• DaddleDew@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    It’s a matter of time before it happens to all of them. Helicopters require a ton of periodic maintenance, adjustments and upkeep. The Taliban don’t have the culture, knowledge or access to parts to keep those air worthy.

  • Hikermick@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    How did the Taliban get their hands on helicopters? I thought the US limited what armaments they gave the Afghan military to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands

    • Lennny@lemmy.world
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      5 minutes ago

      A lot of maintenance is required for the equipment left behind. Sure, it looks good on their recruitment posters temporarily, but then 4 years later you get videos like this. Silly Taliban probably should have left some of those women studying engineering alone.

    • phdepressed@sh.itjust.works
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      4 hours ago

      There was a lot of leftover equipment due to the unexpected speed of the takeover. At the time there were discussions about destroying any remaining equipment but I believe they ended up figuring that things will naturally degrade and it isn’t like they have anyone trained in using/repairing American equipment. No classified info unlike Trump’s bathroom.

  • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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    7 hours ago

    The US sabotaged any equipment left behind. My guess is that they fixed that Black Hawk using parts off of multiple and some controls failed during their test.

    • Madison420@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      Probably not. We only destroyed the classified stuff, there’s no reason to make them unsafe and endanger people when you can buy them used for a couple hundred thousand anyway.

      • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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        49 seconds ago

        My cousin was civilian DOD in charge of Bagram. Orders were to decommission anything useful and it was like Christmas for the Marines. Break everything was the rule. Everything.

        • Madison420@lemmy.world
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          27 minutes ago

          A combat used, desert abandoned Blackhawk without necessary maintainance records can’t be sold in any country that cares about that which is pretty much everyone but poor middle eastern countries and Russia. That makes it a couple hundred thousand (essentially the scrap value) and we’ve been dumping these things across the planet for the last 30 years so there’s no shortage of crappy barely flight worthy ones popping about.

          My guess is they bought the DCS Huey to learn how to fly out but refused to buy the collective. Keyboard and mouse to collective is very disorienting.