The Stinger missile, officially known as the FIM-92A

During the russian invasion of afghanistan the american (CIA) covertley supplied hundreds of the stinger missiles to be used by the afghans to shoot down russian helicopters.


There are still over (400) of these stinger missiles which are not accounted for.


Where are they, will they be used against passenger airlines.?








The Stinger missile, officially known as the FIM-92A, is designed to give ground troops a way to deal with low-flying airplanes and helicopters. From the perspective of soldiers on the ground, low-flying enemy aircraft are normally a problem because they are either bombing or strafing, doing surveillance work or inserting, extracting and resupplying enemy troops. Shooting down these aircraft is the easiest way to eliminate the threat.


Marines launch a Stinger anti-aircraft missile at a target aircraft during a live fire exercise.


There are four things that make the Stinger such an effective weapon for ground troops to use:

It is a lightweight, portable weapon. The missile and its launcher weigh about 35 pounds (15 kg). The launcher is reusable. Each missile is a sealed unit that weighs only 22 pounds (10 kg).
It is a shoulder-launched weapon, and one person can launch a Stinger missile (although you normally see a two-man team operating the missile).
It uses a passive infrared seeker.
It is a fire-and-forget weapon.
The infrared seeker is able to lock on to the heat that the aircraft's engine is producing. It is called a "passive" seeker because, unlike a radar-guided missile, it does not emit radio waves in order to "see" its target.

Here are the basic parts of a Stinger missile



And here are the basic parts of the launching system:


To fire the weapon, the soldier aims the missile at the target. When the seeker locks on, it makes a distinctive noise. The soldier pulls the trigger, and two things happen:

A small launch rocket shoots the missile out of the launch tube and well clear of the soldier who is firing it.
The launch engine falls away and the main solid rocket engine lights. This rocket propels the Stinger to approximately 1,500 mph (2,400 kph, Mach 2).
The missile then flies to the target automatically and explodes.



A Stinger team goes through the procedures they would use to engage an enemy aircraft.

The Stinger missile can hit targets flying as high as 11,500 feet (3,500 m), and has a range of about 5 miles (8 km). This means, in a general way, that if an airplane is less than 2 miles high and it is visible as a shape (rather than a dot), then it is likely that the Stinger can hit it. Stinger missiles are extremely accurate.



www.howstuffworks.com...

[Edited on 2-12-2002 by quaneeri]

The number is about 200 but i know that the C.I.A tried to buy them out after the Afghan 1889 war but about 160 falled into wrong hands

Though, I have read that the batteries they would probably be dead on those stingers.

This was a rather murky story: it's pretty much generally accepted that the weapons were originally supplied by the CIA to the (then) mujahidin to fight against the Soviets.
I've read all manner of numbers with 130-150 being the most commonly reported.
Of course, whether any would still be serviceable is anyone's guess, now.
Batteries are very important - one of the more ludicrous aspects of the alleged SAM-7-Strela attack in Kenya was the disappearance of the very bulky battery-pack.
The batteries in Stingers were replaced by lithium batteries at one stage and this may have added a little more life to the system, but it's hard to imagine any batteries resisting chemical action/corrosion for a decade.
The plot thickened with a spate of rumours and accusations that the Afghans had offered the missiles back to the CIA -free of charge, but with an appeal for "help" with regard to an Afghan in jail on a drugs prosecution - and that the CIA hard turned the offer down. This inevitably led to speculation as to: why?

It thickened further with numerous allegations in 1996 to the effect that TWA800 was shot down by a Stinger.
The "re-usable" bit, by the way, is just the gripstock -the means for holding the entire "sealed unit" package.

Seven have turned up in australia,but all in parts the seven could not make one new one,but the person/s involved are still looking for other parts to make one working model.Money is the only reason and these people or person have made 3 trips to Cambodia and Vietnam where these missing parts are thought to be. Its only a matter of time before one working stinger is for sale.The cambodian search is so close that the missing part/s will be found.We have been told that the parts are coming from Laos acoss the boarder but we are not sure only that they are coming.

Portable surface to air missiles


1) maximum range

FIM-92 Stinger 8000 m
RBS 70 8000 m
QW-3 8000 m
Starburst 7000 m
Starstreak 7000 m
KP-SAM Shin-Gung 7000 m
9K338 Igla-S / SA-24 "Grinch" 6000 m
FN-6 6000 m
FN-16 6000 m
QW-4 6000 m
QW-2 6000 m
Thales Javelin 5500 m
Grom-1 5500 m
9K38 Igla-1M / SA-18 "Grouse" 5200 m
9K38 Igla-1 / SA-16 "Gimlet" 5200 m
Type 91 5000 m
QW-11 5000 m
QW-18 5000 m
Anza 5000 m
QW-1 5000 m
Misagh-1 5000 m
Misagh-2 5000 m
FIM-43 Redeye 4500 m
HN-5 4400 m
9K32M Strela-2M / SA-7B "Grail" 4200 m
9K34 Strela-3 / SA-14 "Gremlin" 4100 m
Mistral 4000 m
Blowpipe 3500 m


2) speed

Starstreak 1190 m/s
Misagh-2 880 m/s
Mistral 800 m/s
FIM-92 Stinger 750 m/s
QW-3 750 m/s
9K38 Igla-1M / SA-18 "Grouse" 700 m/s
Misagh-1 700 m/s
Starburst 680 m/s
KP-SAM Shin-Gung 680 m/s
QW-4 680 m/s
Grom-1 650 m/s
Type 91 646 m/s
9K38 Igla-1 / SA-16 "Gimlet" 600 m/s
QW-2 600 m/s
QW-1 600 m/s
Anza 600 m/s
FIM-43 Redeye 580 m/s
Thales Javelin 578 m/s
9K338 Igla-S / SA-24 "Grinch" 570 m/s
RBS 70 544 m/s
Blowpipe 510 m/s
9K32M Strela-2M / SA-7B "Grail" 500 m/s
HN-5 500 m/s
9K34 Strela-3 / SA-14 "Gremlin" 410 m/s
FN-6 360 m/s
FN-16 360 m/s


3) warhead

FIM-92 Stinger 3 kg
Mistral 2.95 kg
Thales Javelin 2.74 kg
Starburst 2.74 kg
KP-SAM Shin-Gung 2.5 kg
9K338 Igla-S / SA-24 "Grinch" 2.5 kg
Blowpipe 2.2 kg
Grom-1 1.27 kg
QW-2 1.42 kg
QW-3 1.42 kg
QW-4 1.42 kg
QW-11 1.42 kg
QW-18 1.42 kg
Misagh-1 1.42 kg
Misagh-2 1.42 kg
9K38 Igla-1M / SA-18 "Grouse" 1.17 kg
9K38 Igla-1 / SA-16 "Gimlet" 1.17 kg
9K34 Strela-3 / SA-14 "Gremlin" 1.17 kg
9K32M Strela-2M / SA-7B "Grail" 1.15 kg
RBS 70 1.1 kg
FIM-43 Redeye 1.06 kg
Starstreak 0.9 kg
Anza 0.55 kg
QW-1 0.55 kg
HN-5 0.5 kg