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The Metal Gear Solid series gives you access to quite the arsenal. I've covered a few of the more important weapons here on OMG Metal Gear, but none pack quite the punch of the Stinger Missile Launcher. Sure, you may not use it as often as your trusty SOCOM, but without it, you'd be defenseless against the titular Metal Gears. Hit the jump to read all about this amazing and destructive weapon.

The Stinger comes in two variations: surface-to-air and air-to-air. In the Metal Gear games, you use the surface-to-air (SAM) variation, known as the FIM-92 Stinger. You'll wield this mighty weapon as both Solid Snake and Raiden to take down a plethora of Metal Gear models. So just how awesome is the Stinger in real life? So awesome.

The FIM-92 Stinger is a portable SAM missile launcher that can be operated by a single person, although "officially" two people are required. However, we all know that Snake doesn't follow the rules.

The Stinger uses IR sensors for aiming. It locks onto the heat of airplane engines and tracks them. It can attack an aircraft up to 15,700 feet. The Stinger missile launcher is a fire-and-forget weapon, which is fairly self-explanatory. After firing a missile, you can forget about it, as it does the rest of the work on its own.

The missile is launched by a small ejection motor. Once there a safe distance between the missile and the operator, the ejection motor detaches and falls away and the main solid-fuel two-stage motor takes over and accelerates the missile to Mach 2.2, about 1500 miles per hour. It then travels to its target and explodes.

The Stinger Missile Launcher saw a lot of use in the 1980s. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the CIA donated nearly 500 Stingers to the Mujahideen, the Afghani rebels, to help them repel the Soviet forces. The film Charlie Wilson's War, starring Tom Hanks, deals directly with this event. Charlie Wilson, the Texas Congressman portrayed by Hanks, spearheaded the initiative to aid the Mujahideen.

It's a good movie. And the Stinger is an amazing weapon.

Source: Wikipedia

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