Text of the book “Scorched Sky of Afghanistan. Combat aviation in the Afghan war"

"Stingers" in Afghanistan: facts and legends

On September 26, 1986, Soviet aviation in Afghanistan for the first time met with a new enemy - the American Stinger man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS). After launch, their missiles were guided to the target by infrared radiation from the hot engine. Airplanes and helicopters were hit at a range of up to 4.5 km and at an altitude of 200 to 3800 m.

The Stingers first appeared in the Anglo-Argentine War of 1982. The irony of fate is that the only British SAS special forces soldier trained to use Stingers crashed in a helicopter two days before the first combat launch. On April 21, 1982, an Argentine Pucara attack aircraft was shot down by a Stinger in the Falkland Islands. On May 30, the Puma helicopter became a victim of the Stinger.

The United States hesitated for a long time whether it was worth giving such expensive and complex weapons to poorly controlled Afghan troops fighting against Soviet troops. Moreover, in the event of the capture of the Stingers, they clearly indicated direct intervention in the US war. Usually the CIA tried to supply local cadres with Soviet-style weapons (produced all over the world) so that they could be mistaken for trophies, but here such an excuse no longer worked. But in February 1986, the Americans finally decided to supply about 240 launchers and a thousand missiles for them to Afghanistan.

First hit

On that day, a group of dushmans (as the “rebels” - opponents of the central government in Kabul were called; they themselves preferred to call themselves Mujahideen), about 35 people, secretly approached the airfield in Jalalabad, a city between Kabul and Pakistani Peshawar. After several hours of waiting, they saw a group of eight Mi-24 combat helicopters - the worst enemies of the dushmans. The group had three launchers, which they arranged in a triangle - to fire at targets flying from any direction. While the operator aimed and launched the missile, two assistants kept containers with missiles ready for quick reloading.

painting by Stuart Brown “First Bite”, 2008 https://www.geopolintelligence.com/

After waiting until the leading helicopter dropped to 200 m, the group commander, engineer Gaffar, commanded “Fire!” Three rockets took off into the air. One fell a few meters from the shooter and did not explode, the other two hit their targets - both helicopters crashed to the ground. Shouting “Allah Akbar!”, having reloaded the MANPADS, the dushmans fired twice more, shooting down the third helicopter. The unexploded rocket was broken with stones so that it would not fall into the wrong hands. Among the dushmans there was also a cameraman with a video camera - the recording of the battle was shown even to US President Reagan. According to Soviet data, two helicopters were shot down. The Mi-8MT, hit by two missiles, exploded in the air, killing the crew commander and flight technician. Pilot-navigator Nikolai Gerner was thrown out by the blast wave and by some miracle remained alive. The Mi-24, hit by the next missile, was able to make a rough landing, but the helicopter commander died in hospital from his wounds. Another group operating near Kabul was not so successful - all three missiles fired missed the target.

“Stingers” quickly became a popular weapon and even a symbol of the war in Afghanistan, appearing in films and fiction:

“The general moved his palm over the map. Okovalkov peered at the familiar red-green, white-brown patterns of the landscape with the names of the villages and gorges along which he led reconnaissance groups. I recalled the latest cases of helicopter and airplane deaths. “Stingers”, appearing in the combat area, instilled fear in the pilots. Then they were driven under the clouds, where, like tea leaves, barely noticeable helicopters were circling, unable to deliver targeted strikes from a height or support the actions of the troops. Then the cars pressed to the ground, and then on the super-low ones they rushed over the dry riverbed with a crash and roar, and the flashing of stones and slopes rippled in the eyes. Daytime transporter flights were cancelled, heavy planes without side lights, buzzing in the night, stupidly hit the unpaved airfields with their wheels. But even at night, as they approached, a tenacious, all-seeing rocket stuck into their tail, entered the thermal jet of the engine, turned the car around with an explosion, showering burning coals of metal on the night deserts and mountains.”

A. A. Prokhanov, “Caravan Hunter”

Pakistani instructors on the use of Stingers took eight-month courses in the United States; the shooters themselves had two weeks to master the new weapon.

Dushman with MANPADS "Strela-2" https://www.museumsyndicate.com/

Before getting acquainted with the “Stingers”, dushmans had already used Soviet MANPADS “Strela-2M”, supplied from Arab countries, especially Egypt (in the 60s, friendly to the USSR, but then changed its orientation to the USA), “Red Eye” ( Redeye) made in the USA and even the exotic English “Blowpipe” with manual guidance. Thus, according to some data, in 1984, 5 aircraft were shot down by launches of 62 missiles of all types.

Stinger operators were recruited from those who had previously had successful launches. Since the loss of experienced pilots is much more painful than simply the loss of equipment, groups equipped with Stingers began to accompany special teams to kill or capture downed pilots. Empty missile containers were returned as proof that the detachment actually fired and did not bury them somewhere on the sly. Charlie Wilson, a member of the US Congress who actively fought for arms supplies to Afghanistan, hung one of these containers on the wall of his office.

Hunt for Stingers

Naturally, the new threat aroused keen interest among the Soviet military, who wanted to get acquainted with the Stingers not only in the air, but also, if possible, “entirely” - with the launchers themselves. Reconnaissance groups of special forces units (in common parlance - “special forces”) began the hunt. One of the successful special forces operations to capture the Stingers even ended up in a textbook.

