Among the many ** systems in which the United States and the West have provided a large amount of assistance to Ukraine, there is such a single soldier ** that is different from tanks, fighter jets and other large equipment that has played an important role in actual combat, and it is the FIM-92 "Stinger" anti-aircraft missile, which is known as one of the three sharp weapons of the United States and the West to aid Ukraine.
Because ordinary soldiers can successfully operate with a little training, and the cost is relatively large, the "Stinger" has been able to equip a large number of US troops and their allies, and now it is also used in the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, and the Ukrainian side claims to have shot down hundreds of Russian army aviation*** Of course, the outpost also knows that it is a fact that the Ukrainian side has a lot of water in the war report, and whether its ground forces have shot down so many Russian aircraft is not guaranteed, but even if this battle report is discounted and divided by two, the record of the "Stinger" anti-aircraft missile is still considerable, so it is not surprising that the "Stinger" can be called the vanguard of aiding Ukraine to resist Russia.
Stinger" man-portable anti-aircraft missile officially named FIM-92 air defense missile, "Stinger" is its nickname, the arms race has triggered military scientific and technological progress, has always been so, and most of the equipment active in various conflict regions was developed in the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War several decades ago, "Stinger" research and development work began as early as 1972, designed by the famous American General Dynamics Company, and finally began to equip the United States Army, Marine Corps and its allies in 1981.
After the "Stinger" system was installed, it was first used in the Anglo-Argentine War by the British ** team, but because the amount of Stinger equipment was small at that time, and the overall war intensity was not high, the "Stinger" did not have many opportunities for actual combat, and what made the "Stinger" really famous was that during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, thousands of "Stinger" anti-aircraft missiles were provided by the Americans to the Afghan guerrillas for use, and all 340 "Stingers" launched in their actual combat , 269 targets were hit, and the overall hit rate reached an astonishing 79 percent, such an achievement is still excellent even today when air defense and missile technology is changing with each passing day, so the Stinger missile poses a major threat to the Soviet aviation units, and this forces the Soviet troops have to support the ground troops in a large number of high-altitude bomb delivery methods with much lower hit accuracy.
Subsequently, because of the outstanding combat results in Afghanistan, the amount of equipment of the "Stinger" has been increased one after another, and it has been introduced by Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Israel and other countries, and has now become the most produced individual air defense missile in the world.
Compared with many other air defense **, the American-made "Stinger" missile is undoubtedly efficient, low-cost and simple to operate, and has been widely used in the Afghan war and the recent Russian-Ukrainian war.
As a portable anti-aircraft missile for individual use, the Stinger system has a total length of 183 meters, the missile itself is only 152 meters, total weight 133 kg, with a canard pneumatic layout, the power plant of which is 6The 72-kilogram MR27 solid rocket engine, when launched, pushes the missile out of a distance of about 8 meters by propellant, and then the engine ignites, which can bring the missile up to 22 times the speed of sound.
Stinger's warhead is equipped with an infrared seeker device, with all-directional attack capabilities, that is to say, whether the target flies straight or turns its head away, the Stinger can carry out an effective attack, and passively find a heat source to attack within the target range after launch, the initial model of the "Stinger" has a maximum effective range of 4 kilometers, and is mainly used to attack the first and low-speed attack aircraft over the combat area.
As another important component of the missile, the Stinger is equipped with a three-kilogram prefabricated fragmentation warhead, which has an obvious effect on flying targets such as the first flight, and is also designed with a friend or foe identification system, which plays an obvious role in a war with high intensity, and can effectively avoid oolong incidents such as accidental hits when multiple enemy and enemy planes appear at the same time over the theater of operations.
The US military's armored divisions, airborne divisions, mechanized infantry divisions, and marines are all equipped with a large number of Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, and its standard low-altitude anti-aircraft missile battalion is equipped with as many as 108 sets of Stinger missile systems.
At present, the Stinger series of individual anti-aircraft missiles that have been tested in actual combat are still being improved, and the most advanced Type E "Stinger" has further strengthened the anti-jamming capability, the guidance device has also been improved, and at the same time it is more lightweight, and the lethality of the warhead has also been enhanced, according to statistics, up to now, nearly 200,000 Stinger series anti-aircraft missiles have been produced, of which more than 2,000 have been deployed in the hands of the Ukrainian army to fight against Russia.
It is worth mentioning that at the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war, pro-Russian armed personnel used captured "Stinger" anti-aircraft missiles to successfully shoot down the Ukrainian military's Mi-8***