nice to hear equipment left behind has been demilitarized. do we owe them a refund?

[msongs]

demilitarized...hmm sounds like a euphemism does it not?

[WarGamer]

1. It depends...

For one thing, most of the material has ALREADY been captured by the Taliban after the Afghan Army ran away.

Secondly, they will leave a lot of spare parts. For example, if you bend the barrel of an M4 by leaning a row of them on a curb and then driving over them in a HumVee, you still have bolts and stocks and magazines, etc...

It's still a multi billion dollar cache seized by the Taliban.

[LuvLoogie]

5. why wouldn't you take the M4s with you?

If you have a row of them, you have a box of them, no?

[WarGamer]

6. I'd be curious what they brought with them and what they left...

I'm not sure if they will ever release an inventory, though

[LuvLoogie]

8. I doubt there is much useful beyond some small arms and armored vehicles

Maybe some M2s.

I doubt there are that many helicopter pilots or tank drivers among the Taliban, Let alone airplane pilots.

Probably some really skilled mechanics, though.

[WarGamer]

10. I think they'll recruit former Afghan Army soldiers to help...

It's a very large number of HumVees and AV's... but yeah, the air assets should be unusable within weeks.

[secondwind]

11. My guess is probably electronic stuff.... obviously big items are left behind.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

7. Perhaps you were arming the Afghan forces with them to use in your absence?

Obviously all US forces M-4's (which may be all of them I don't know either way) we'd have logically taken with us.

[LuvLoogie]

9. Yeah, but the Taliban can get small arms anywhere.

At least they can use them against ISIS.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

12. Fair enough, but I was just answering the question as posed :) nt

[paleotn]

2. Seems they lost much of their aircraft too....

Flown to Uzbekistan. And no, the Taliban aren't getting them back.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142793204

[Aristus]

3. The Afghans are not big on maintenance.

I guess they figure prayer is enough to keep a tank running. Although the evidence for that is spotty, at best.

Afghanistan has a large fleet of old T-55 and T-62 tanks obtain from the Soviet Union back in the 80's. Obsolete by almost any standard, they're still effective against poorly-armed guerillas, which is what the Taliban are.

Only about 1/3 to 1/2 of their tanks are in running condition at any one time. The Taliban are basically inheriting a lot of big, heavy lawn ornaments.

[ProfessorGAC]

4. Related Story

I was in Budapest in the 90s.
When the USSR fell, the Hungarian freedom government said "Out" to the Soviet military.
The Soviets asked for time to haul everything home. The Hungarians around Budapest said "No, get out now".
The soviets brought in hundreds of cement trucks and filled their tanks, APVs, artillery & missile tubes with concrete.
It was a few years before we were there and on a base east of town you could still see the useless hardware sitting there. It was now so heavy, there was no financially feasible way for the new government to haul it away.
They even set fire to their radar control rooms & their communication centers.
They went home, but the Hungarians got very little materiel.
I wonder how much of this we did in Afghanistan.

[Mr.Bill]

14. I read that they poured concrete

down the drains of every building they occupied.

[ProfessorGAC]

15. Could Be

That base I saw was a park.
I saw kids climbing on the tanks!!!
What you say is certainly believable.

[riversedge]

13. The equipment left behind has be decommissioned.