news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

there is a military myth that is often mentioned about the war in afghanistan:

during the war, the united states sent a large number of "stinger" shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles to the anti-soviet guerrillas in afghanistan, posing a huge threat to soviet helicopters, attack aircraft and transport agencies. the "stinger" missiles launched by the guerrillas could shoot down an average of 1-2 soviet aircraft every day. during the entire war, the afghan guerrillas launched a total of 340 "stingers", shooting down 269 soviet fighters, with a hit rate of nearly 80%. the soviet army lost a total of 451 fighters during the afghan war, and more than half of them were shot down by "stingers". the soviet army was almost collapsed by the "stingers", unable to bear the heavy losses on the battlefield in afghanistan, and eventually had to withdraw. the soviet army's failure in afghanistan exacerbated the turmoil of the soviet regime, and ultimately led to the disintegration of the soviet union. the small "stinger" missile pried history.

the myth of the stinger is well known in afghanistan.

unfortunately, a lot of this story is exaggerated. the afghan guerrillas did use the stinger shoulder-fired missile, which caused considerable trouble to the soviet army, but it was far from changing the course of the war, let alone "changing history."

early assistance

after the soviet invasion of afghanistan, western countries led by the united states began to provide various weapons and equipment to the afghan guerrillas, including single-soldier shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. however, at the beginning, the single-soldier anti-aircraft missiles provided by western countries did not include the "stinger", but mainly the previous generation of "red eye", "arrow-2m" and the british "blowpipe". providing these older models of weapons, especially the "arrow-2m" purchased from the arsenal of former pro-soviet countries, was mainly to cover up the source of the weapons. at least at this time, the united states did not want to publicly admit that it was supporting the afghan guerrillas.

in the introduction to the development history of shoulder-fired air defense missiles in the united states, it is mentioned that the fim-43c "redeye" belongs to the first generation of shoulder-fired air defense missiles. it uses a lead sulfide seeker and can only track the high-temperature hot air ejected from the target aircraft's jet engine, so it can only attack from behind and has no omnidirectional attack capability; the "redeye" has a nominal slant range of 4500m, but in actual combat, due to background radiation interference and other factors, it can often only attack soviet helicopters without exhaust port suppressors at a distance of 1500m. if exhaust port suppressors are installed, the range will drop to 1000m; the "redeye" cannot identify real targets and infrared decoy bombs. if the enemy aircraft uses infrared decoy bombs, the hit rate will infinitely tend to 0...so the afghan guerrillas have a very poor evaluation.

the second type of shoulder-fired air defense missile provided to the afghan guerrillas in the early stages of the war was the soviet-made 9k32m "arrow-2m" and its imitations. these missiles mainly came from countries that were originally pro-soviet but later changed their stance, such as egypt, and also included the hongying-5 provided by china, which was then known as the "16th nato member state." the "arrow-2m" and its imitations also belong to the first generation of shoulder-fired air defense missiles. their performance can only be said to be makeshift, but according to actual combat feedback, the performance of the "arrow-2m" is slightly better than that of the "red eye."

the "arrow-2m" shoulder-fired air defense missile used by afghan guerrillas

as for the third shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile provided in the early stage of the war, the british "blowpipe" was a typical british psychopathic product. it was large and heavy, and used human-controlled radio command guidance. after the missile was fired, the shooter had to operate a small joystick, and the remote-controlled missile pressed on the crosshairs of the sight and flew towards the target until it hit the target - you are using an anti-tank missile to shoot down aircraft! the afghan guerrillas also gave the "blowpipe" the worst evaluation of the three.

the afghan guerrillas also used the british "blowpipe" shoulder-fired air defense missile, which was a peculiar product among the early shoulder-fired air defense missiles and required manual remote control to fly the missile.

because these early models of shoulder-fired air defense missiles had poor performance and posed limited threat to soviet aircraft, at the strong request of the afghan guerrillas, the united states began exporting fim-92 "stinger" shoulder-fired air defense missiles to the afghan guerrillas in 1986.

