This all begs the question: is the Stinger the best portable AA missile that we have? If so, we should have tens of thousands in storage, and if not then why build them instead of the more modern one. This doesn’t make much sense.
That said, I hope that the retirees drive a hard bargain and get their pensions bumped up a bunch, in addition to a bunch of salary. Maybe , in addition to teaching the newer generation how to make Stingers, they can also toughen them up. Oh, and maybe Raytheon and the other contractors will start putting away blueprints and procedure books so that this doesn’t happen again.
Blue prints don’t tell the whole story. It’s probably like not being able to build a Saturn V now
“This all begs the question: is the Stinger the best portable AA missile that we have?”
No. The US has, lately, been buying the much more modern Polish Piorun. The Stinger however is the only manpad the US can set up to make domestically.
The US never developed another manpad design, as it was assumed these would be redundant, given the full set of capabilities the US could bring to bear on enemy aircraft.
“...is the Stinger the best portable AA missile that we have?”
Or is it more of a case of the Uke’s having enough money to buy the old style, along with expertise in the older technology?
I still use 20 year-old equipment for my work. Yes, the new stuff has some nicer bells and whistles and with some experience might make my job easier, but at my age I’m not going to put down $50k on a new system when my old one works just fine for what I need.
Maybe it’s the same with missiles?