Quote:
Originally Posted by arpanjha The US last night pulled out from the Kabul airport leaving behind some 73 aircraft’s, some 10M $ / a piece (not sure ultimately how much it will add upto) worth of anti aircraft bombing must be lying around / equipments, 27 Humvees, 70 Mine resistant vehicles and so much more!
While the Talibans celebrate this as an independence victory, but as TBhpians we really want to analyse how much usable/unusable equipment the US have left behind into the hands of the Taliban.
In several articles the US claim that they have disabled maximum no. of equipments which will no longer be possible to use, mainly aircrafts, but I wish to know will they somehow be able to use them in a distant future?
I’m also really worried about the ammunition that the US/NATO/British army etc must have left behind in addition to armaments. Aircrafts or no aircraft’s is a bigger picture but equipments like guns/ tankers/ humvees really matter everyday.
No one speaks about them? They just speak about humvees and planes!
Anyone here who can add something? Or throw some light? |
The US has protocols in place for any military equipment, even in hostile conditions to be disabled. For instance the heavily modified Blackhawk used in the raid on Abbotabad (Osama) that crashed, was destroyed and the world to this day does not now about any of its mods.
Except for low maintenance kit like an MRAP or Humvee, other military equipment are highly maintenance intensive. Without the right spares and tools to maintain them, they will fall apart in a very short period of time.
Take the much vaunted Iraqi army in 2004, its kit was literally breaking apart from lack of maintenance. The Iranian air force is struggling to maintain its ancient fleet of Northrop F-5's (50's vintage), f-4 Phantom (50's again)only by cannibalizing from a previously much larger fleet and these were much much larger economies compared to the puny Afghan Taliban economy.
Kit like a blackhawk or Chinook or an M1A1 Abrams will simply just stop functioning (even if not disabled). This actually happened to the Afghan army / airforce, after the contractors withdrew, within 3-6 months their equipment stopped working.
So no, there is no threat of any of these advanced kit being used anywhere anytime.
On the question of small arms, say rifles, ammo etc - these are available very cheaply in the global arms market anyway, the Chinese will sell the Taliban 100,000 knockoff AK's and enough Ammo to start WW3 for instance, for very cheap.
This happened in Vietnam too, but nothing came of it.
The Taliban also prefer their Toyota and few Tata technicals, gives them immense mobility. Besides, in Panjshir, to use helicopters in isolation is a death sentence.
Ask the Soviets if you don't believe me.
One simple and cheap RPG positioned in the right cliff = bye bye to million dollar kit. Doctrine also means the Taliban will never use them in combat against the Northern Alliance part 2.
If the mods permit and if anyone else is interested, will do a write up on the TTP, Taliban, and what it all means for India.