the first battle of "stinger"

on september 26, 1986, a team of 35 afghan anti-soviet guerrillas lurked near a soviet military airport in jalalabad, afghanistan. a few hours later, they found a group of eight soviet helicopters returning to prepare for landing. the guerrillas had three stinger missiles and lurked near the airport landing route. after the leading helicopter descended to an altitude of 200m, the guerrilla commander ordered the missiles to fire, and three stinger missiles flew into the air with tails of smoke.

according to the afghan records, one of the three missiles failed, the solid rocket engine did not work, and the propellant was thrown a few meters away and fell to the ground. the other two hit the target and shot down two helicopters on the spot. the guerrillas shouted jihad slogans, loaded two more "stingers", and fired two more, shooting down the third helicopter.

the downed mi-24 attack helicopter. the picture has nothing to do with the combat example.

according to soviet records, two helicopters were shot down that day. one was a mi-8mt transport helicopter, which was hit by two missiles and exploded in mid-air. the captain and mechanic were killed on the spot, and the navigator was ejected to the ground by the shock wave of the explosion, but miraculously survived. the mi-24 helicopter was hit by another missile and was severely damaged. it successfully made an emergency landing, but the captain died in the hospital due to serious injuries.

the downed mi-8mt transport helicopter. the picture has nothing to do with the combat example.

since the stinger missile is a more advanced and sensitive weapon, the united states has strict management of these stinger missiles, requiring afghan guerrillas to have a photographer to shoot combat videos when using the stinger. the empty tubes after launch are not allowed to be discarded at will. they must be recovered and handed in in exchange for new stingers. this is to maintain confidentiality and prevent them from falling into the hands of the soviets. it is also to prevent afghans from falsely reporting battle results to obtain aid.

however, as more and more stingers were provided to the afghans, it was impossible to keep it strictly confidential, especially since the soviets had realized in combat that the other side was using more advanced shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. in order to obtain the actual missiles, the soviets also dispatched special reconnaissance teams to attack the afghan guerrilla camps based on insider intelligence, seized unfired stinger missiles, conducted technical research on the actual missiles, understood their technical and tactical performance, and developed a series of countermeasures.

the "stinger" captured by the soviet army invading afghanistan

the "stinger" captured by the soviet army invading afghanistan

soviet countermeasures

the soviet countermeasures were not specifically aimed at the stinger missiles, but at various shoulder-fired air defense missiles, including the stinger, as well as various air defense weapons ambushes around airport take-off and landing routes and helicopter landing sites. they were roughly as follows:

1. send out a team of armed helicopters to cooperate with ground guard forces to continuously patrol near the airport, block the channels through which afghan guerrillas can carry missiles and set up ambushes at close range, and make it impossible for the guerrillas to stay.

2. when carrying out air assault missions, armed helicopters should be dispatched to intensify firepower sweeps on the landing site before the transport helicopters land, and special reconnaissance teams should be airdropped in advance at surrounding commanding heights to provide alert and eliminate possible ambushes set by the guerrillas.

before carrying out the encirclement and suppression operation, a special reconnaissance team was airdropped at a nearby commanding height to provide alert. the first purpose was to monitor the guerrillas and prevent them from escaping, and the second was to seize possible anti-aircraft weapon launch points in advance to prevent the guerrillas' missile shooters from staying. this tactic was also often used in anti-ambush battles on both sides of the highway.

3. large transport aircraft such as the an-12 must be escorted by armed helicopters when taking off and landing at the airport. the transport aircraft try to reduce the exposure time of takeoff and landing as much as possible and adopt the wild and rough "afghan landing method" - maintaining a high speed when approaching, reducing altitude with a steeper glide angle, then quickly slowing down, and finally "crashing" into the runway.

