Either the cost of bringing it all back wasn't worth it, or they'd already been given to the ANA so you can't really just snatch it all from them as you pull out while they're rapidly losing ground already (that stuff was presumably all budgeted for when it was given anyway)
Not only that, it depends on equipment. You need a hundred (a charitable take) C-130s to grab every Humvee in Afghanistan.
>le buy a new yacht just like the heckin Russarinos
Unlike Russia, here the CEOs actually deliver the fricking product that does what it says it does.
Now, as to "why not ship it back":
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/washington/12military.html
"U.S. Seeks New Afghan Supply Routes, Even in Iran"
I do not think you wholly grasp the difficulty of shipping humvees 10,000 miles away. There is literally only one land route to Afghanistan, and that is through the Pakistani Khyber Pass (no rail, driving it or on flatbeds only) to Karachi, then across TWO OCEANS.
Either the cost of bringing it all back wasn't worth it, or they'd already been given to the ANA so you can't really just snatch it all from them as you pull out while they're rapidly losing ground already (that stuff was presumably all budgeted for when it was given anyway)
Much of it would have cost more to bring back to USA on a plane, than it would have been worth in USA. Especially all the gear that was in need of repairs. At a time when available plane rides was the limiting factor, there were more valuable stuff than clapped out cars to give priority.
Best answer, Afghanistan is a landlocked country, so everything would have to be airlifted. Iran is just some glowie sprinkles on the top.
Fun story time, my friend who was there 13 years ago said that it was a regular occurrence to have to use an entire spray can of engine starter just to get some of the b***hes up and running from the motor pool. They were old back then, I can't imagine what frankenstein cannabalised ship of thesus shitheaps they are now after the mechanics had to keep 'em running. Not much value lost, and it'd be a sunken cost fallacy to use air fuel on.
[...]
This. I don't understand why people are so moronic about this. It wasn't US equipment anymore. What we didn't think was worth shipping back to the states was donated to the ANA as military aid when we drew down our forces over a number of years.
We weren't going to start flying C-5s in to scoop up Afghanistan's run-out humvees when their army collapsed.
humvees literally don't matter, most of that equipment isn't worth the cost of bringing back
also
The cost thing is pure cope. A C-130 has a cost per flight hour of around ten thousand. A Humvee costs three hundred thousand and 3 can fit in a C-130. Even assuming you depreciate it by 50%, it would still save a shit ton of money. And it wouldn't end up in the hands of terrorist groups like Jaish-e-Mohammad or Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The "it wasn't our equipment" is also cope. ANA had essentially collapsed several weeks Kabul was taken.
The simple reason is that the US military did not have the plan or ability to remove it's assets.
Like I said they had already effectively collapsed during the relevant period. Which is why the US was able to ship some back and break others.
the cost is far below 50% because the military has no use for these, you're airlifting a bunch of vehicles only to park them in another desert, but in america.
there's also the cost of going around collecting a bunch of abandoned humvees that you're not counting in, it's not just flight hours.
>cost of going around
The cost of gas and getting a bunch of people to drive a Humvee is far less than the cost of one.
>going to sit in a warehouse
Yes, and it would still be extremely valueable. Reserves are of high military value, just look at the Ukraine war.
The ironic thing about people on the Internet defending the DoD is that none of them have ever served. People who served will he the first to shit on the DoD and it's many problems.
>The cost of gas and getting a bunch of people to drive a Humvee is far less than the cost of one.
the cost of operating in a hostile country halfway across the globe and all the support that it entails. >Yes, and it would still be extremely valueable.
production matters more than having a huge stockpile of useless shit.
You don't understand industry or accounting. Even if the total deployment cost of a guy is 200k, you're using one day to move the Humvee. At most it's hundreds of dollars which is one of the smaller factors here.
>production is more important
Peacetime production is always at an extremely low state. The infrastructure to ramp it up is not there because of the cost. A large equipment reserve is needed to bridge the time between when war starts and that ramp up. Why do you think the US navy keeps a huge reserve of old ships? There are in fact all kinds of reserves in the DoD.
11 months ago
Anonymous
I'm not saying stockpiles are useless, but how useful is a stockpile of humvees ? and what makes you think they need any more of those ? >At most it's hundreds of dollars which is one of the smaller factors here.
You're still underestimating the amount of effort and coordination it takes to send people halfway across the globe to accomplish anything.
11 months ago
Anonymous
>how useful is a stockpile of Humvees
In military value, very. Reserves don't just bridge production gaps, they let you rapidly scale an army, because production is frequently the bottleneck. And even if it's definitely for sure never going to be used, it has considerable resale value to civilians, agencies, companies, foreign countries etc.
