Mate you've had no skin in this game, and a lot of people here have, and are understandably upset today. Probably best to STFU for a while....

Read the room.

Pause righteous anger for a moment and just ask yourself "is firing in the air a good riot strategy?" Does it work? What is taught these days, or is it only taught to officers?
If it is not taught, should it be?

As for skin in the game, not true, but not relevant to my question. Play the ball, not the man.

Firing in the air isn't massively relevant to this thread and you know it. Stop being a tone deaf bell end.

And tell us all what skin you've had in Afghanistan? I'll wait......

Clearly not a meeting of minds, and this thread is not going to answer my serious question, so I shall research it off Forum.

Guys all take a chill pill and breathe, firing in the air can be just as bad, several were killed in Tripoli from “celebrations” involving firing in the air.

Still waiting to hear your personal involvement in this catastrophe though fella....

Will we be waiting long...?

and so do the Afghans sadly..


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....1cf52bae6.jpeg

For those of you not interested in Twit sites, a summary of what was in @Easy Street's interesting link. (Much noise edited out, and of course consider who it was who posted that information).

I was taught it in theory many moons ago. I think it dates from Aden if not before and was in the context of the Riot Act or its local equivalent, rather than as a means of crowd control, and needed sign off from a legal authority.
These days things have moved on. I believe crowd control is now actively taught and practised as part of deployment training.
Actions would be determined by ROE. Circumstances under which you may open fire are very restricted. Fairly sure they do not include firing into the air or at unarmed civilians. American ROE are almost certainly different.

24 military helicopters and 22 aircraft with 600 military personnel safely down in Uzbekistan, one plane shot down by air defence, crew ok. I assume the personnel were crews and engineers plus families? Some of the shots seen of captured helicopters were not airworthy.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-soldiers.html


disturbing reports in link is Uzbekistan may return some soldiers that crossed the border.

I feel for this guy

From the above report:

Uzbekistan said it shot down an Afghan fighter plane and forced the landing of 22 military planes and 24 military helicopters carrying nearly 600 Afghan troops that 'illegally' crossed its border at the weekend when the Taliban took control of Afghanistan.

The 46 Afghan aircrafts carrying 585 troops were 'forcibly landed' at Termez aiport in southern Uzbekistan on Saturday and Sunday after they had fled the Taliban, the country's state prosecutor said. …

The men were offered food and temporary accommodation in Uzbekistan, and the statement said Uzbekistan was negotiating with the 'Afghan side' over their return home.

Caroline Tabler, a communications director for U.S. Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, said the GOP lawmaker's office was working urgently to support Afghan pilots fleeing from the Taliban to Uzbekistan.

'We're working with an intermediary who's been in touch with the pilots,' she told the AP. “We have not heard from them since last night (Washington) time. We know Uzbekistan has taken their cellphones. Our primary concern is making sure Uzbekistan does not turn them over to the Taliban. We are frantically reaching out to the State Department on this case and trying to get them asylum and literally can't get a response.'

Uzbekistan's neighbour Tajikistan said Monday it had allowed over 100 Afghan military members to land at Bokhtar airport in the south of the country.

'Tajikistan received SOS signals, after which, in accordance with the country's international obligations, it was decided to allow Afghan servicemen to land at the airport,' the Tajik foreign ministry's information department told Russian news agencies Interfax and RIA Novosti.

RIA Novosti reported that three planes carrying the soldiers had landed in Bokhtar during the night…..

Actual PAX count on RCH 871 was 640 - still amazing

Pentagon 2* military spokesman just now:

- Kabul Airport reopened.
- Next 2 x C-17A in had additional USMC and 82nd Airborne troops (of the original 6,000 - only 2,500 had been in place when over run).

Not sure it was the wrong decision - would you rather have squaddies guard civil servants saying no to visas whilst demanding suitable beds and meals, o4 squaddies doing the job themselves and just saying yes.

Not sure if the extra troops are the “Tac Admin” combat bounties being discussed on another thread…

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...ign-office-mod

Row erupts in cabinet over evacuation of UK diplomats from Kabul

Cabinet splits have emerged over Afghanistan, with the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, accusing the Foreign Office of evacuating diplomats while leaving soldiers and Ministry of Defence staff to handle the fallout of the Taliban takeover.

The frustrated minister told colleagues he believed there would be “a reckoning” for the Foreign Office after the crisis, sources told the Guardian.

He complained that diplomats had been “on the first plane out”, with MoD officials having to replace them and bear the brunt of processing resettlement claims for people trying to flee the Afghan capital.

MoD officials, some soldiers and other civil servants were on Monday helping frantic efforts to process claims from up to 4,000 Afghans thought to be eligible for resettlement in the UK amid chaotic scenes at Kabul’s international airport.

Wallace told senior colleagues he was frustrated at “18-year-old squaddies having to process visa applications of incredible complexity at speed” in an effort to get Afghans who helped the British during the 20-year conflict out of the country…..

Foreign Office officials are advising all British nationals still in Afghanistan “to shelter in place unless further flight options become available”, with some being hidden in safe houses in Kabul secured by the SAS. It is unclear how many more people the RAF will be able to evacuate.

On Monday night, the UK said it was sending in another 300 armed forces personnel to help safeguard the airport and process visa claims, taking its total to 900….

The MoD declined to comment on Wallace’s remarks while the Foreign, Commonwealth Development Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.…

does this chap have some evidence of the planning effort, or just a tweet it took a couple of seconds to send?
what do we think about his character seeing as this is what he finds to say when this is happening?
given the answer to the previous question, do we believe anything he says?

I wonder what the Foreign Non Secertary's defence was? The invisible man indeed. Downsizer, seems you got no response. Not surprised. The ROEs are part of deployment training as the rules of armed conflict. Where so when I did my IDT for Telic in very late 2007. A few people shouting "God is great" were throwing things that went bang at us quite often. That reminds me. Standing by the main apron of the COB one night, waiting for the DC8 freighter, I saw an small rapidly fast flying object fall to the ground on the huge apron illuminated by the floodlights. Almost shooting star looking. Did think at the time "What was that?" Would have been one of Nuttys stray 7.62mm rounds flying in. Scary.

No - it's an actual fact.
When I checked last night, there was an AC-130J enroute to Kabul.

Yes, whom hid the Taliban leadership and Bin Laden for many years. They have always been the problem and should never have been part of the solution. Actually we should have left the USSR to sort the problem out in 1980 without interfering by making a hornets nest that bit us. Hindsight.

Are you suggesting that the handling of this 'evacuation' has been something other than an unmitigated cluster:mad:?
Because from what I've seen it looks like there was zero planning done - or at best any planning was completely incompetent. If possible, it may be even worse than Saigon.
Pretty amazing that we have been there for 20 years and yet still know so little about what was ultimately going to happen.