4. take technical countermeasures, such as installing exhaust port infrared signal suppression devices on armed helicopters and transport helicopters, adding l-166v-11e "lime tree" infrared jammers and decoy missile launchers, etc.

the principle of the infrared signal suppression device at the exhaust port is to mix the high-temperature exhaust gas of the engine with cold air, discharge it after cooling, and reduce the infrared signal; the l-166v-11e "lime tree" infrared jammer looks like a warning light, surrounded by lenses, and can intermittently transmit infrared interference waves with the same frequency as the missile seeker receiving frequency, so that the missile cannot find the real target in the chaotic interference waves; the infrared jammer and the decoy flare launcher are also linked. once the onboard ultraviolet warning device receives the bright ultraviolet light in the tail flame of the approaching missile, the infrared jammer and the decoy flare launcher will automatically work.

countermeasures equipment installed on the mi-8 transport helicopter: l-166v-11e "linden" infrared jammer (1) and infrared/chaff decoy launcher (2)

after taking a series of countermeasures, the losses of soviet helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft dropped significantly, and the difficulty of missile ambushes for the afghan guerrillas rose sharply. in terms of technical confrontation, the stingers provided to the afghan guerrillas were mostly early fim-92a basic models, which only had an indium antimonide single-channel seeker + a modulator cone scanning seeker, and could not counter airborne infrared jamming equipment. the fim-92b stinger-post with an infrared-ultraviolet dual-channel seeker + rose line scanning had better anti-jamming capabilities, but the number provided by the united states was small, and under the suppression of the soviet army's enhanced escort patrols and early removal of nails, it became increasingly difficult to set up ambushes and attacks.

the plain truth

since western countries deliberately created the military myth of "superior system - superior tactics - superior weapons - invincible" after the cold war and after the end of the cold war, some examples of western countries' victory in wars with weapons and equipment have been exaggerated, including the "stinger" missile:

for example, it was claimed that during the afghan war, anti-soviet guerrillas launched a total of 340 stinger missiles and shot down 269 soviet fighter planes. however, when calculated in this way, the hit rate of the stinger is close to 80%, which is higher than the theoretical destruction probability of this type of missile against an undisturbed target, which is physically impossible.

for example, all the losses caused by man-portable shoulder-fired air defense missiles during the war were attributed to the stinger. based on the recollections of soviet veterans, it was said that the period of time when the stinger caused the greatest losses was 1984-1985. however, the stinger was not provided to the afghan guerrillas at that time. even if these losses were caused by man-portable shoulder-fired air defense missiles, they were caused by the red eye, arrow-2m/hongying-5 and blowpipe, and had nothing to do with the stinger.

another example is the use of the stinger as a lever to start the afghan war, or even the cold war confrontation, and the creation of a fable that the stinger dragged down the soviet air force and forced the soviet army to withdraw from afghanistan. in fact, the soviet army's final withdrawal from afghanistan was due to a more macro-level international and domestic political dilemma. some factors were doomed at the beginning of the armed intervention, rather than being forced to pry because the other side had the stinger missile.

the stinger missile played a significant role in the afghan battlefield, but it did not have any effect in "changing history."

there is no doubt that the provision of more advanced shoulder-fired air defense missiles such as the stinger to the afghan guerrillas did limit the use of the soviet air force. the soviet army had to dispatch more helicopters to patrol repeatedly around the airport. every time an air assault plan was formulated, the threat of shoulder-fired air defense missiles had to be taken into account. more troops had to be deployed to conduct advance sweeps and advance alerts... all these increased the cost of the soviet military operations.

however, military confrontation is not a chess game. there is no rule that one thing can specifically counter another. the threat posed by the stinger missile to low-flying helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft is achieved through specific technical and tactical advantages. similarly, it can also be countered and eliminated by the opponent's technical and tactical means.

during the afghan war, the soviet army lost a total of 113 fixed-wing aircraft and 333 helicopters, most of which were shot down by tube weapons, namely small-caliber anti-aircraft guns, anti-aircraft machine guns and infantry light weapons. the number of soviet aircraft shot down by various types of individual shoulder-fired air defense missiles accounted for only a small part of the total, and the "stinger" was only a part of this small part.

the stinger missiles caused a lot of trouble for the soviet army, but they were just troubles. there was no such thing as changing history or reversing the situation...

-over-