
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/06/cheap-iranian-drone-downed-25-million-us-army-helicopter-maybe-by-chance/
46 Kommentare
Most likely scenario is they went to shoot it down and the shrapnel from the drone damaged the engine of the chopper…Ukraine has experienced similar events
That is actually $35-$52 million for the basic airframe. By the time you add weapons, technology and everything else it’s $52 to $100,000,000.
That’s always been the „cost exchange ratio.“ A weapon is almost always many orders of magnitude cheaper than the target it’s targeting.
That’s why missile and drone defense is so prohibitively expensive compared to the drones. Same with if you wanna sortie over any enemy’s skies: the operation (the planning, logistics, assets involved, the operation thereof, the personnel) will be orders of magnitude more expensive than some MANPADS they could use to down it.
It’s also why the US expends multi-million dollar PAC interceptors to down a $20K drone: one, because we’re way behind on drone defense tech and need to start investing in it, and two, because defense will always be harder than offense. It costs way more to defend against a drone than the drone costs. But the value of the thing it’s defending may still justify that cost-exchange ratio.
Similarly, why would you ever risk expensive assets and personnel in an operation if those assets are much easier for the enemy to hit than for you to successfully protect every single time (which may not even be possible, you’re literally in their skies)? Depends on the value of the mission or operation. You can’t guarantee absolute safety of air assets in an operation. But you still have to risk it if you want the objective.
It’s an interesting change to war when simple drones can cause lots of damage to expensive assets. You’re seeing it in the war in Ukraine and in some respects here.
Also I realize it was „by chance“ but warfare is definitely changing at least after the first few days of precession bombing and such.
Considering almost everything Trump says is a lie. I’m not so sure about the two unharmed pilots
That’s good business for the defense companies
Joke’s on you, Iran! Since American tax payers don’t have healthcare or affordable homes, they can afford to just keep buying more 25 million dollar helicopters! 🦅
^(/s)
Isn’t Iran denying they did this?
Only trump is claiming the shoot down and Iran still denying it was intentional. When has Iran ever fail to claim credit for something even when they didn’t do it. What most likely happen was copter got to close or attempted to shoot down drone and got hit by debris in a interception gone wrong
Maybe Trump is still a pedo conman war criminal that shouldn’t be endangering our men and women in the armed forces.
Even a small chance gives you a lot of leeway to make this worthwhile before this becomes unfeasible, financially speaking. Like 700 attempts.
Ignoring the current political aspect and sides here, it’s good to see cheaper weapons put up a strong fight against super expensive stuff. This should put some worry in the fat cat weapon manufacturers in the military industrial complex. Way too much money gets spent on defense.
But we won 4 times now and the Dow is 70k
More American health care up in smoke 😂.
Iran said they didnt do it. I believe them. They have no reason not to claim that hit. It was done by a certain group to create a reason to keep attacking more. Only 1 group has not complied in the ceasefire time and time again.
In Afghanistan captured ordnance rigged with a garage door opener could take out an 8 million dollar tank. In Vietnam’s pit with sharpened sticks harmed as many US soldiers as bullets….
Ukraine war has seen helicopters taken down with simple FPV drones.
it’s crazy, saw a 450mph drone on reddit last week. just think of a pack of 10-50 of these just zooming towards an enemies (planes) engine.
Won’t even need explosives, just jamming up the engine intake.
Might as well just call these new forms of drones, „Pigeons“
Nah, not at all by chance. This is Iran’s strategy that they learned from observing the Ukraine war. They’re very aware that a $20k drone, of which they have massive amounts, can disable American craft by essentially going kamikaze and each one costs us tens to hundreds of millions. Yet another way the US is losing this war.
It’s like attack helicopters and airplanes are obsolete now.
I remember during the „Black Hawk Down“ incident in Somali how everyone was initially surprised that you could take out a military helicopter in flight with an RPG. You weren’t supposed to be able to do that.
Warfare is increasingly changing, and it’s doing so in a way that reduces the advantage of having big expensive toys. I really hope our leaders figure that out before it costs us too many lives, but I worry that big expensive toys are too profitable and the whole system too corrupt for anybody to care about *actually* doing what’s best for the troops or the country.
Republicans making America weaker bit by bit
„Maybe by chance“ 😂 so salty!
All war involves an element of chance.
The question is where does the US sit if cheap drones can regularly cost it millions and millions of dollars?
Modern war is about economics — and Iran is strangling the US of oil while destroying trillions of dollars of assets.
Things aren’t looking good for the US.
Has no one been paying attention to Ukraine? Ffs has our own govt? Smh
Man, the US sure spends a whole lot on war shit for a country that is categorically unable to win a single war without the whole rest of the west wiping their bums for them.
Battle field changed… rug pull … left super powers holding the bag. No one wants expensive manned craft any more – welcome to the drone wars !
Alternater Headline: Army Apache heroically downs Iranian drone by crashing into it.
Merica baby
We have to also consider the aircraft are purposely deployed to a fight they are not designed or equipped for.
Doesn’t matter though because things are out of control already. Regional allies will continue to lose critical infrastructure
The future of war is cheap drones not 100 million dollar american shit.
Yeah but what’s the stock price of whoever built that drone ?
This reminds me of the stories about how Americans were able to defeat larger more established armies in the revolutionary war by using novel tactics.
Vietnam war, Vietcong shoot down UH1H Hueys with rpg2/7
Lol get rekt
It’s going to be so funny when we lose this war.
I read these things and always think there’s no way a Reaper should really cost $30 million for what it does. But then a lot of what it is actually capable of is probably classified so who knows
And the retaliation was to blow up civilian water reservoir.
War crimes left and right, night and day.
Thats the point. Cheap, repeatable and easy to produce. Thats how wars are won. Zerg swarms work for a reason on Starcraft
I feel like it might have been smarter to keep quiet about this one. Say there was a mechanical issue or something along those lines.
Mixed feelings
Let’s be honest the PR team is saying „by chance“ because of the embarrassment over how something so cheap could beat something so expensive.
Maybe Iran (and some other countries) learned a thing or two from Ukraine over the past couple of years. K-TEL drones. They chop. They slice. They dice. Only 3 small payments of $39.99.
And the military contractors will just get another 25 million of our tax dollars, will raise their stock value (and increase the share value for all the people in the Trump Administration who own that stock), and none of us will be better off for it.
Not by chance. Ukraine could have told you this would happen.
The U.S. needs to embrace cheap warfare, and reserve the expensive shit for appropriate use. Times are a changing.
This is why our defense industry is doing what it is doing right now—starting as many wars as possible. Our military dominance is fast becoming obsolete. We’re witnessing the end of the tech that made us the dominant global superpower. It’s just like coal, or petroleum in that regard. It was always about putting profits above the entirety of the human race.
Now is a pretty good time to invest in drone-focused defense stocks
Attributing it to chance is nothing but cope from the US military industrial complex.