Britain begins preparations for Afghanistan withdrawal

[CoffmanStarter]

So that's £4bn of kit (knackered most probably) repatriated back to the UK at a cost of £100m ...

So what's the estimated value if stuff left behind that is considered uneconomic to ship home ... answers on a post card please to Mr Hammond :confused:

Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, signed a new defence co-operation agreement with Kazakhstan which the British Government hopes will enable an estimated £4 billion of equipment – including tanks and armoured personnel carriers – to be shipped out of northern Afghanistan.

Daily Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9109508/Britain-begins-preparations-for-Afghanistan-withdrawal.html)

Looks like the US number on kit going home is c. $49bn ... but no number on transport costs.

.

[NutLoose]

Hints at American costs here

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircrew/507433-us-army-budget-cuts-due-sequestration.html


So how long do you give the Afghanistan Government and the forces when everyone pulls out? A month?

[Heathrow Harry]

three months maybe

[MightyGem]

So what's the estimated value if stuff left behind that is considered uneconomic to ship home
I saw £2bn quoted the other day, but can't remember where.

[Milo Minderbinder]

I wonder how much will get disappeared as it travels through Russia

[mymatetcm]

leave it all behind, pointless returning a lot of the rubbish, like 20 A/C pallets full of old U/S landrover trailers that were brought back from Iraq, probably to be skipped at Biscester

[sangiovese.]

Whack it all on ebay, buyer collects

[NutLoose]

Just put it about on any Gippo site there are freebies to be had, then confiscate them at the ports.

Smash up and spray the rest with pig**** / urea

1 month after its over it won't matter, those in power will have departed the country with whatever they managed to "acquire" from all the aid, and the rest of the country will fall back into the hands of the Taliban... Talking to them means squat, they will play along until we all leave and it will revert to the Country everyone knows deep down it is.

Exactly what happened when the Russians left, all we will leave as a legacy is more modern abandoned equipment in the scrapyards of the country.

[Jimlad1]

Given vast amounts of kit bought for HERRICK is operationally specific and has no role in the future structure, and funds dont exist to run most of it on, what is the point in spending lots of money to bring kit to the UK which will only be scrapped when it gets here?

[PURPLE PITOT]

Flog it to a local warlord. Simples!

[Milo Minderbinder]

"what is the point in spending lots of money to bring kit to the UK"

We don't want the Iranians re-engineering it do we?
Even if you disabled it, they have the tech skills to re-engine / fettle / re-arm much of the vehicle fleet that you are suggesting should be

Just think where it could end up.... maybe a fleet of Mastiffs in Mali, or Oman or Sinai playing high speed havoc across the desert,

[Pontius Navigator]

Ship it to Mali.

[Milo Minderbinder]

Problem is the Pakistanis won't let us route it out via a southern route so it has to travel north via Kazakhstan > Russia > Baltic routes.
Otherwise it would make sense to ship it to South Africa for re-engineering and passing on to "friendly" regimes such as Mali

[dragartist]

Well here is £10M squids wurf that does not need bringing back because it did not get there in the first place

Soldiers risking death because kit ordered two years ago never arrived - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9179165/Soldiers-risking-death-because-kit-ordered-two-years-ago-never-arrived.html)

As I understand it is all highly classified stuff that the MoD do not wish to talk about.

Anyone on the rumour network prepared to say?

this cash could have ran the Reds for 18 months (the RAFAT not MU!)

[RedhillPhil]

Nah, bury it so that some scammer can come along in sixty years time with wild tales of pristine Land Rovers.

[VinRouge]

anyone considered the more kit we bring back now the less of a lions share of the defence procurement budget can be claimed by the army post sdsr 2015?

i can think of plenty of uses for the current range of protective vehicles. i think we need to be careful of being too wanton with the disposal of highly effective kit, for the simple reason its a bit difficult to get back.

[skua]

And another thought: how much will we have spend greasing palms along that Northern road route?

[RedhillPhil]

Nah, bury it so that some scammer can come along in sixty years time with wild tales of pristine Land Rovers.

Is there some sort of predictive word thingy on here. That wasn't my original post and, upon trying to change it to that the window comes back with the original post.

"...of pristine buried Land-Rovers".

[Milo Minderbinder]

Its supposedly an in-joke perpetrated by the site admins / programmers
Most posters seem to think its peurile

[Heathrow Harry]

well I smiled........... :uhoh: