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?
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