These drones have been used by the US in the war against Iran. And there are more on the way to war – but before that they pass through the Azores
The Lajes base, on the island of Terceira, is finalizing preparations to receive the MQ-9 Reaper drones from General Atomics, in service with the US Armed Forces. The drones are then expected to head to the Middle East to participate in combat operations against Iran.
Speaking to CNN Portugal, Major General Arnaut Moreira details the strengths of this weapon, which he says is the “most expensive on the market at the moment”. “Their use is discreet. In most cases they are used without us knowing about their use, as they fly extraordinarily high, around 15 kilometers in altitude. They are, therefore, difficult to identify and, above all, they are extraordinarily flexible from the point of view of the equipment and weapons they carry”, explains the Geopolitics specialist.
“These Reapers are relatively modern aircraft,” Lieutenant General Rafael Martins tells CNN Portugal. “They can be controlled remotely, from the other side of the planet, they have satellite connections, they have high degrees of autonomy and range and they also have the ability to drop different types of weapons, of greater or lesser precision. They also have an enormous capacity for collecting information. They have a multi-sensor platform, both in the visual, multispectral domain, and in the radar, infrared domain. And, at the same time, they also eliminate targets for other manned or unmanned aircraft”, he adds.
Arnaut Moreira states that this drone can “very easily” collect intelligence on site and also has the advantage of having great autonomy and being able to remain in the same location for more than 24 hours. The major general also highlights the ability of the MQ-9 Reapers to carry “high-precision” missiles.
“Iran continues to have a set of platforms that it hides, which it brings abroad to launch ballistic missiles and which are then collected, hidden in hangars, in warehouses or in mountains. Now, the F-35s cannot remain in the area forever looking for these types of targets to appear, but this drone allows them to fly over an area that has previously been identified as a normal location for the activation of ballistic missile launch platforms and wait for them to appear. manifest. For what I call targets of opportunity, these drones are more interesting than an F-35”, he says.
Another strong point of the Reapers is their reusability, explains the major general. “Contrary to the Shahed drones, which were made to be spent, that is, once launched they do not return to base, this one was made to be able to have enough weapons to carry out its mission and then return safely to the base from where it was launched.”
Despite all these advantages, Rafael Martins points out that some of these drones – the US had around 300 in service before the war started – have already been shot down by Iranian forces, “as they are not totally invisible”.
“The United States already has platforms like these in the stealthwhich are not currently, at least, being announced as present in the theater of operations. The Navy [dos EUA] it also develops unmanned platforms that are more advanced than these and not as exposed in terms of radar signature”, says the lieutenant general.
And why were they posted to Lajes? To be assembled and closer to the theater of operations, says Rafael Martins, who claims that they can cross the Portuguese archipelago to the Middle East, where they will be equipped.
“They generally travel in containers. It’s not that it can’t make very long trips, because it has 25 hours of autonomy”, adds Arnaut Moreira. “The issue is not their autonomy. The issue is that it’s not worth spending all those hours on a piece of equipment like this in flight just to transport it between the point of departure and the point of arrival. They generally go in containers to a place closer to the operations area so they can be assembled.”
