800 people evacuated on one C-17 flight

asicer said:
Other countries don't have home/away teams?
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TCABM said:
Golf (Scotland) and Tennis (France) both have team formats and neither refers to the opposing sides as a home team or a visiting team, so I guess not.
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That wasn't the question. Just because two (mostly individual) sports in two countries don't refer to opposing sides as home or away doesn't mean those countries (and many others) don't have home/away teams. I've been to football/soccer matches all over Europe and Asia, and all the matches are referred to as home/away. In fact, home field advantage is a thing internationally, too. It was an anomalous season last year in the Barclay's Premier League that teams had better winning percentages away than they did at home. It's theorized that it was due to no "home field" advantage.
 
Robert Gee said:
Can some of you with knowledge speak to the capabilities of the 20 something "bases" that were closed over the previous 18+ months. I have heard some of them described as "air fields" and wonder how accurate that is. Were they outposts with chopper pads or full on secured fields/improved strips that may have been useful in these desperate times?
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They're probably mixing in RW capable FOBs in that assessment. In RC East (Kabul), I can think of maybe a half a dozen that had C-130/C-17 capability. Kabul, Bagram, Jbad, Mazir, Shank, Salerno, Bamiyan. Another down south that the name escapes me right now. They actually had a civ C-130 (L100) that wrecked there when I was there.

Well, now that I think of it, there might very well be 20 airfields we turned over. Some of those could still easily be taken back though.
 
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Velocity173 said:
They're probably mixing in RW capable FOBs in that assessment. In RC East (Kabul), I can think of maybe a half a dozen that had C-130/C-17 capability. Kabul, Bagram, Jbad, Mazir, Shank, Salerno, Bamiyan. Another down south that the name escapes me right now. They actually had a civ C-130 (L100) that wrecked there when I was there.

Well, now that I think of it, there might very well be 20 airfields we turned over. Some of those could still easily be taken back though.
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Isn't this how we got people out of South Vietnam? Go to several outward locations? Rather than try to tell everyone to travel to a single city’s big airport?
 
yup....hasta be a highly organized top secret mission....no one knows about.
 
Rushie said:
Isn't this how we got people out of South Vietnam? Go to several outward locations? Rather than try to tell everyone to travel to a single city’s big airport?
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Not really sure. Both situations similar though. Been reading a lot about vets trying to get their former interpreters out. Reminds me of the movie “The Killing Fields.” Only the Khmer Rouge were far more brutal than the Taliban.
 
CJones said:
As someone else shared - I have nothing to add, but appreciate the civil and informed discussion of the events so far.

Question from the back of the room... Based on the lack of a sense of common nationality there, does it make sense to break the whole place up into distinct entities and parse them out to the existing groups? At least then you would have borders to 'enforce'. Let Taliban put shariah law into their spot on the map, and after a few years when there's nobody left to terrorize because they've all defected or been beheaded for stealing a chicken, maybe there will be a different recourse for eliminating them altogether.
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Maybe it could work. Hopefully it would be done in a more intelligent way than many of the Middle Eastern countries were formed at the end of WW1.

Why border lines drawn with a ruler in WW1 still rock the Middle East http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25299553
 
CJones said:
…Based on the lack of a sense of common nationality there, does it make sense to break the whole place up into distinct entities and parse them out to the existing groups? At least then you would have borders to 'enforce'….
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My two cents: my experience there tells me no matter what westerners think would work, it won’t. Ethnic/tribal organizing isn’t a bad idea, but borders like we think of them really aren’t recognized there, even with external borders to an extent, especially with parts of Pakistan.

Between the Soviet era and 2001, the warlords tried a power-sharing rotational governing model which changed between faction somewhat successfully until the Taliban’s turn in 1996. At the end if their term, they just ignored the agreement and kept power.

Arm3 said:
Maybe it could work. Hopefully it would be done in a more intelligent way than many of the Middle Eastern countries were formed at the end of WW1.

Why border lines drawn with a ruler in WW1 still rock the Middle East http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25299553
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Lots of straight lines across Africa, too. The British had a habit of ensuring enough minority opposition to majority affiliations inside the borders they drew as well. Their thought was if any one side got out of hand, the two or three other groups could be organized to put down a challenge to the throne.
 
Rushie said:
Isn't this how we got people out of South Vietnam? Go to several outward locations? Rather than try to tell everyone to travel to a single city’s big airport?
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I don't know the answer to your question, but I heard that far fewer civilians (about 7,000) were evacuated during the withdrawal from Vietnam than have been evacuated from Afghanistan so far.
 
TCABM said:
For those keeping score, US and G7 partners meet tomorrow (Tuesday) to discuss extending the Aug 31 date because, well, nobody can really guarantee their ex patriate citizens wishing to repatriate from Afghanistan can do so by the end of the month.