Lmao moron. That's not how gear cycling in the US works. Because we are a first rate military we frequently cycle gear out as cost negative because even though said gear could be stretched longer there is diminishing returns on constantly patching even well maintained trucks/mraps. What typically happens is that said gear is used first by Army then cycled to reserves a decade or so of usage later, or sold via DoD surplus to eligible agencies. The US focuses on continually replacing and either deep storing or trading equipment (depending on replacement rates, all of which you can find in the budgets). Being this wealthy means that yes it is a waste of money to focus on loading c130s full of 40 year old humvees and 10 year old mraps. The humvees we don't use anymore and the MRAPs are in open usage and replacement (until we find the next thing). The US has been doing this for decades, why do you think South America is still running on handouts from WWII for a ton of their heavy equipment
You're just using a lot of buzzwords and completely screwing up the numbers. And sometimes you even contradict yourself
>gear cycling
There is a lifetime cycle of any piece of equipment. It does not last ten years for a Humvee or any vehicle. Eventually all equipment is depreciated past a certain point, but the idea that the US buys brand new equipment and throws functioning ones into stores is laughable. Go ask any actual infantry. Most of the equipment they use is older than them >40 years old
Try 20. The significant majority of Humvees were made after the 2000s got the GWOT.
>selling equipment
Which contradicts your own argument because there's value in bringing them back.
The huge irony is that Humvees are the easiest to defend because they're heavy as frick but the cheapest of vehicles. How do you defend the Black Hawks left there? Or the CAS aircraft? Or the thousands of ground attack munitions, or NVGs? Even if they're a huge cost, guess what, the DoD specifically tried to buy back weapons from the black market for many years to disarm terrorist group. Now terrorists have them.
>Buy a truck from Ford >You become insolvent and go bankrupt >Ford shows up with a rollback and takes it back from you
This is what people think should've happened with ANA equipment lmao. morons.
>The cost of gas and getting a bunch of people to drive a Humvee is far less than the cost of one
Only higher than the cost of a new one, not a busted up junker that would have ended up on govdeals. Also you're forgetting the cost of airframe maintenance to move them.
the cost is far below 50% because the military has no use for these, you're airlifting a bunch of vehicles only to park them in another desert, but in america.
there's also the cost of going around collecting a bunch of abandoned humvees that you're not counting in, it's not just flight hours.
consider the associated wear on those airframes as well
that's usable flight hours that you aren't going to get back do you really want to spend them on clapped out humvees?
Cost per flight hour includes depreciation of the airframe yes.
>clapped out humvees
Most Humvees in the DoD are old and used. And Humvees are unironically probably on the low end of the value to weight ratio. There's shit like Blackhawks and CAS aircraft that were still there.
Lmao moron. That's not how gear cycling in the US works. Because we are a first rate military we frequently cycle gear out as cost negative because even though said gear could be stretched longer there is diminishing returns on constantly patching even well maintained trucks/mraps. What typically happens is that said gear is used first by Army then cycled to reserves a decade or so of usage later, or sold via DoD surplus to eligible agencies. The US focuses on continually replacing and either deep storing or trading equipment (depending on replacement rates, all of which you can find in the budgets). Being this wealthy means that yes it is a waste of money to focus on loading c130s full of 40 year old humvees and 10 year old mraps. The humvees we don't use anymore and the MRAPs are in open usage and replacement (until we find the next thing). The US has been doing this for decades, why do you think South America is still running on handouts from WWII for a ton of their heavy equipment
Your math is moronic because it ignores the locations of the equipment and expense of deploying and sustaining troops for at least a year to remove that shit, not to mention that it's obsolete. Flight hours don't exist in a vacuum either and the very long trail of support, host bases etc are real too.
Much of it would have cost more to bring back to USA on a plane, than it would have been worth in USA. Especially all the gear that was in need of repairs. At a time when available plane rides was the limiting factor, there were more valuable stuff than clapped out cars to give priority.
If only there was a country in Europe that according to you intelligence is about to be attacked by you geopolitical adversary and that could benefit from this equipment more tha just leaving it to the enemy to capture
the assumption was that the afghan army and police would be able to contain the taliban or at very least lose over a longer period of time.
So the afghan forces would use that kit and what wasn't ment to be given to them later would still be able to be taken out at nice calm rate
How else are you going to equip the Taliban to invade Iran?
Where are you getting this shit from? The Taliban aren't going to invade Iran over water disputes, they can barely keep their shit together as it is; and the Helmand river shit wasn't a big thing in 2021. IS-K are pretty comfortably keeping them occupied domestically.
Cope is the new troony, they just scream that when they have nothing else, I mean he might even agree, /misc/ has rotted their brain so completely they can only communicate in short phrases OR scizo rants
Either the cost of bringing it all back wasn't worth it, or they'd already been given to the ANA so you can't really just snatch it all from them as you pull out while they're rapidly losing ground already (that stuff was presumably all budgeted for when it was given anyway)
Much of it would have cost more to bring back to USA on a plane, than it would have been worth in USA. Especially all the gear that was in need of repairs. At a time when available plane rides was the limiting factor, there were more valuable stuff than clapped out cars to give priority.
Best answer, Afghanistan is a landlocked country, so everything would have to be airlifted. Iran is just some glowie sprinkles on the top.
Fun story time, my friend who was there 13 years ago said that it was a regular occurrence to have to use an entire spray can of engine starter just to get some of the b***hes up and running from the motor pool. They were old back then, I can't imagine what frankenstein cannabalised ship of thesus shitheaps they are now after the mechanics had to keep 'em running. Not much value lost, and it'd be a sunken cost fallacy to use air fuel on.
schizo answer:
the plan was that the taliban "capture" all that equipment to fight with iran.
the actual answer:
it was owned by the then afghani goverment
This. I don't understand why people are so moronic about this. It wasn't US equipment anymore. What we didn't think was worth shipping back to the states was donated to the ANA as military aid when we drew down our forces over a number of years.
