British Deployment to Afghanistan

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perfectgeneral RE:joe6pack 1/31/2006 11:44:33 AM

So what counter to the old Stingers you sold them do we have?

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joe6pack Perfectgeneral 1/31/2006 11:52:52 AM

"So what counter to the old Stingers you sold them do we have?" Have you ever tried to fire 20+ year old ordinance? I can't say I've fired a stinger, but I have "tried" firing 20+ year Dragon's during live fire exercises. In general, those weapons are more of a danger to the crew firing them than the target they are being aimed at. I don't think the Taliban has had Raytheon and General Dynamics out to do maintenance on the systems either. Even assuming they have some stingers in working condition, part of the Apaches purpose is to surpress AA / AAA sites. I'd hope they would have some ability to defeat or defend against 70's / 80's era systems.

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Heorot RE:Perfectgeneral 1/31/2006 2:52:05 PM

As I understand it, the batteries in a Stinger are a unique design with a very limited shelf life; no more than 8 years IIRC. They can't be replaced with anything other than a correct Stinger battery.

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Yimmy RE:Perfectgeneral 1/31/2006 6:26:11 PM

"They can't be replaced with anything other than a correct Stinger battery." Tell that to Mr AA and Mr Duct Tape. :D

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joe6pack RE:Perfectgeneral 1/31/2006 10:59:36 PM

"They can't be replaced with anything other than a correct Stinger battery." I think that's actually something of a US defense contractor scam / scheme. "We will maintain the widget we sold you for free for the life of the product. However, it only uses our proprietary batteries." I seem to remember something along those lines for the sincgars radio's. The battery was like $40 (maybe it was more) or so dollars and lasts all of about 24 hours of good use. Multiply that per every platoon or so and $$$$

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angryjohn RE:Perfectgeneral 2/1/2006 6:41:39 AM

There was a letter in the FT the other day about this deployment. It seems our troops are going into an area dominated by organised crime / warlords who make their money growing poppies. If a poppy field can make 11 times more than an legal crop, are farmers in the poorest part of the world going to grow fruit and veg? This article concluded that there were not enough troops going to put an end to poppy fields, but there were enough to stir things up with the local war lords. My gut feeling is that this deployment is a very bad plan indeed.

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Ehran RE:perfectgeneral 2/1/2006 11:35:47 AM

those stingers have a shelf life and they are well past it. the malf rate for them would be pretty high by now so they really shouldn't be much of a threat.