Defence publication defenseone.com revealed at Paris Air Show that Raytheon wants to restart the production of Stinger missiles, but it needs retired engineers to teach new employees how to build the missile. The blueprints were drawn up during the U.S. President Jimmy Carter administration.
In response to Russian aggression, the United States sent nearly 2,000 Stinger missiles to Ukraine directly from U.S. military stockpiles. When the U.S. Army ordered 1,700 Stingers in May 2022, the Pentagon said the missiles wouldn’t be delivered until 2026. During an interview at the Paris Air Show, Wes Kremer, the president of Raytheon division, said it would take about 30 months for Stingers to start rolling off the production line primarily because of the time it takes to set up the factory and train its employees. “We were bringing back retired employees that are in their 70s … to teach our new employees how actually to build a Stinger,” Defenseone quoted Kremer saying, “We’re pulling test equipment out of warehouses and blowing the spider webs off of them.”
Turkiye has enormous information about the Stinger missiles, as Roketsan was born from a project to create Stinger production capability for Western allies during the Cold War. Not only receive the composite rocket engine production technology but its products were also acknowledged to have higher quality than the U.S.-made ones. Roketsan added the Turkish Sungur MANPAD to its heat-seeking anti-aircraft missile production capability.
