Air Defense: Special Forces Revives Stinger

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May 9, 2024: U.S. Army Special Forces have reintroduced Stinger anti-aircraft missile training for their operators. The members of a special forces team are called operators and each has a specialty. One of those specialties is weapons and the weapons specialist gradually trains the other members of his team on new weapons. Stinger is once more a new weapon. That’s because for decades American troops operated in areas where they had air domination. The extensive use of surveillance and armed UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) in Ukraine has changed all that. Stinger is an expensive way to destroy cheap UAVs costing a few thousand dollars each. But there is a time when a particularly large UAV is encountered and this is the kind of target Singer missiles were meant for. In addition to Stinger missiles, the American special forces have also added more ATGMs (Anti-Tank Guided Missiles) like TOW, which has been around since the 1980s, and the more recent Javelin. TOW persists because it is simple and it works. TOW is still a useful and valuable weapon for use against tanks, structures, or fortifications.