We weren't going to start flying C-5s in to scoop up Afghanistan's run-out humvees when their army collapsed.
schizo answer:
the plan was that the taliban "capture" all that equipment to fight with iran.
the actual answer:
it was owned by the then afghani goverment
so that the taliban have the tools to destabilise iran
How else are you going to equip the Taliban to invade Iran?
They don't need to invade Iran they just need to destabilize it which they can do without setting foot beyond their own borders.
Stop with the cope for fricks sake.
There is no 300 IQ master plan by the US government.
We spent over a decade training and equipping the Afghan government to fight the Taliban and we failed.
When we were scrambling to exit the country we tried destroying much of that equipment so the Taliban didn’t get it.
The US government is not an omnipotent god, it is not playing 5D chess.
If we wanted to arm people to fight Iran…we would just fricking do it…like we do in every other conflict.
The US makes mistakes and takes losses, this is one of them, and that’s okay, you don’t need to try to rationalize it.
>When we were scrambling to exit the country we tried destroying much of that equipment so the Taliban didn’t get it.
this is the detail a lot of people forget, we didn't just let them have all of that shit. We tried destroying a ton of it before we left
I got a friend who's one of those maybe tankies, but basically terminally opposition brained. US bad, Russia the opposite of US, therefore Russia Good, actually. The necessary hoops and rationalizations are almost identical to yours; treating the US as a demonic force not because it's evil but because it's supernatural. Infinitely capable and competent and organized and deliberate in a way nobody else can be. Except when being incompetent would be worse.
Reevaluate your beliefs.
It's nothing new. After the Germans surrendered, my grandpa's job was to scuttle 40 acres of parked half-tracks and jeeps. The brass said it was cheaper to torch them than send them back home.
Plus, Biden knows what he's doing. The taliban was using that equipment going toe to toe with the Iranian border guard over water a couple weeks ago. They're useful proxies.
It was cheaper. There was a legitimate risk of destroying the US auto industry with surplus vehicles. That's why so few survived and why your granddad talking about a jeep in a crate for $25 is bullshit.
It "belonged to the ANA", but they didn't put up any resistance to the Talibs. Also, I suppose someone in the Cabinet thought it would be funny to give US Army gear to a country that was having border skirmish with Iran.
The CIA were thinking light years ahead. Leave all this modern equipment to the ANA so that after their collapse the Taliban will use it to attack Iran, Pakistan and Tajikistan
Because bro, look at that thing man. It looks heavy as shit. Armored and all that.
Bro we only had so many planes and so much gas. People were all >frick let’s get the trucks on board >But bro, you can put only like one on here shits so huge >Man we got like 200 we gotta move >Bro that’s dumb shit they comin’ you better get your ass on we leavin’. >Yeah ok frick it General Motors or whoever will make us more
So play that out like 100 times. And tanks, don’t even get me started on how heavy tanks are. You know how many flights that is?
Too you gotta figure all those guns and rocket launchers and shit are all spread all over. Who gonna go collect ‘em up? Bro not me, it’s crawling with talibans out past the wire.
Because Biden and Milley surrendered it all to the Taliban because the pullout was botched.
Not sure where these other narratives are coming from beyond Pentagon shilling
Bringing back a bunch of humvees and MRAPs you can replace for the effort required is expensive.
Also equipment transfer on that scale would've required boots on the ground.
PLUS some of that equipment belonged to the ANA, you can't be going around sealing your allies fate by seizing their equipment just because you sold/donated it to them once, your own allies would really question the value of any alliance with the US after that.
Donald Trump signs agreement to leave Afghanistan with the Taliban after unilaterally negotiating it without the alleged Afghani government.
The agreement is slated to go into effect a year afterwards, when whoever wins the next election is in office. Textbook poison pill.
The military, that had taken four successive administrations for a ride insisting they just needed one more lane bro, just one more lane, figures lmao like anyone would ACTUALLY pull us out of Afghanistan...
Joe Biden wins the election. He proceeds to honor the agreement of his predecessor.
Imo, he did it a, because in theory that's how it's supposed to work, he'd have been crucified either way (if he didn't leave, attacks and casualties would have restarted) but also because he was part of one of the administrations that got taken for a ride and wasn't about to spend another four years trying one more lane, one more surge, one not budget allocation. The best time to leave was to never enter. The second best time was the moment we got Osama. The third best is now. It'll only get more costly and expensive.
Anyway, we leave a bunch of equipment we sold to our good buddy Puppet Government. In theory they'll use it to defend themselves. Except: oh no! They're unstable, ineffectual, corrupt, and were held in place by US arms! They collapse mostly without using the equipment to fight. The equipment doesn't wander off on it's own so the Taliban claim it.
>Joe Biden wins the election. He proceeds to honor the agreement of his predecessor.
Pretty sure the biden administration broke the truce with the taliban by bombing them.
Did they? I could be wrong. When and where?
