Footage Shows Emirati F-16E Fighter Closely Chasing Iranian Shahed 136 Drone Over Dubai Beach

Footage take at Almamzar Beach in Dubai has show a United Arab Emirates (UAE) Air Force F-16E/F fighter in hot pursuit of an Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Shahed 136 single use attack drone. The F-16 carried two AIM-120 air-to-air missiles, but appeared to be closing in to attempt to achieve a gun kill. The outcome of the engagement is unknown. Iran has launched large scale missile and drone attacks targeting bases across the Persian Gulf region hosting U.S. Air Force assets, including facilities in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, as well as Jordan further north. Al Dhafra Air Base in Abu Dhabi, which hosts U.S. and French fighter units, has been among the primary targets. Iran has has achieved particularly outstanding successes in destroying missile warning radars, causing an estimated more than $3 billion in damage to its adversaries’ radar systems.

Costing approximately $20,000, the Shahed 136 is prized for its ability to overwhelm hostile air defences, with its cost being under two percent that of UAE Air Force F-16s’ primary air-to-air the AIM-120 missile. The depletion of UAE missile defences, and destruction of key missile defence radars including the THAAD system’s $700 million AN/TPY-2, may have resulted in a greater reliance on fighters to secure the country’s airspace against Iranian strikes. AH-64 Apache attack helicopters have also been deployed for air defence operations against Iranian drone strikes, although their limited speeds restrict their ability to provide an area defence. The apparent attempt by the F-16 over Almamzar Beach to achieve a gun kill may have been a result of orders to conserve supplies of the costly radar guided missiles, with the fighter potentially having already expended its less costly visual range AIM-9 missiles, which cost approximately $800,000 each, to engage other targets. 

Attempts to shoot down Shahed 136 drones using guns are far from unprecedented, with Ukrainian Air Force pilots widely reported to have done so, albeit at considerable risk and at times causing fatal accidents, while U.S. Air Force F-15E fighter pilots having done the same after depleting their air-to-air arsenals. The limitations of fighter aircraft in shooting large numbers of low value drones has fuelled a greater interest the integration of new weaponry, included laser guided rocket pods, and possibly eventually directed energy weapons, to provide a more effective means of countering the threat. Although the UAE Air Force fields a very large number of fighters and outstandingly high concentrations of missile defence systems relative to the size of its territory, its struggles to defend its major bases and strategic targets against Iranian strikes has raised serous questions regarding how effectively assets are being employed. While Iran has escalated to use hypersonic glide vehicles against targets in Israel, it has notably refrained from doing so against targets in the United Arab Emirates, possibly because the shorter distances involved make it more practical to saturate defences with low value missiles and drones.