The United States is pushing to mass-produce an attack drone reverse-engineered from Iran's Shahed suicide drone.
On the 17th (local time), Bloomberg and other outlets reported that the U.S. Department of Defense plans to mass-produce the disposable attack drone LUCAS, developed by reverse-engineering Iran's low-cost suicide drone Shahed.
Emile Michael, the undersecretary for research and engineering at the U.S. Department of Defense, said at a defense industry conference in Washington, D.C., "The core idea is to mass-produce this drone in the United States and have the ability to surge production when needed."
LUCAS is a weapon reverse-engineered by disassembling an Iranian-made Shahed drone that U.S. forces acquired years ago. It is a suicide drone that flies toward a target and explodes to strike enemy positions. The name is an abbreviation of "Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System."
LUCAS costs about $55,000 (about 80 million won) per unit and has a range of more than 400 nautical miles (about 740 kilometers). Bloomberg reported that the U.S. Department of Defense aims to replace American cruise missiles, which cost millions of dollars each, with this drone.
The U.S. military has already deployed this drone, produced by U.S. company SpecterWorks, in combat in its Epic Fury operation against Iran.