If it was outside of Afghanistan or it was some minority group it might have been outside the "we'll frick off by X date, you don't attack us until then" agreement.
Black person Uncle Joe literally pushed the date back to 9/11 for a publicity stunt while also reneging on the agreement to limit US bombing in support of the ANA prior to the American withdrawal.
I am not saying that the dysfunctional afghan government we set up would have been able to win against the Taliban if evil joe had just stuck to orange mane agreement BUT his fricking with that agreement for the sake of domestic politics was a major fact in a huge number of the tribal leaders, warlords, etc quickly flipping to join the Taliban in fighting against the Kabul based government.
Which essentially ensured said government would last days or weeks not months.
Reneging on part of the agreement while still expecting other parties to follow it was a huge diplomatic blunder, it made the Taliban look like chumps for even negotiating in the first place this pressuring them to save face, it made the Kabul government look like more of an American puppet state than it already was, and it pissed on the honor of every other warlord, leader, etc that had agreed to all the other stipulations in the agreement.
In the end from the perspectives of those on the ground and not sucking at the teat of American aid from inside the Kabul government it looked like the Americans negotiated a false settlement to their own advantage which they then violated right before leaving as one final frick you Afghan with political power that was outside the safety of the capital city.
Good point. I didn't remember how he altered the pull-out date. Though from what I read it looks like the Taliban were doing attacks before that too (and their attacks generally avoided US targets because they didn't want to risk the pull-out all together.)
Still, I don't think any circumstance that involved the US pulling out would have involved the ANA not falling. Imperial powers are always, ALWAYS, garbage at picking their puppets for their regimes; or to put it another way, anyone who is willing to prostitute themselves out to an international backer already lost local powerstruggles. The ANA was loathed by everyone and even Donald didn't treat them as a real party to the agreement.
I agree that the ANA and the Kabul government were nearly guaranteed too collapse, my main argument is that the collapse happened so quickly because of how many groups either did stood aside or activity switched sides to aid the Taliban in their renewed offensive with their primary motivation in doing so being the mishandling of the withdraw agreement.
10 months ago
Anonymous
I think you're still giving them to much credit. The US backed government was incredibly unpopular. The only things uniting all the parties that allied against it was the greater unifying theory of frick that guy.
Likewise the average ANA has no national devotion to dying for a corrupt autocrat with a Saudi bank account.
This was going to happen either way, I think the only surprise was the US state department and/or military convincing themselves they couldn't possibly have achieved so little in twenty years, because for the most part none of the decision makers actually had been to Afghanistan or, if they had, they hadn't been outside the cities.
Regular chauvinism and belief that giving someone an army makes them a state.
the biden administration simply pushed up the time table to they could get out on a symbolic day hoping it would get them good press
not that it caused the frickfest, but it certainly didn't help to prevent it
>cost vs benefits
It makes American defense companies far more money to just rebuild the arsenal from the ground up. Notice how the people all panicked when we left unexpectedly? Beginning the process of taking all the equipment back would leave forces left in the area exposed, and it would make people panic. >to destabilize the region
This is what you'll hear out of a lot of delusional government tards. It's the line that the Biden admin sold everyone. It's essentially a big middle-finger to everyone who is concerned about this. The fact of the matter is that the Taliban only wanted to reclaim Afghanistan. They're not going to destabilize the region, in fact, they're probably going to improve relations with their neighbors. >it was left for the allied government to fight the Taliban
Don't pretend that the IC wasn't aware of government/military officials saving up their money in cash and getting their families out of the country. Don't fricking insult my intelligence like that. They knew exactly what we were going to do months in advance.
the russkies meanwhile left arty, tonks, ATGMs, helos, MANPADs and SAMs. also probably the reason why the soviet-backed government lasted 4 years instead of 2 weeks.
Almost all that was photo opped was left to the ANA months before the US left. It would be like taking photos of Tommy guns and Garands asking why US soldiers abandoned them in Vietnam.
What’s wrong with you people? The US didn’t leave a SINGLE piece of military equipment in Afghanistan. Am I in a fricking Twilight Zone episode? I’m in a Lovecraft novel?
The US destroyed everything which wasn’t brought back. If the Taliban got Blackhawks they either paid for them or inherited them from the Afghani military, which, being the rulers of Afghanistan makes it legally their Blackhawks anyway.
Because it's so insanely difficult and expensive to fly the shit back after cleaning it to Customs requirements, not to mention extracting it under fire.
Noobs who have never packed out a TDY cannot imagine.
The Afghan military was suppose to use it to fight the Taliban, but they all fled instead. That's why America was reluctant to give Ukraine more expensive weapons until they proved themselves.
Y'know it used to be the standard MO to Willy Pete the frickers before leaving theatre. I'm not concerned about some beat to shit transport vehicles, some of the others would definitely take more priority.
The schizo in me says the CIA wanted to give the taliban the tools to frick over china's belt and road initiative once negotiations inevitably break down and china tries to be the empire that finally breaks afghanistan
Because it was equipment of the Afghan army and police. But since those two organizations dissolved upon first enemy contact the Taliban got lots of new gear.
>Shipping costs >Incompetence in withdrawal >Knowing that the Afghan government was so hopelessly corrupt that only an equipped taliban would be able to keep the country together.
