What is "brand name" of surface-to-air missles killing our kids???

[spanone]

Are they American made? Russian? Can't buy these guys at Wal-mart.

[DrWeird]

1. Who's "our kids?"

Americans?

[economic justice]

6. The only people SAMS are killing are Americans N/T

[economic justice]

2. Raytheon (When it was called General Dynamics)

Raytheon (General Dynamics) FIM-92 Stinger

The FIM-92 Stinger replaced the FIM-43 Redeye as the standard Western MANPADS (Man-Portable Air-Defense System), and is now very widely used in many countries of the world.

Development of the Stinger began in 1967 as a study for an improved FIM-43 Redeye, named Redeye II. The main improvement was to give the missile an all-aspect seeker capability. In 1971, the U.S. Army selected Redeye II for development as the future MANPADS, and assigned the designation FIM-92. In March 1972, the Redeye II was renamed as Stinger. Testing of guided XFIM-92A rounds began in November 1973, but was halted and restarted several times because of technical problems. By 1975, the most severe problems had been solved, and in July that year, the first shoulder launch of an XFIM-92A occurred. Finally, in April 1978, General Dynamics was awarded the first contract for mass production of the FIM-92A missile. Production Stinger missiles then replaced the old FIM-43 Redeye rounds on a one-to-one basis. IOC (Initial Operational Capability) was reached by the first Stinger units in 1981.

The FIM-92A is fired by one man through a shoulder launcher. Once a target is located and identified as a threat, the operator has to activate the missile. This process takes about 6 seconds, and includes IR seeker cooling, gyro spin-up, and activation of the electronics. When the detector logic has locked on an IR source, a buzzer signal is sent to the operator, who may then pull the trigger. 1.7 seconds later, the FIM-92 missile is launched. After the Stinger has been ejected from the launcher by a very short duration boost motor, the forward control fins and fixed tailfins extend. After a short coasting period to take the missile to a safe distance from the operator, the two-stage (boost/sustain) solid-fueled main motor ignites. The Stinger has two major advantages over the older FIM-43 Redeye. The first is the second-generation cooled conical-scan IR seeker, which offers all-aspect detection and homing capability. Therefore, the Stinger can be used on approaching aircraft, before these had a chance to drop their short-range ordnance or begin ground-strafing. The second new feature of Stinger is its integrated AN/PPX-1 IFF system, which is an obvious advantage in a scenario where both friendly and enemy forces are operating aircraft. In flight, the missile's seeker head and guidance electronics can follow a target manoeuvering at more than 8g. In the immediate vicinity of the target, the guidance logic will be biased so that the missile homes on a particularly vulnerable part of the target (e.g. the cockpit of an aircraft, instead of the center of its IR signature, the jet exhaust). The 3 kg (6.6 lb) blast-fragmentation warhead is triggered by a proximity and time-delayed impact fuze. Minimum effective range is quoted as 200 m (660 ft).
More ---- http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/stinger.htm

They can be bought for around $200,000.00 in several Mideast cities.

[spanone]

9. Thank you all for the info.

[BiggJawn]

16. Where'd they get replacement batteries?

My understanding is that all those Stingers we gave the Mujhadeen now have dead batteries in the avionics, and they're not your common Radio Shack 9V...

[ProudGerman]

3. SA-7 Grail

Its ancient technology, developed by the Soviets in the late 60's. Being old and Soviet means two things, they are cheap and plentiful. The insurgents are probably being trained by the Republican Gaurd that mysteriously up and vanished prior to the fall of Baghdad.

[economic justice]

5. The ones being used in Iraq are American stingers

Sold in abundance in 1981 and now widely available in the Middle East.

[ProudGerman]

10. I haven't heard that

I haven't read any news stating that Stingers are being used. But I do know that Grails are used by just about every military in that region, the Soviets and other countries produced butt loads of them, and they are dirt cheap when compared to Stingers. The Grail is the AK-47 of the shoulder fired anti air missile.

I also believe that if they were firing Stingers, the misses we read about before the last week would have been hits.

[Maple]

4. It's a variety of stuff

Everything from everywhere is sold on the black market.

[Bollinger]

7. The Observer says Iraqis can buy SA-7's for $325

from other Iraqis who looted them from the military.

[economic justice]

8. SA-7 is a very weak weapon.

The American-made Stinger missile by GD is deadly and still accurate.

[wuushew]

11. Interesting info

Combat effectiveness
The SA-7 proved fairly effective against US helicopters in Vietnam until the US crews began to vent the exhaust air into the rotor wash but even then the SA-7 was still able to occasionally lock onto the hot exhausts and engine compartment and remained a threat. The Portuguese airforce like a number of airforces involved in "low intensity" COIN (Counter Insurrection) operations also suffered losses to the SA-7 and had to upgrade its equipment since the SA-7 proved to be able to home in on the hot engines and exhausts of piston engined aircraft like the North American T-6 and other popular COIN aircraft.

