Posted on 02/07/2013 11:13:49 AM PST by Pan_Yan
Almost half of Britain’s military equipment sent to Afghanistan will never return – and could end up in the hands of the Taliban.
About 40% of gear being used in Helmand Province will be scrapped or sold when UK forces finally leave by the end of next year.
The Government estimates about 11,000 containers of equipment are in Afghanistan, including 3,000 vehicles.
Of these, defence chiefs plan to bring back about 6,500 loads – costing tens of millions of pounds. That means leaving 4,500 containers.
These will not include weapons – but besides everyday items will be non-lethal military hardware that could be of use to insurgents.
(Excerpt) Read more at mirror.co.uk ...
“Brits” never were too bright.
If I were in charge, I’d have an online auction (outsource to a milsurp auction agency for a commission) with prices to take delivery on site, and invite shippers to bid for costs to ship containers wherever the buyers are.
Maybe just take bids for the whole lot of goods in country, and let the high-bid new owner decide how to deal with it.
This pretty much happens at the end of any conflict. The cost of returning used equipment exceeds the equipment value. So, it’s either turned over to local governments, or scrapped in place.
Thermite is inexpensive and in the right places would be all that’s needed.
It will all end up in the hands of the Taliban.
What, are the Germans hot on your heels or something?
Okay, you get a point for that one.
Perhaps Operation DYNAMO repeats?
AS others have pointed out this is SOP ecen for USA
BUT unlike prior conflicts where we left stuff behind there is a large force still fighting us who will be very happy to take what the brits and all others including us leave behind
and use that material to aid them in killing
I think all nations should pay the cost and either make sure the stuff is destroyed or get it out of there
leave nothing to help the Taliban and islamists
My late father (USMC WWII, Korea, Vietnam) helped burn millions of tons of brand-new lumber in the South Pacific when World War II was over. We left plenty of equipment in Vietnam, Iraq, the Philippines, etc.
Yeah, but it should be a cheap-shot point as its made about the nation the stood alone against Hitler for a year and a half while the Roosevelt in the US awaited being pushed into the conflict.
Anyone that has read about that period from the fall of France to the spring after December 7, 1941 knows that the British held off with bravery in its citizens as well as its soldiers and sailors.
We striped them of every valuble asset during that time to pay for their food and supply needs.
The sea bed works well, too.
Yeah, I mean the dumb Limeys, Jocks, Taffys and Micks only built the greatest empire ever seen, won two world wars, and gave the world most of its greatest inventions and discoveries, literature, art and culture of the last 300-400 years......
I wonder what they would have done if they had been bright.
Thank you.
And you just know they’re going to overlook something really important by leaving so much behind.
My WWII Marine father saw the same when leaving the Marshall Islands at the end of the war. Jeeps, trucks,
airplanes & other equipment were dropped in the ocean just beyond the reef.
He was told the US manufacturers were promised nothing would come back at war’s end so the post war economy would not be depressed by military surplus in the marketplace.
We’ve done the same... but included weapons...
I didn’t give him a point for historical accuracy, just cleverness. And as expected several people with not quite as much humor have shown up to educate him.
Don’t you think that, perhaps, the Brits might want the Taliban to collect and use stuff left behind?
Anyone have a copy of the Willy and Joe cartoon “You blokes sure leave a messy battlefield”?
You speak of that era as if it were this idealistic war the Brits fought out of sheer altruism. In reality, they were fighting to avoid being overrun. If the situations were reversed, would they have come to our rescue bright and early? Ultimately, it was their war. How often have the Brits come to our aid? Korea. Vietnam. Iraq I. Afghanistan. Iraq II. In total, they lost less than 2000 dead. We lost 300K killed fighting in Europe in WWII alone. We also lost 100K fighting in WWI. The way British logic goes, maybe we should have intervened in the Crimean and Napoleonic Wars. Then we can pretend the Revolutionary War never happened, and these United States remained a Crown Colony subject to periodic military levies.
The sea bed works well, too.
No sea near Afghanistan, have to transport through Pakistan
better to make a huge bonfire of all stuff that can benefit the enemy, and give food and kitchen eqipment to locals
There was a huge domestic surplus market after the war. It must have been all the materiel that never got sent into theater.
Nearly all the Navy’s PT boats were burned in place in the South Pacific. I saw a movie as a kid about smugglers using PT craft for gunrunning. Their extreme speed made them ideal for the role. I remember pics in magazines of combat aircraft being melted down for the aluminum.
What’s happening with equipment in Afghanistan is outrageous, it should all be destroyed in place or else Karzai & his band of crooks will sell/give it to the Taliban.
“Brits” never were too bright.
This is funny as you cannot buy a surplus humvee here in the US. They cut them in half so they are only good spare parts.
Man I worked with said once the ships were loaded and at sea they didn’t turn back because some supplies on the ships was still needed.
They junked whatever wasn’t needed when the ship arrived at it’s destination.
As a side note my uncle had a PT boat.