Take your pick. It could be one or a combination of all.
I'm guessing it's cheaper and easier to just buy new equipment than to bring it all home
And, as usual, MIC execs all want a new yacht
Not only that, it depends on equipment. You need a hundred (a charitable take) C-130s to grab every Humvee in Afghanistan.
>le buy a new yacht just like the heckin Russarinos
Unlike Russia, here the CEOs actually deliver the fricking product that does what it says it does.
Now, as to "why not ship it back":
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/washington/12military.html
"U.S. Seeks New Afghan Supply Routes, Even in Iran"
I do not think you wholly grasp the difficulty of shipping humvees 10,000 miles away. There is literally only one land route to Afghanistan, and that is through the Pakistani Khyber Pass (no rail, driving it or on flatbeds only) to Karachi, then across TWO OCEANS.
We have literal MIC shills now.
The cost thing is pure cope. A C-130 has a cost per flight hour of around ten thousand. A Humvee costs three hundred thousand and 3 can fit in a C-130. Even assuming you depreciate it by 50%, it would still save a shit ton of money. And it wouldn't end up in the hands of terrorist groups like Jaish-e-Mohammad or Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The "it wasn't our equipment" is also cope. ANA had essentially collapsed several weeks Kabul was taken.
The simple reason is that the US military did not have the plan or ability to remove it's assets.
The reason is that most of it was given to the ANA and ANP
Like I said they had already effectively collapsed during the relevant period. Which is why the US was able to ship some back and break others.
>cost of going around
The cost of gas and getting a bunch of people to drive a Humvee is far less than the cost of one.
>going to sit in a warehouse
Yes, and it would still be extremely valueable. Reserves are of high military value, just look at the Ukraine war.
The ironic thing about people on the Internet defending the DoD is that none of them have ever served. People who served will he the first to shit on the DoD and it's many problems.
>The cost of gas and getting a bunch of people to drive a Humvee is far less than the cost of one.
the cost of operating in a hostile country halfway across the globe and all the support that it entails.
>Yes, and it would still be extremely valueable.
production matters more than having a huge stockpile of useless shit.
You don't understand industry or accounting. Even if the total deployment cost of a guy is 200k, you're using one day to move the Humvee. At most it's hundreds of dollars which is one of the smaller factors here.
>production is more important
Peacetime production is always at an extremely low state. The infrastructure to ramp it up is not there because of the cost. A large equipment reserve is needed to bridge the time between when war starts and that ramp up. Why do you think the US navy keeps a huge reserve of old ships? There are in fact all kinds of reserves in the DoD.
I'm not saying stockpiles are useless, but how useful is a stockpile of humvees ? and what makes you think they need any more of those ?
>At most it's hundreds of dollars which is one of the smaller factors here.
You're still underestimating the amount of effort and coordination it takes to send people halfway across the globe to accomplish anything.
>how useful is a stockpile of Humvees
In military value, very. Reserves don't just bridge production gaps, they let you rapidly scale an army, because production is frequently the bottleneck. And even if it's definitely for sure never going to be used, it has considerable resale value to civilians, agencies, companies, foreign countries etc.
You're just using a lot of buzzwords and completely screwing up the numbers. And sometimes you even contradict yourself
>gear cycling
There is a lifetime cycle of any piece of equipment. It does not last ten years for a Humvee or any vehicle. Eventually all equipment is depreciated past a certain point, but the idea that the US buys brand new equipment and throws functioning ones into stores is laughable. Go ask any actual infantry. Most of the equipment they use is older than them
>40 years old
Try 20. The significant majority of Humvees were made after the 2000s got the GWOT.
>selling equipment
Which contradicts your own argument because there's value in bringing them back.
The huge irony is that Humvees are the easiest to defend because they're heavy as frick but the cheapest of vehicles. How do you defend the Black Hawks left there? Or the CAS aircraft? Or the thousands of ground attack munitions, or NVGs? Even if they're a huge cost, guess what, the DoD specifically tried to buy back weapons from the black market for many years to disarm terrorist group. Now terrorists have them.
>Buy a truck from Ford
>You become insolvent and go bankrupt
>Ford shows up with a rollback and takes it back from you
This is what people think should've happened with ANA equipment lmao. morons.
It was basically what happened. Why do you think so much equipment like the black hawks managed to be smashed up?
I did over two decades and packed many deployments. (I previously posted my Desert Storm orders and anthrax shot record.) You're a moron.
>The cost of gas and getting a bunch of people to drive a Humvee is far less than the cost of one
Only higher than the cost of a new one, not a busted up junker that would have ended up on govdeals. Also you're forgetting the cost of airframe maintenance to move them.
the cost is far below 50% because the military has no use for these, you're airlifting a bunch of vehicles only to park them in another desert, but in america.
there's also the cost of going around collecting a bunch of abandoned humvees that you're not counting in, it's not just flight hours.
consider the associated wear on those airframes as well
that's usable flight hours that you aren't going to get back do you really want to spend them on clapped out humvees?
Cost per flight hour includes depreciation of the airframe yes.
>clapped out humvees
Most Humvees in the DoD are old and used. And Humvees are unironically probably on the low end of the value to weight ratio. There's shit like Blackhawks and CAS aircraft that were still there.
