HN-5

The HN-5 (or Hong Ying-5 "Red Tassel") is a family of first generation Chinese man-portable air-defense systems (MANPAD) based on Soviet technology. The literal translation of Hong Ying is Red Tassel, but HN abbreviation is used to avoid confusion with HY (Hai Ying, or Sea Eagle) series anti-ship missiles of Silkworm missile family. The HN-5 series in Chinese hands has been phased out in front-line and first line reserve units by QW series MANPAD, but still being used by militia units.

The HN-5 is a reverse-engineered version of the Soviet Strela 2 (SA-7). Due to the urgent need for MANPADs, North Vietnam provided China with an original sample during the Vietnam War and asked China to produce and supply NVA with copies. However, due to the political turmoil in China, namely, the Cultural Revolution, the reverse-engineering process was slow and by the time the first small production batch was sent to Vietnam for evaluation, the results were ineffective because American aircraft has already adopted ECM to successfully counter HN-5 and its Soviet counterpart the Strela 2. The dimensions and performance of HN-5 is extremely similar to that of Strela 2.

As the result of unsatisfactory performance of the original HN-5, China immediately begun to improve the missile and North Vietnam once again provided China with the original Soviet sample during the Vietnam War, this time the Strela 2M. However, when the Chinese finally completed its improvement, it was already too late to see action, because the Vietnam War was over and the relationship between the two countries had soured.

Developed by China based on the Soviet 9K34 Strela-3. Although the missile had entered service with the Chinese army in the mid 1980s, it was not until 1990 when it was first publicly revealed in China.[1]. According to many domestic Chinese media sources and some sources outside China, Chinese obtained the Soviet samples via Zaire from UNITA captured 9K34 Strela-3 from Angola governmental forces, the exact the same way China obtained the 9K310 Igla-1 a short time later. The missile entered in service with the Pakistani army in January 1990.