He took out the gas engine and replaced it with a diesel.
He ended up selling the PT boat sometime in the 70’s and bought another boat.
Years later after my uncle had died, someone saw the engine sitting in the middle of the property and bought it.
They were rebuilding a PT boat to it’s original condition.
Turns out it was the PT boat my uncle had that they were rebuilding.
Just wait until we leave. If Barry gets his way, it will resemble the fall of Saigon....I don’tthink he’d be too bent out of shape if alot of equipment went to Taliban hands.
Gasoline is even cheaper, put it all in a pile douse it with gasoline and set fire to it. Leave them nothing.
This is a pittance compared to what we will leave behind if we ever leave. Don’t even leave them a toothpick.
This was mentioned in the movie LORD OF WAR about how it was easier for a country to leave it’s equipment behind and order new stuff back home than to take it home with them.
I remember reading how after WWII the Navy dumped tons of perfectly good equipment into the Pacific Ocean rather than take it back to the US. Most of it was brand new. I’m talking planes, tanks, jeeps, bulldozers, road graders, ect.
A local to me guy in the National Guard was brought up on Federal charges because he had the audacity to send items back home that were listed as “expendable” on their inventory instead of leave them behind. Once the items (flashlights) got back home, he gave them out to his buddies and even some to the local Sheriff’s office. I guess the Feds didn’t like that and had him charged with theft of Govt property.
UM, the US is leaving far more than that. There are untold amounts of equipment that is there that no one knows who ordered it or what to with it.
We do the same thing. There’s lots of equipment that’s not worth the cost to bring back. Most of it has been worked hard and isn’t in good shape, and it’s all bulky and heavy, and the accounting department has already depreciated it out on the ledgers so they’d be looking for an excuse to get rid of it at home anyway. It’s never anything dangerous, jeeps, half shells, cots, general crap. Weapons and ammo come home, general supplies frequently stay.
” I’m talking planes, tanks, jeeps, bulldozers, road graders, ect.”
And this stuff wasn’t useful to the local populations that had their entire infrastructure destroyed? No this was all about ensuring that the American companies profit after the fact twice, once by selling the equipment to the USG and then by selling another set to the countries that needed to be rebuilt.
I knew a guy who was involved in dynamiting “a mountain” of beer in the Philippines at the end of WWII. He said it was enough beer to put every brewer in the Philippines out of business for ten years.
you’d think an enterprising business man that owes or wants to own a scrap metal business would make a deal with the Brits to purchase everything they don’t dont for pennies on the dollar.
‘If the situations were reversed, would they have come to our rescue bright and early?’
Yes. We went into two world wars to defend Belgium and Poland.
‘How often have the Brits come to our aid? Korea. Iraq I. Afghanistan. Iraq II.’
4-2 to us then. BTW, I assume you know WHY we didnt get involved in Vietnam (officially).
‘In total, they lost less than 2000 dead. We lost 300K killed fighting in Europe in WWII alone.’
And your point is?.
‘The way British logic goes, maybe we should have intervened in the Crimean and Napoleonic Wars. ‘
We dont mind you entered both world wars later than us. What we DO object to is the ‘we saved your ass/you’d be speaking German if not for us’ crap. Knock that s*it off and we wont crack remarks about ‘turning up late’.
We did save your asses in two World Wars and you wold be speaking German if it weren’t for us. After you, like a bunch of sheep, turned in your weapons the NRA members shipped tens of thousands of firearms to Britain, for free.
If it weren’t for the American Merchant Marine England would have fallen. If it weren’t for Lend-Lease you’d have been throwing rocks at Germans.
If it weren’t for Neville Chamberlain WWII could have been averted. If you’d defended the Czechs instead of handing them to Hitler on a silver platter you wouldn’t have had to fight in Poland or Belgium.
Nice work drawing all those nice, straight lines in the Middle East, too. The planet is still paying for that idiocy.
I’d love to debate/answer you seriously point by point, but I fear you arent willing to have an actual serious debate.
Yeah, the British handling of Nassar’s nationalizing the Suez Canal was shameful. They should have followed The US advice. Oh, wait...
That's a lousy analogy. We'd fight any outside power that tried to invade the Americas. Poland and Belgium are less than a thousand miles from the UK. Doesn't take a genius to see the next course on the dinner menu.
We dont mind you entered both world wars later than us. What we DO object to is the ‘we saved your ass/you’d be speaking German if not for us’ crap. Knock that s*it off and we wont crack remarks about ‘turning up late’.
We weren't late - they weren't our wars. The aspect that bothers me is the extent to which our mass media parrot British propaganda when it's just clear that Brits have a problem with logic as regards the American participation in their wars. For some reason they take our participation in their wars, in which we lost 400K dead between WWI and WWII, for granted while their participation in our wars, in which they lost less than 2K dead, is obviously this great favor for which we must be eternally grateful.
Fear seems to be an attribute of the British character these days. It’s more than just a bit sad, really.