Lmao moron. That's not how gear cycling in the US works. Because we are a first rate military we frequently cycle gear out as cost negative because even though said gear could be stretched longer there is diminishing returns on constantly patching even well maintained trucks/mraps. What typically happens is that said gear is used first by Army then cycled to reserves a decade or so of usage later, or sold via DoD surplus to eligible agencies. The US focuses on continually replacing and either deep storing or trading equipment (depending on replacement rates, all of which you can find in the budgets). Being this wealthy means that yes it is a waste of money to focus on loading c130s full of 40 year old humvees and 10 year old mraps. The humvees we don't use anymore and the MRAPs are in open usage and replacement (until we find the next thing). The US has been doing this for decades, why do you think South America is still running on handouts from WWII for a ton of their heavy equipment
Your math is moronic because it ignores the locations of the equipment and expense of deploying and sustaining troops for at least a year to remove that shit, not to mention that it's obsolete. Flight hours don't exist in a vacuum either and the very long trail of support, host bases etc are real too.
I mean, who cares about a few jeeps when their entire economy has collapsed and parents are selling their children so they can eat
If only there was a country in Europe that according to you intelligence is about to be attacked by you geopolitical adversary and that could benefit from this equipment more tha just leaving it to the enemy to capture
If only
Instead that country could also get actually useful military equipment and vehicles rather then old piece of shit humvees
>le MIC
frick off vatnik 5th columnist shill
really earning that paycheck
>disclose.tv
might as well post redfish or RT, glavset shill
>disclose.tv
I am guessing it was not reputable enough for RT
>Eisenhower was a vatnik 5th columnist shill
woah, the infiltration started sooner than I thought
the assumption was that the afghan army and police would be able to contain the taliban or at very least lose over a longer period of time.
So the afghan forces would use that kit and what wasn't ment to be given to them later would still be able to be taken out at nice calm rate
so that the taliban have the tools to destabilise iran
Where are you getting this shit from? The Taliban aren't going to invade Iran over water disputes, they can barely keep their shit together as it is; and the Helmand river shit wasn't a big thing in 2021. IS-K are pretty comfortably keeping them occupied domestically.
They don't need to invade Iran they just need to destabilize it which they can do without setting foot beyond their own borders.
Least delusional zogbot
kopers never fail to deliver
hes very close to truth
Cope is the new troony, they just scream that when they have nothing else, I mean he might even agree, /misc/ has rotted their brain so completely they can only communicate in short phrases OR scizo rants
Either the cost of bringing it all back wasn't worth it, or they'd already been given to the ANA so you can't really just snatch it all from them as you pull out while they're rapidly losing ground already (that stuff was presumably all budgeted for when it was given anyway)
Much of it would have cost more to bring back to USA on a plane, than it would have been worth in USA. Especially all the gear that was in need of repairs. At a time when available plane rides was the limiting factor, there were more valuable stuff than clapped out cars to give priority.
Best answer, Afghanistan is a landlocked country, so everything would have to be airlifted. Iran is just some glowie sprinkles on the top.
Fun story time, my friend who was there 13 years ago said that it was a regular occurrence to have to use an entire spray can of engine starter just to get some of the b***hes up and running from the motor pool. They were old back then, I can't imagine what frankenstein cannabalised ship of thesus shitheaps they are now after the mechanics had to keep 'em running. Not much value lost, and it'd be a sunken cost fallacy to use air fuel on.
How else are you going to equip the Taliban to invade Iran?
That equipment was given to the Afghan Gov over the course of years
This. I don't understand why people are so moronic about this. It wasn't US equipment anymore. What we didn't think was worth shipping back to the states was donated to the ANA as military aid when we drew down our forces over a number of years.
We weren't going to start flying C-5s in to scoop up Afghanistan's run-out humvees when their army collapsed.
humvees literally don't matter, most of that equipment isn't worth the cost of bringing back
also
schizo answer:
the plan was that the taliban "capture" all that equipment to fight with iran.
the actual answer:
it was owned by the then afghani goverment
insurance fraud, like leaving your car unlocked with the keys in it in detroit
destabilize in the middle east
Stop with the cope for fricks sake.
There is no 300 IQ master plan by the US government.
We spent over a decade training and equipping the Afghan government to fight the Taliban and we failed.
When we were scrambling to exit the country we tried destroying much of that equipment so the Taliban didn’t get it.
The US government is not an omnipotent god, it is not playing 5D chess.
If we wanted to arm people to fight Iran…we would just fricking do it…like we do in every other conflict.
The US makes mistakes and takes losses, this is one of them, and that’s okay, you don’t need to try to rationalize it.
>When we were scrambling to exit the country we tried destroying much of that equipment so the Taliban didn’t get it.
this is the detail a lot of people forget, we didn't just let them have all of that shit. We tried destroying a ton of it before we left
>There is no 300 IQ master plan by the US government.
US intelligence agencies can only be competent when it’s convenient for them, otherwise they’re bumbling morons
I got a friend who's one of those maybe tankies, but basically terminally opposition brained. US bad, Russia the opposite of US, therefore Russia Good, actually. The necessary hoops and rationalizations are almost identical to yours; treating the US as a demonic force not because it's evil but because it's supernatural. Infinitely capable and competent and organized and deliberate in a way nobody else can be. Except when being incompetent would be worse.
