https://www.defesa.gov.br/arquivos/F...d2011/andy.pdf
Take a look at this presentation from ACDS (Log Ops), presented by Air Cdre Andy Gell last year on logistics transformation (I know, I know 'yawn'). Slides 21-28 are about Op BROCKDALE, the redeployment of materiel from Iraq in 2008/9. Slides 30-34 give a summary of the challenge in Afghanistan for those who have not been.
FED might have given us the worst case scenario from our last expedition there, but the point is well made, if a little sensationalist. The Force Protection burden would be huge. Op PIKE (the road convoys from Basra to Kuwait) was a challenge both in logistic and FP terms and it was a walk in the park compared to the similar task from Helmandshire to the Pakistan border. That is if the Pakistanis reopen the crossing point for us. The drive from there to the port at Karachi is no picnic either. Get a map and look at the other overland options - not pretty.
'Use AT' you say? - great idea. Whose? At what cost? Using whose fuel? Every gallon (diesel or avtur) is worth a fortune due to the effort to get it there. AT will be used to fly home the important, expensive stuff (like people, weapons and crypto; the last two having been stripped from the barely road-worthy UOR vehicles that are unsupportable back home).
Anything that gets left behind would have zero net book value once it got home or will have political value as a gift to GIRoA. Everything else will be needed back home or destroyed where it is and a new one bought in the UK, whichever costs the least. Rest assured that the National Audit Office will be all over this.