This is a continuation of our piece Supply Chain and Logistics of 21st Century Warfare. While Military news isn't generally our focus, situations where a simple back of the envelope calculation shows something so different than the public narrative sometimes beg our attention.
Stinger Missile (FM-92A) concepts evolved to replace the US Army’s deployed Redeye “bazooka style” anti-aircraft missile of the 1960s and 1970s. When conceived the Redeye man-portable weapon (“manpad”) was considered a revolutionary concept enabling a counter to air attack by ground units without heavy weapons. The Stinger concepts had several design objectives:
1) Be “man portable” (not requiring a vehicle for combat presence)
2) Effective against helicopter, propeller, and jet aircraft
3) Useful against targets from multiple views (“all aspect”, front/side/back/above/below)
4) Hit targets 60% of the time
5) Cost effective
The Stinger concept was begun in 1967 with the initial General Dynamics development contract awarded in 1972. Production of the FM-92A began in 1978. Initial operational capabilities were achieved in 1981 with first combat success by British SAS troops in May 1982.
The initial Stinger implementation saw trade-offs in each objective area improved over time:
1) Batteries were upgraded to revolutionary “lithium” technology in the mid-1990s
2) A 4xCPU with 4096 bytes per core of RAM memory was introduced to improve effectiveness
3) Targeting sensors were improved moving from mechanical scanning to electronic
4) Targeting success rates (initially only 30%) improved helped by first-ever computer based simulations
5) Early integrated circuits were created to reduce costs and improve performance ,target identification to eliminate friendly air assets were separated into a separate belt pack, and missile tubes and operator handles (reusable) were made in two components
Multiple producers of the Stinger likely relied on certain parts and packaging centrally produced in the USA. Eventually Stinger usage was global from many platforms including airborne. The successful anti-air attack Stinger program led to a ground-attack weapon with similar aims in the Javelin. The Javelin, first test 1991, originally entered service in 1996. In 2021 the Javelin Lightweight Command Launch Unit (normally used for ground combat) has been demonstrated to interoperate with the Stinger.
Estimates are that global production (with multiple producers under license) for Stingers were about 44,000 units. The announced production for the US Army had Javelin production since 1994 of about 38000 units. Additional units amounted to a few thousand more since then.
Existing public announcements called for Stingers (with the service life extension work) to be in inventory until 2030-2031. Low rate Javelin production was planned thru the late 2020s.
The next post in the series will explore some of the contradictions between public narrative/perception (The US can just make more Javelins and Stingers on Demand) and reality (These are older weapons with older parts with limited production capabilities).
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