Scheme of capturing the first Stingers

https://www.vrazvedka.ru/

On January 5, 1987, a landing party of 16 people from a special forces detachment on two Mi-8s, supported by a pair of Mi-24s, checked information that a caravan with weapons was about to pass near the town of Shahjoy (between Ghazni and Kandahar). In order not to be detected ahead of time, in the target area the helicopters flew at an altitude of only 5–10 m. At 9:38, the helicopter pilots suddenly saw five motorcycles with 17 dushmans. Having made sure that they had found the right person, the Mi-24s attacked the enemy, and the Mi-8s landed paratroopers behind the reverse slopes of the heights - subgroups of capture, support and cover. During a quick (just over a quarter of an hour) battle, 16 dushmans were killed, three motorcycles were captured, and one dushman was captured. The most valuable trophies of the special forces were three Stingers.

A group of Soviet special forces against the backdrop of the first captured Stingers, January 5, 1987, Jilavur area

https://pvo.guns.ru/

According to battle participants Vladimir Kovtun and Evgeniy Sergeev, at first the missile launches were mistaken for shots from grenade launchers, and only three motorcycles were noticed at once. The wingman Mi-8 remained in the air to provide fire support just in case. After the battle, the special forces saw rocket tubes attached to the motorcycles - only two empty and one unused. The “Stingers” did not even have time to get into combat position and fired from them “offhand”, so the miss was not surprising.

Another “Stinger” captured from the dushmans by the special forces of Major Evgeniy Sergeev

https://pvo.guns.ru/

In this battle, “the coordination of the helicopter crews and special forces groups was close to ideal.” In addition to the Stingers themselves, complete documentation on them was also captured. It is possible that the first Stingers were captured three months earlier, but the details of this story are unreliable.

It is curious that Mohammed Yusuf, head of the Afghan department of the Pakistani intelligence center in 1983-1987, admits the loss of the Stingers in early 1987. According to him, near Kandahar, the group of Mulla Malang, nicknamed “The Butcher,” violated all safety rules - for which they paid. Malang sent two launchers and four missiles with the lead group of his force. This group was caught sleeping at a rest stop by a sudden landing from helicopters, and only one person managed to escape. Soon the Stingers were captured (or bought) by the Iranians, who showed the new products at the September 1987 parade.

Trophy Stinger with serial number

https://pvo.guns.ru/

Yusuf claims that the Stingers were used not only by spooks, but also by the Pakistani military, from their territory - but out of 28 missiles, not a single one hit the “invading” vehicles.

Results

The Dushmans considered the Stingers to be an ideal weapon and claimed that they could shoot down almost any Soviet helicopter, plane, and almost the Mir space station. Allegedly, the helicopter pilots, having seen the launch from their neighbors, jumped out with a parachute. It is difficult to judge now how reliable these reports are.

Losses from any MANPADS were often attributed to the Stingers. For example, some of the veterans later recalled that the greatest losses from the Stingers occurred in 1984–1985. (time of service of a particular person) - when they simply were not physically in Afghanistan or even nearby.

Later, those who had a hand in the supply of Stingers eagerly talked about what a wonderful weapon it was. Allegedly thanks to him, the USSR lost the war in Afghanistan and came to collapse. It was stated that the 340 missiles fired hit 269 targets - with an effectiveness of almost 80% (which is technically unlikely).

However... the decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan was made by the USSR a year before the first Stingers appeared in the long-suffering country. The countermeasures taken (changes in tactics, equipping airplanes and helicopters with jamming stations and systems for releasing infrared traps to which the fired missiles were retargeted) brought losses to almost the same level. During all the years of the war, Soviet troops lost 113 aircraft and 333 helicopters - most of them from “prosaic” anti-aircraft machine guns of various calibers. In 1986, 843 missiles of all types shot down 23 airplanes and helicopters, in 1987 – 239 launches and 27 shot down. When MANPADS were just taking their first steps, the United States had already lost 5,986 helicopters over Vietnam - and again, most of them were not hit by missiles.

Another irony of fate - already in 1990, the United States had to buy the Stingers back - at $183,000 apiece, spending $55 million on 300 missiles. In 2001, it was the turn of the international coalition to test local air defense. By that time, the Stingers were most likely already out of action.

Sources:

1. https://www.airdefenseartillery.com/
2. https://www.naval-history.net/F44airbattles.htm
3. Argentina Puma shot down by American “Stinger” missile.
4. https://en.mercopress.com/2002/04/12/argentine-puma-shot-down-by-american-stinger-missile#prof
5. Britain's Small Wars. https://www.facebook.com/britainssmallwars
6. Yousaf Mohammad, Adkin Mark. The Bear Trap (Afghanistan's Untold Story). Leo Cooper, 1992.
7. Weiner, Tim. US Increases Fund To Outbid Terrorists For Afghan Missiles. The New York Times, 24 July 1993
8. Aviation in local conflicts https://www.skywar.ru/afghstatloss.html
9. Air Defense Bulletin. https://pvo.guns.ru/
10. Braithwaite Rodrik. Afghan. Corpus, 2013.
11. Elistratov Alexander. It is impossible to forget Afghanistan! https://vvs-syzran.ru/2932-aleksandr-elistratov-zabyt-afganistan-nevozmozhno.html
12. Kozlov Sergey. GRU special forces. Fifty years of history, twenty years of war. Russian panorama, 2000.
13. Features of reconnaissance and combat activities of special reconnaissance units and units in Afghanistan. Quote from: https://www.vrazvedka.ru/training/trial/130.html
14. Prokhanov A. A. Caravan Hunter, in the book: The Third Toast: story, stories. - M.: Young Guard, 2003.

(I) 11/18/2006

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