Reevaluate your beliefs.
>There is no 300 IQ master plan by the US government
I don't have a smug enough anime girl for this post
What made you think it was possible to get it out?
The US was too busy evacuating people to evacuate a bunch of fricking trucks.
I hate the stupidity of this government, and their cope when shit like this happens, honestly think some US politicians should be in prison right now.
zionist gayop against iran
It's nothing new. After the Germans surrendered, my grandpa's job was to scuttle 40 acres of parked half-tracks and jeeps. The brass said it was cheaper to torch them than send them back home.
Plus, Biden knows what he's doing. The taliban was using that equipment going toe to toe with the Iranian border guard over water a couple weeks ago. They're useful proxies.
It was cheaper. There was a legitimate risk of destroying the US auto industry with surplus vehicles. That's why so few survived and why your granddad talking about a jeep in a crate for $25 is bullshit.
>slide thread
What did Russia lose now?
It "belonged to the ANA", but they didn't put up any resistance to the Talibs. Also, I suppose someone in the Cabinet thought it would be funny to give US Army gear to a country that was having border skirmish with Iran.
What’s with these bizarre posts? Why did Afghanistan leave so much equipment in Afghanistan? I don’t fricking get it.
>US plan in Afghanistan
>US plan
>US
Oh you sweet summer child.
The CIA were thinking light years ahead. Leave all this modern equipment to the ANA so that after their collapse the Taliban will use it to attack Iran, Pakistan and Tajikistan
moron
Because bro, look at that thing man. It looks heavy as shit. Armored and all that.
Bro we only had so many planes and so much gas. People were all
>frick let’s get the trucks on board
>But bro, you can put only like one on here shits so huge
>Man we got like 200 we gotta move
>Bro that’s dumb shit they comin’ you better get your ass on we leavin’.
>Yeah ok frick it General Motors or whoever will make us more
So play that out like 100 times. And tanks, don’t even get me started on how heavy tanks are. You know how many flights that is?
Too you gotta figure all those guns and rocket launchers and shit are all spread all over. Who gonna go collect ‘em up? Bro not me, it’s crawling with talibans out past the wire.
Because we spent a decade gifting trash like that to the ANA?
Are you fricking stupid or just shitposting? Because there is no discernible difference
Because Biden and Milley surrendered it all to the Taliban because the pullout was botched.
Not sure where these other narratives are coming from beyond Pentagon shilling
Bringing back a bunch of humvees and MRAPs you can replace for the effort required is expensive.
Also equipment transfer on that scale would've required boots on the ground.
PLUS some of that equipment belonged to the ANA, you can't be going around sealing your allies fate by seizing their equipment just because you sold/donated it to them once, your own allies would really question the value of any alliance with the US after that.
Donald Trump signs agreement to leave Afghanistan with the Taliban after unilaterally negotiating it without the alleged Afghani government.
The agreement is slated to go into effect a year afterwards, when whoever wins the next election is in office. Textbook poison pill.
The military, that had taken four successive administrations for a ride insisting they just needed one more lane bro, just one more lane, figures lmao like anyone would ACTUALLY pull us out of Afghanistan...
Joe Biden wins the election. He proceeds to honor the agreement of his predecessor.
Imo, he did it a, because in theory that's how it's supposed to work, he'd have been crucified either way (if he didn't leave, attacks and casualties would have restarted) but also because he was part of one of the administrations that got taken for a ride and wasn't about to spend another four years trying one more lane, one more surge, one not budget allocation. The best time to leave was to never enter. The second best time was the moment we got Osama. The third best is now. It'll only get more costly and expensive.
Anyway, we leave a bunch of equipment we sold to our good buddy Puppet Government. In theory they'll use it to defend themselves. Except: oh no! They're unstable, ineffectual, corrupt, and were held in place by US arms! They collapse mostly without using the equipment to fight. The equipment doesn't wander off on it's own so the Taliban claim it.
>Joe Biden wins the election. He proceeds to honor the agreement of his predecessor.
Pretty sure the biden administration broke the truce with the taliban by bombing them.
Did they? I could be wrong. When and where?
If it was outside of Afghanistan or it was some minority group it might have been outside the "we'll frick off by X date, you don't attack us until then" agreement.
Black person Uncle Joe literally pushed the date back to 9/11 for a publicity stunt while also reneging on the agreement to limit US bombing in support of the ANA prior to the American withdrawal.
I am not saying that the dysfunctional afghan government we set up would have been able to win against the Taliban if evil joe had just stuck to orange mane agreement BUT his fricking with that agreement for the sake of domestic politics was a major fact in a huge number of the tribal leaders, warlords, etc quickly flipping to join the Taliban in fighting against the Kabul based government.
Which essentially ensured said government would last days or weeks not months.
Reneging on part of the agreement while still expecting other parties to follow it was a huge diplomatic blunder, it made the Taliban look like chumps for even negotiating in the first place this pressuring them to save face, it made the Kabul government look like more of an American puppet state than it already was, and it pissed on the honor of every other warlord, leader, etc that had agreed to all the other stipulations in the agreement.