If you’d stopped Hitler at Sudetanland instead of spreading your legs for him history would have been very different.
1—The point is that Britain went without hesitation to defend two smaller threatened countries, to the permanent detrement of the UK. And the fact that we have fought and died at America’s side in six conflicts in one century I think shows that we will fight with our allies and our friends and our kith and kin.
2—Dont dare discuss dead soldiers with such sneering contempt.
3—’Our wars’?. Korea was a UN war and a war against Communism, the Persian Gulf was as important to the UK and France as it was to the US and in neither Iraq or Afghanistan did the US act on its own, but again with allies.
How are 1950-54, 1990-1, and Iraq/Afghanistan ‘American’ wars?. Only Afghanistan could be regarded as such, and even then I would question it. Islamic terrorism threatens the west, not just the US, and 300 British died on September 11th.
Precisely!
That is at odds with what I referred to as a cheap-shot in the earlier post. I have made my point. I certainly realize that a poster's brief, off the cuff, comments are not a summary of their character and desire to make no unneeded efforts to draw out a whole series of responses.
1-—What drivel. Do you actually believe this rubbish?.
You didnt save us, you helped us. And we thank you for it. Just as the Canadians did. Just as the Aussies, New Zealanders, Africans etc etc. But dont ever think you ‘saved us’.
Britain couldnt have won the war without you, the USSR and Canada and the Empire. BUT America could never have won the war without Britain, the USSR, Canada and the British Empire. And even the mighty USSR needed the US, UK and Canada to help it fight the Germans.
No one nation won it alone. No one nation ‘saved’ the rest.
We dont speak German because of OURSELVES. We dont speak German because of the bravery and sacrifice of our men and women in six years of war, a year and a half fighting alone. We dont speak German because of the men of the RAF in the Battle of Britain or Bomber Command, the men of the Royal Navy who defeated German attempts to control the Atlantic, the men of the British Army who fought from Burma and Hong Kong to France and Ethiopia, the Rhine and the plains of N Africa.....
2—If you think Britain relied on the US Merchant Marine, then your history is as bad as I fear. Britain relied first and foremost on its own huge Merchant Marine, and then on its Canadian ally, and then on the US.
It was Britain and Canada who bore the brunt of the Atlantic battle (1940-43), and most of Britain’s supplies from North America were carried by the Royal Navy, the Canadian Royal Navy and by the huge British Merchant Marine and Canadian Merchant Marine. I dont know where you get the idea the US Mer.Marine carried the heavy load.
That is NOT to devalue the American Merchant Marine, but you are wrong to say that Britain (not England please learn the difference) somehow relied on them.
Again, they helped Britain and we should never forget their incredible bravery. If you know any oldies that were AMM, please thank them for me. They were and are heroes.
You seem to know little about Britain and WW2. And the incredible and immense British contribution to the war. Or about the British armed forces and merchant marines.
3—Lend Lease?.
You ARE aware that LL only started in March 1941, withe the Lend Lease Act, and the first LL supplies started arriving here in late May/early June?.
You ARE aware that pre 1941, from Sept 1939, that Britain BOUGHT and paid for all its arms supplies from the US?. The ‘cash and carry’ method, where all the arms and supplies were carried by Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy ships as well as UK and Canadian merchant ships. No, Great Britain paid upfront for all supplies before Lend Lease.
And if we are talking lend lease, are you aware of REVERSE LEND LEASE?. No?.
That was the Lend Lease TO America from Britain, the USSR, Australia and New Zealand, from January 1942 to Sept 1945.
Britain GAVE America £1.2 BILLION in arms and supplies via RLL from Jan 42 to Sept 45.
Go find out about reverse lend lease, its been sadly forgotten in both the US and UK. As well as Russia and Australia and New Zealand.
4—Throwing rocks?. Are you serious?. Do you honestly think the British relied completely in WW2 on American arms?. Do you honestly think that the British didnt build (huge amounts) of their own weapons, tanks, planes, ships.....?
Are you telling me that you seriously think that the British didnt build anything in the UK in WW2?. God almighty.
Hey, that's a bridge too far.
Criticize the British all you want for bad decisions, but if you're going use sexual analogies to blame all the British for the actions of Neville Chamberlain, think what kind of president we have now and ask whether you want to be blamed, in graphic sexual terms, for what our president is doing.
Blame Chamberlain. Blame Obama. But be careful about blaming an entire nation until it is clear that the national culture, not a single leader, is at fault.
I think it is patently obvious by what happened after Churchill became prime minister that the British national culture was not at fault once World War II broke out. You'd have a lot better grounds using that language about Americans, since we not only elected but re-elected Obama.
After mid-1940, Britain controlled the sea and air and after the winter of 1941-42, the Soviets took the initiative on land.
While American involvement shortened the war, thereby saving the lives of thousands of Britons, it saved millions of Germans. Prime Minister Churchill would certainly have been willing to nuke German cities, if any could have been found after the Red Army had its way.
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