FN-6 in use in Syria

plawolf

Lieutenant General
Wow, that is the second Syrian helo an FN-6 has shot down in a week!

Chinese made FN-6 used by rebels to down a Syrian military helicopter (looks like a Mi17).

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It now looks like a batch of FN6s have been supplied to the rebels rather than just the odd missile, maybe even with training. Thus making it look more likely that a state is responsible for funneling the missiles to the rebels rather than a few launchers somehow ending up on the black market being smuggled in.

There have been some suggestions that Qatar might have the means and motive to supply the rebels with FN-6s, but I have yet to see any confirmation that China sold FN-6s to Qatar or any of the other Gulf states. Does anyone have any more leads on who in the region has bought FN-6s from China in the past?
 

plawolf

Lieutenant General
Why didn't the helo not fire any flares off?

Most likely because they didn't have comprehensive automated self defense suits installed.

MANPADS are IR guided, meaning there is no active signals emissions, so the only way an aircraft can know it is even under attack is if it has a good 360 MAWS installed or if the pilot was lucky enough to see the missile coming.

With the very short time between launch and impact (6-7 seconds in the video I posted, it is harder to tell with this new one), the self defense suit really needs to also be automated, as if you factor in the few seconds it will take for MAWS to detect and register the launch, as well as needing a second or two for the flares to deploy and disperse (most modern MANPADS have laser proximity fuses as well as impact fuses, so if your flares are not far enough away from the aircraft when the missile arrives, even if the missile seeker is spoofed and locks onto the flares, the proximity fuse might still set it off and shoot you down), you don't have all that many seconds left for a human to manually launch flares.

The FN-6 also has a modern seeker which has been designed to resist flares, so it really is a very scary weapon to be facing even with the most modern of self defense suits, that is why it is such a big deal that these weapons are not out of state control.
 

MwRYum

Major
And unlike the SA-16 got loose into the black market are mostly just missile sans control module (that thing which detachable, have to be attached to the missile tube to form a fully functional unit), those FN-6 the rebels got their hands on are full sets, and given the component of their forces, it's more than certain that some have already fall into the hands of AQ-affillated militants, so we're looking at terrorist attacks that could have a worse outcome than the DHL flight almost got shot down over Baghdad in 2003.

More so, that only a handful of civilian airlines have fitted with automated countermeasure suites.
 

Blackstone

Brigadier
And unlike the SA-16 got loose into the black market are mostly just missile sans control module (that thing which detachable, have to be attached to the missile tube to form a fully functional unit), those FN-6 the rebels got their hands on are full sets, and given the component of their forces, it's more than certain that some have already fall into the hands of AQ-affillated militants, so we're looking at terrorist attacks that could have a worse outcome than the DHL flight almost got shot down over Baghdad in 2003.

More so, that only a handful of civilian airlines have fitted with automated countermeasure suites.

AQ getting their hands on FN-6s is bad news. I hope China is more careful with their arms sales.
 

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
No idea how the rebels got a hold of them. Given how stinger missiles turned up at a recent gun-for-foodstamps fair here in the U.S., I wouldn't be surprised if the Rebels managed to get a hold of them through backdoor channels.

Does anyone know whether Syria imported FN-6 at any point? Might've been captured weapons.
 

MwRYum

Major
No idea how the rebels got a hold of them. Given how stinger missiles turned up at a recent gun-for-foodstamps fair here in the U.S., I wouldn't be surprised if the Rebels managed to get a hold of them through backdoor channels.

Does anyone know whether Syria imported FN-6 at any point? Might've been captured weapons.

Either that's a previously undisclosed military sale to Syria, or the most likely source would be:

1. Smuggled-out stash from Pakistan, whom the ISI have shady ties with Taliban and AQ-affillated militants; or
2. Sudan, either from Sudanese Army stock or captured samples during the civil war got into the black market somehow.
 

Equation

Lieutenant General
Those FN-6 got to be fired by a trained personnel. Not anyone can just turn it on and pull the trigger and expected to bring down a helicopter. I suspect these rebels are foreign agents either from Iran or some other Middle Eastern nations supporting them. Firing these MANPADS requires some training and experiences, there's no way some civilian Syrian rebels could just go pick one up and fire it.
 

cn_habs

Junior Member
Those FN-6 got to be fired by a trained personnel. Not anyone can just turn it on and pull the trigger and expected to bring down a helicopter. I suspect these rebels are foreign agents either from Iran or some other Middle Eastern nations supporting them. Firing these MANPADS requires some training and experiences, there's no way some civilian Syrian rebels could just go pick one up and fire it.

Yup we can assume that those are legit AQ or extremist fighters which makes this scary.
 
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