Looks like the US military had a field day disabling most of the equipment they were forced to abandon at the airport. In the video it looks like they removed the seats from the helicopters. Wonder if they blew them up in the controlled explosion earlier this week.
Seems strange to just leave things like that. I get they are stripped and inoperable, but still. What would it take to pack that shit up and bring it back?
I anticipate the cost of flights and timing to load this equipment would far exceed the costs to replace the equipment. Most of the stuff we left is aged and dated equipment. The State Department left those CH46s there and one of those was used in the evacuation of Saigon which was almost 50 years ago.
It would be odd to think of our government as a budget-conscious, but right, if it's more cost effective to just damage it and leave it, I suppose that makes sense. That makes sense too. But we left 70 MRAPS ($500K each), 27 Humvees ($220K), 2 CRAM defense systems ($10M), 43 MD-530 helicopters ($2.7M), 23 A-29 light attack planes ($10M). Those are all still in use, right? Would it cost more than $400M to get hat stuff out? I suppose someone crunched those numbers, but I'd also guess that the time crunch made the cost less relevant.
We would be paying to get it out and then end up selling it to police departments for pennies on the dollar. And we don’t need that. Destroying it was the best and most responsible choice
I feel like the military uses Humvees, helicopters, attack planes, and service dogs in other parts of the world. Why would we sell them when they could still be used?
The stuff I listed was left at the Kabul airport. There is a whole other list of stuff the Taliban confiscated from the Afghan army.
Yeah if the Afghans we’re going to abandon a bunch of aircraft it would make sense for them to be at an airport.
The Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano A-29 light attack plane I saw as "more than $10M", so I just went with 10. But a quick google search tells me: The basic aircraft sells for about $10 million although the price rises to about $11 million with the addition of training and logistics support. The A-29 variant is estimated to cost between $20 and 30 million but this includes specialized equipment, spare parts and operational support. So you may be right. Bump the total number up to $630-$860M in equipment we destroyed and left.
concern trolling? I'm curious as to why we left $800M worth of equipment that we could salvage and use. It seems wasteful. I wonder how many Humvees, A-29s, MRAPs, and MD-530s we will buy in the next year. There is nothing disingenuous about it.
I don't think most people give a shit about the equipment we left is prob why it comes of like concern trolling
The military is always really good about ensuring that it gets every last bit of value out of its equipment and never ever would take advantage of an opportunity to encourage a scarcity that would potentially be a benefit to the defense industry
Some people think we've carefully calculated the cost and determined the most financially responsible course of action was to leave the equipment.
We could pay millions of dollars to bring it all back to America and use it to fix our crumbling infrastructure
We could pay millions of dollars to bring it back to the US and not pay hundreds of millions of dollars to buy the same equipment?
I'm not saying it's nothing but this is kind of like worrying about penalty yards after you just lost by 50
You’ve really got to start thinking critically. Like even just once. You read one thing that fits in your bias and don’t even think to confirm it. Absolutely 0 critical thinking or fact checking. It lands with your bias so you throw it out as fact with the caveat of “I’m just asking questions” to attempt to recuse yourself of any responsibility if it turns out to be false. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...fghanistan-pentagon-denies-report/5664405001/
Exactly, these dogs cost $100,000’s to train, we are not just going to leave them behind. “ Well what about helicopters and other stuff left behind?” Yes that is true but 90% was for the Afghan army and the stuff we left we disabled, plus I can throw that 90 lb dog on a soldiers lap and bring him home, I’m not going to send back ships and planes for helicopters.
Riner I'm sure you have it all figured out, not the people in the situation that have 100% of the information. Your ideas from home behind your keyboard are almost certainly superior to theirs
You truly believe we’re buying a propellor driven aircraft from a foreign country for use in our military?
Yea, because the ONYL reason to buy military equipment is to engage in a "forever war". What could we possibly use a Humvee for outside of Afghanistan? Why would we need a helicopter? Or an armored vehicle? I know you have to, by default, oppose anything I say. But do you really think we are done buying military equipment now that we left Afghanistan? Really?? If so, why don't we make a bet. I'll bet you...I dunno, $1,000 that the military buys Humvees, helicopters, and armored vehicles in the next 12 months.
I think they were being used for close air support after we ditched the a-10s and our jets couldn't do all the stuff they were supposed to be able to do I remember reading something about it a few years ago re: the military buying stuff for wars we weren't fighting
this was going to happen regardless. you understand the military has become a $700 billion dollar a year job program, right? that is literally it.
"From a foreign country" is a bit disingenuous, isn't it? Embraer is based in Brazil, but they partnered with SNC to make the planes in Jacksonville. The A-29 Super Tucano is the gold standard for light attack, combat and reconnaissance aircraft. Built in the U.S. by Sierra Nevada Corporation and its partner, Embraer Defense & Security, the A-29 has been selected by 15 air forces worldwide including Afghanistan and Lebanon.
I don't disagree, and I think that's dumb, if that's a major reason we left all that equipment behind. Can you explain any of that to Tug though? He doesn't think we will by buying any more military equipment
oh i fully expect them to continue spending 0.7 trillion dollars a year on building a military for a "inevitable war" with china that is never really going to happen.
I appreciate the information and am glad that this is the case. I'm not just pulling this out of my ass, I am looking at news reports. Of course news reports sometimes get things wrong (were there 2 suicide bombs at the airport or just 1??). Thanks for the correction. The Pentagon apparently responded to this, saying there were no military dogs left behind, but there may have been personal pets that could not be brought back https://www.americanhumane.org/pres...orking-dogs-left-behind-in-kabul-afghanistan/
No. Afghans had like 38 of them they were using, that fell into the hands of the Taliban (and are operations). The ones shown above were owned and operated by the US military and were disabled before our final evacuation. Do you have some evidence to the contrary??? You seem oddly obsessed with this particular plane and insisting we could not possibly have bought or used any of them.
We could cut $350B from military budget and still spend more than the next 3 countries combined. lmfao just ridiculous