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1994-11-02
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985b
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The Redeye was the first infantry SAM in the world. Between 1964 and 1970
nearly 100,000 of these weapons were delivered to the U.S. Army and Marine
Corps, despite the fact that it has some considerable shortcomings in the
role of close air defense.
The FIM-43 does a better job of raising infantry morale than actually being
a lethal close air defense weapon. For instance, it can only lock on to
enemy aircraft after an attack, at which point it fires at their departing
exhaust heat. Flight speed is only low-supersonic, just fast enough to catch
most modern attack aircraft.
Since General Dynamics was already into developement of the Stinger
infantry SAM, no upgrades were planned for the Redeye. Despite the
FIM-43's severe technical shortcomings, it was the first of its kind and
played a significant role in the future development of infantry-portable close
air defense weapons.