During the Yom Kippur war the SA-7 saw large scale service against high speed jet fighter bombers. The Arab states are said to have fired more than 4000 SA-7 rounds against Israeli Skyhawks and other such ground attack aircraft and scored 7 shot down and another 30 damaged 2). This tally reveals another weakness of the SA-7, the inability of its warhead to inflict significant damage to the airframe of a heavy, fixed wing military aircraft unless it scored a direct hit. The SA-7s record from the Yom Kippur war appears to be unimpressive on first glance due to the low proportion of "kills" against low flying Israeli aircraft. The above cited statistics are frequently used to point out the incompetence of the Soviets and their Arab allies. This line of argumentation unfortunately conveniently ignores the fact that many of these 4000 rounds that missed forced the attacker to abandon his attack run as soon as the SA-7 was fired, jettison his bombs, and zoom up above the SA-7s ceiling. Thus the SA-7 thwarted many Israeli air-strikes and forced the Israeli attacker into the domain of heavier surface to air missiles and FLAK guns, a fact who's significance is often underestimated.

http://www.brushfirewars.org/weapons/surface_to_air_missiles/sa_7_grail/sa_7_grail.htm

[economic justice]

12. No Question!

But, the SA-7 is an old weapon. The STINGER is old, but the SA-7, without question effective in the sixties, is quite ineffective in the 21st century. The Stinger is twenty years newer than the old SA-7's. Go to the link in the post above about the missile and read about how the *ammunition* is cheap.....the launcher itself is not. The SA-7 is cheap, but the ammunition needed to be effective is hard-to-find. The Stinger proliferated into ME hands after the Soviet/Afghan war in which the US sold the missile to the Mujahadeen.

[NickB79]

17. That would then imply that they ARE using SA-7's and not Stingers

Planes landing at and leaving Baghdad International have recorded DOZENS of near-hits by SAM's zipping by in the past few months. Since only a few helicopters, and no planes, have been hit out of all these shots taken, that doesn't sound like the "deadly and accurate" Stinger is being used.

[jmowreader]

13. They could be anything

They are probably Stingers. which (thanks to Saint Ronald, patron saint of unnecessary death) are very plentiful in the Middle East. The question arises as to whether these guys would want to drop $200k on a launcher, though.

A couple other possibilities...SA-7, SA-22 (the follow-on piece to the SA-7), something from France, perhaps a German tube. Who knows?

[madddog]

22. Or a Garden Variety RPG

With as many of these things as are in Iraq, they're bound to hit something sooner or later. You don't need a $200K missile to knock a helo down...just an rpg and some luck.

[funkyflathead]

14. Com Block Missles of some type

No Stingers. The US never sold Stingers to Iraq.

The Iraqis are using regular RPGs too.

[TexasMexican]

15. likely russian stuff

Yeah, its most likely not American made stingers that they are using, but rather the Soviet designed copies.

I remember thinking when we went into Afghanistan, how the media was all talking about the stingers, then I thought to myself its kind of silly because its not like the US has a monopoly on man portable SAMs.

[NickB79]

18. Ok, anyone have sources for the number of Stingers sold overseas?

All the links I've been able to find online mention the US giving Stingers only to Afghanistan in the 80's to fight the Soviets, and the estimated number of unused Stingers left seems to vary from 150-600. This also doesn't take into account whether or not the missiles were properly stored and still operational after 15 yrs. Definitely not plentiful or cheap compared to the literally tens of thousands of Russian SAM's sold over the decades. I find it very hard to believe that ANY of our aircraft have been shot down or even shot at by Stingers in the past few years, or that Stingers are in any way easily available.

[funkyflathead]

19. I'm with you

All of the Iraq footage I've seen shows Russian rockets and RPGs.

Yes we did give some to the Afghanis but why would the Afghanis turn around and sell them to Saddam??

[IndianaGreen]

20. According to CNN, it is a Russian made Kolomna KBM Strela-3

Sources with the 4th Infantry Division told CNN they suspect a Soviet-built Kolomna KBM Strela-3 low-altitude surface-to-air missile hit the helicopter, using an infrared guidance system.

Earlier, U.S. military officials had ruled out the use of SAMs in the crash but had not discounted the Black Hawk went down as a result of hostile fire.

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/11/09/sprj.irq.main/index.html

[KeepItReal]

21. Iraq had Russian made SA-7s and SA-14s

"By 2002 Iraq's shoulder-fired, low-altitude missiles were primarily the aging SA-7 and SA-14s. The Iraqis were not thought to have the more sophisticated SA-16s and SA-18s. " Their estimate is 1,500 man-portable SAMs in 2002.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/air-defence-equipment.htm


SA-7


SA-14