Archie to SAM: A Short Operational History of Ground-Based Air ...

OPERATIONS BETWEEN VIETNAM AND THE PERSIAN GULF
Figure 78. Helicopter kill in Afghanistan. Afghan forces downed this
Soviet helicopter in 1979. The later introduction of shoulder-fired
SAMs, particularly the Stinger, shifted the balance of the air war and
played a major role in the Soviet withdrawal. (Reprinted from USAF.)
day. During the fall 1987 offensive, the Afghan government
reportedly lost 17 helicopters, an An-22 transport, and four
MiG-21s to the Stingers. A US Army study estimated that the
Afghans achieved 269 hits from the 340 Stingers they fired.
The Stinger’s impact goes beyond the aircraft losses and less
effective offensive tactics. A Western journal reports that 20
Afghanistan pilots refused to fly against rebel positions defended
by the American-built missiles. The leader of the Afghanistan
Communist Party acknowledged the weapon’s effectiveness
and how it changed the conflict, noting that in the siege of Khost,
a city about 100 miles south of Kabul, US and British SAMs
halted Communist daytime air supply of the city. Thus, the
Communists were forced to concede the countryside to the
rebels and concentrate their forces in Kabul and other major
cities. The Stinger tipped the air balance, and it is not far-
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