Article

2010-07-27 Afghanistan

Wikileaks Afghanistan: Taliban used heat-seeker missiles against Nato helicopter

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Posted by tipper 2010-07-27 00:38|| || Front Page|| [4 views ] Top

#1 Manpad? Isn't that a Soviet system? Looks like they don't want us to succeed there. May be too embarrassing.

Posted by gorb 2010-07-27 01:06|| 2010-07-27 01:06|| Front Page Top

#2 95% of all shoulder launched man portable anti-aircraft missiles are heat seekers : Chinese, Russian, American, French, British,etc. Sort of like saying a car has an internal combustion engine.

Posted by Shieldwolf 2010-07-27 02:49|| 2010-07-27 02:49|| Front Page Top

#3 I figured they were using those IR flares for a reason.

Posted by crosspatch 2010-07-27 04:35|| 2010-07-27 04:35|| Front Page Top

#4 This is not good. Not good at all.

Posted by Besoeker 2010-07-27 05:23|| 2010-07-27 05:23|| Front Page Top

#5
This is not a suprise. Not a suprise at all.

Posted by Parabellum 2010-07-27 08:17|| http://sidemeat.wordpress.com/ 2010-07-27 08:17|| Front Page Top

#6 "The documents show"
The Telegraph has manufactured this assertion almost out of thin air, thereby proving once again that lies travel around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.

What the documents really show is that a single witness reported seeing a smoke trail from the rocket. Wikileaks and NYT analysts, not the documents themselves, therefore concluded that it was a MANPAD rather than a rocket propelled grenade because, according to them, RPGs don't leave a smoke trail.

Judge for yourself, and imagine that you are target and the projectile is coming straight at you, that is, you are looking at the smoke plume head-on:
Video, RPG 7 launch

Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2010-07-27 09:13|| 2010-07-27 09:13|| Front Page Top

#7 List of Coalition aircraft losses in Afghanistan.

So this supposedly happened in May, 2007. And it's the only time. Which tells me either the countermeasures are very good, the Taliban doesn't have very many of them, or they really suck at using them. Or it's doom and gloom bullshit made to fit the agenda.
You don't need a shoulder fired SAM to shoot down a helicopter. The VC and NVA shot down over 5,000 in Vietnam. I doubt they had very many shoulder fired SAMs.

Posted by tu3031 2010-07-27 09:46|| 2010-07-27 09:46|| Front Page Top

#8 lions and tigers and bears OH MY!

Posted by lex 2010-07-27 13:01|| 2010-07-27 13:01|| Front Page Top

#9 they get their hands on or make about every weapon ever produced not far from the Khyber Pass so why does this surprise anyone? They just wanna say it is a stinger left over from the 80's is what is getting their panties in a wad so they throw it in someones face.I'm also pretty sure the ISI knows someone too buy these from too.

Posted by chris 2010-07-27 13:47|| 2010-07-27 13:47|| Front Page Top

#10 More like the journalist firing off his manpad.

One hit on a Chinook while taking off (2007), 10 near misses? Not saying that real SAMs have not been acquired and/or used; one of the most heavily armed lawless and contested areas in the world. If over all the years and all the missions, its what an average of 1 per month, most of which were just crashes not losses? No offense to the brave men and women who were hurt bad or died...but that ain't much, and give credit to the great machines and better pilots and fantastic ground crews for such.

Posted by swksvolFF 2010-07-27 19:02|| 2010-07-27 19:02|| Front Page Top

#11 One nice thing about Stingers -- the launch coolant/battery combo goes bad in 10 years and MUST be replaced, or the Stinger is just a really expensive IED. There is NO way to launch a Stinger without the valid coolant/battery component -- if you try to jerry-rig it, it blows up in your face. And that is a design feature of the missile system.

Posted by Shieldwolf 2010-07-27 20:50|| 2010-07-27 20:50|| Front Page Top

#12 Unfortunately, unlike Stingers, SA7's don't have a shelf life, in general. Fortunately they are not all that effective except against older rotary winged A/C.

Posted by OldSpook 2010-07-27 22:58|| 2010-07-27 22:58|| Front Page Top

#13 The MSM + Perts have been repor this since the fall of the Berlin Wall + Monica's Dress.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2010-07-27 23:35|| 2010-07-27 23:35|| Front Page Top

00:00 JosephMendiola
23:58 Steve Winwood
23:35 JosephMendiola
23:31 JosephMendiola
23:24 JosephMendiola
23:15 gorb
23:13 OldSpook
23:08 JosephMendiola
22:58 OldSpook
22:54 JosephMendiola
22:53 OldSpook
22:52 borgboy
22:47 OldSpook
22:44 tu3031
22:40 gorb
22:37 OldSpook
22:16 twobyfour
22:16 JosephMendiola
21:58 twobyfour
21:58 swksvolFF
21:57 SR-71
21:54 Pappy
21:52 Frank G
21:50 Frank G