In the end from the perspectives of those on the ground and not sucking at the teat of American aid from inside the Kabul government it looked like the Americans negotiated a false settlement to their own advantage which they then violated right before leaving as one final frick you Afghan with political power that was outside the safety of the capital city.
>one final frick you *to any* Afghan with political power outside-
Good point. I didn't remember how he altered the pull-out date. Though from what I read it looks like the Taliban were doing attacks before that too (and their attacks generally avoided US targets because they didn't want to risk the pull-out all together.)
Still, I don't think any circumstance that involved the US pulling out would have involved the ANA not falling. Imperial powers are always, ALWAYS, garbage at picking their puppets for their regimes; or to put it another way, anyone who is willing to prostitute themselves out to an international backer already lost local powerstruggles. The ANA was loathed by everyone and even Donald didn't treat them as a real party to the agreement.
mb meant to include
https://www.factcheck.org/2021/08/timeline-of-u-s-withdrawal-from-afghanistan/
I agree that the ANA and the Kabul government were nearly guaranteed too collapse, my main argument is that the collapse happened so quickly because of how many groups either did stood aside or activity switched sides to aid the Taliban in their renewed offensive with their primary motivation in doing so being the mishandling of the withdraw agreement.
I think you're still giving them to much credit. The US backed government was incredibly unpopular. The only things uniting all the parties that allied against it was the greater unifying theory of frick that guy.
Likewise the average ANA has no national devotion to dying for a corrupt autocrat with a Saudi bank account.
This was going to happen either way, I think the only surprise was the US state department and/or military convincing themselves they couldn't possibly have achieved so little in twenty years, because for the most part none of the decision makers actually had been to Afghanistan or, if they had, they hadn't been outside the cities.
Regular chauvinism and belief that giving someone an army makes them a state.
the biden administration simply pushed up the time table to they could get out on a symbolic day hoping it would get them good press
not that it caused the frickfest, but it certainly didn't help to prevent it
So why didn't they just sabotage most of the equipment?
Pour a jerrycan in a humvee and put it to the torch.
Cheap&easy.
>cost vs benefits
It makes American defense companies far more money to just rebuild the arsenal from the ground up. Notice how the people all panicked when we left unexpectedly? Beginning the process of taking all the equipment back would leave forces left in the area exposed, and it would make people panic.
>to destabilize the region
This is what you'll hear out of a lot of delusional government tards. It's the line that the Biden admin sold everyone. It's essentially a big middle-finger to everyone who is concerned about this. The fact of the matter is that the Taliban only wanted to reclaim Afghanistan. They're not going to destabilize the region, in fact, they're probably going to improve relations with their neighbors.
>it was left for the allied government to fight the Taliban
Don't pretend that the IC wasn't aware of government/military officials saving up their money in cash and getting their families out of the country. Don't fricking insult my intelligence like that. They knew exactly what we were going to do months in advance.
it's just a buncha trucks and rifles
the russkies meanwhile left arty, tonks, ATGMs, helos, MANPADs and SAMs. also probably the reason why the soviet-backed government lasted 4 years instead of 2 weeks.
Almost all that was photo opped was left to the ANA months before the US left. It would be like taking photos of Tommy guns and Garands asking why US soldiers abandoned them in Vietnam.
What’s wrong with you people? The US didn’t leave a SINGLE piece of military equipment in Afghanistan. Am I in a fricking Twilight Zone episode? I’m in a Lovecraft novel?
Have you not seen the headlines about the taliban crashing blackhawks while training their own pilots on them?
The US destroyed everything which wasn’t brought back. If the Taliban got Blackhawks they either paid for them or inherited them from the Afghani military, which, being the rulers of Afghanistan makes it legally their Blackhawks anyway.
Because it's so insanely difficult and expensive to fly the shit back after cleaning it to Customs requirements, not to mention extracting it under fire.
Noobs who have never packed out a TDY cannot imagine.
Common american L
Shipping costs. Also, job security.
The Afghan military was suppose to use it to fight the Taliban, but they all fled instead. That's why America was reluctant to give Ukraine more expensive weapons until they proved themselves.
Y'know it used to be the standard MO to Willy Pete the frickers before leaving theatre. I'm not concerned about some beat to shit transport vehicles, some of the others would definitely take more priority.
Because we gave shit to the ANA. Did you expect us to repo it all?
Were you expecting them to care about the truth?
>The ANA owned it
>The Afghan government owned it
How could two collapsed entities own anything?
Simple Democrats are too incompetent to disable US equipment before it falls into enemy hands.
To rearm the Taliban for their war with Iran, silly.
The schizo in me says the CIA wanted to give the taliban the tools to frick over china's belt and road initiative once negotiations inevitably break down and china tries to be the empire that finally breaks afghanistan
Because it was equipment of the Afghan army and police. But since those two organizations dissolved upon first enemy contact the Taliban got lots of new gear.
>Shipping costs
>Incompetence in withdrawal
>Knowing that the Afghan government was so hopelessly corrupt that only an equipped taliban would be able to keep the country together.
Take your pick. It could be one or a combination of all.