The away team, following it’s usual tactic, has essentially said ‘Thanks but no thanks’ be out or else. This stance was predictable and why I’m interested in what will 9/1 looks like.
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It looks like some negotiation with the Taliban took place yesterday.

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation...-secret-meeting-in-kabul-with-taliban-leader/
 
TCABM said:
My two cents: my experience there tells me no matter what westerners think would work, it won’t. Ethnic/tribal organizing isn’t a bad idea, but borders like we think of them really aren’t recognized there, even with external borders to an extent, especially with parts of Pakistan.

Between the Soviet era and 2001, the warlords tried a power-sharing rotational governing model which changed between faction somewhat successfully until the Taliban’s turn in 1996. At the end if their term, they just ignored the agreement and kept power.



Lots of straight lines across Africa, too. The British had a habit of ensuring enough minority opposition to majority affiliations inside the borders they drew as well. Their thought was if any one side got out of hand, the two or three other groups could be organized to put down a challenge to the throne.
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Yep, the Pakistan border is pretty porous. We’d have OH-58 / AH-64 teams engage the Taliban and they’d scoot across the border knowing they can’t pursue. We never really had confidence with the Paki Govt.
 
TCABM said:
I had heard that. Unsurprisingly, TB announcement today indicates they were not swayed in their position re: 31 Aug.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-...eed-us-pullout-deadline-extension-2021-08-24/
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I really hope I’m wrong but I’m afraid this bad situation in Afghanistan is going to get a lot worse over the next few days. Not sure if worse is going to be renewed fighting, a large scale hostage situation or wide spread public executions. I’d be absolutely shocked if we get all Americans, our allies (including all the Afghans that helped us) and equipment out before the end of the month.
 
Arm3 said:
I really hope I’m wrong but I’m afraid this bad situation in Afghanistan is going to get a lot worse over the next few days. Not sure if worse is going to be renewed fighting, a large scale hostage situation or wide spread public executions. I’d be absolutely shocked if we get all Americans, our allies (including all the Afghans that helped us) and equipment out before the end of the month.
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I’m less worried about the period from now thru Aug 31 then the period starting 9/1 for any Americans still there, and I believe there will be.
 
The "optics" are not good, as they say. One can only hope there's some credible plan in place, somewhere. Or that at the last minute some eminence pulls one out of rectal defilade.
 
Velocity173 said:
Shank
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Hah that reminds me of one day doing practice CAS (one of the absurdities of OEF at the time) for the dudes in Shank. A-10 is approaching their sim/dry roll-in or whatever they were doing, and all of a sudden gets lit up by the defensive guns. I guess someone forgot to turn that little guy off. Whoopsie.
 
35 AoA said:
Hah that reminds me of one day doing practice CAS (one of the absurdities of OEF at the time) for the dudes in Shank. A-10 is approaching their sim/dry roll-in or whatever they were doing, and all of a sudden gets lit up by the defensive guns. I guess someone forgot to turn that little guy off. Whoopsie.
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The C-RAM? Battle of the Gatling gun. I’d bet on 30mm over 20mm.
 
Arm3 said:
I really hope I’m wrong but I’m afraid this bad situation in Afghanistan is going to get a lot worse over the next few days. Not sure if worse is going to be renewed fighting, a large scale hostage situation or wide spread public executions. I’d be absolutely shocked if we get all Americans, our allies (including all the Afghans that helped us) and equipment out before the end of the month.
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Initially. It's going to be a hellhole for the people trying to get out. Ultimately, it will revert to the hellhole it always has been. Primal, tribal existence. The only difference is the modern Afghanis have had a taste of the modern world, and some of them don't want to go back.

They haven't been a threat to the world for two thousand years.they won't continue to be. We have no use for them. The Soviets did, that was their oil pipeline. Us? Bye.
 
Arm3 said:
The C-RAM? Battle of the Gatling gun. I’d bet on 30mm over 20mm.
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Yeah I believe that is correct. Nobody got hurt/nothing got broken, but it was a startling end to a boring vul. I found my flight some new tasking elsewhere pretty quickly after that :)
 
how ironic

edit: apparently the post I was referring to has been deleted...
 
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TCABM said:
I’m still curious why we haven’t put a DMPI (Desired Mean Point of Impact) on each if the Afghan FW and RW airframes left in the country. Literally a couple of B-52 missions and it’s done.
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I can’t believe we didn’t have anything overhead during this whole evolution. Same thing when ISIS took over Iraq. Easy targets. I seriously doubt the Taliban will be able to operate them for long.


View attachment 99465
 
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Velocity173 said:
I can’t believe we didn’t have anything overhead during this whole evolution. Same thing when ISIS took over Iraq. Easy targets. I seriously doubt the Taliban will be able to operate them for long.


View attachment 99465
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No, but they can sell them to people who do know how to operate them. Not to mention knowing how to disassemble them, learn their weaknesses, copy desirable features, etc. Stupid move to let these things fall into enemy hands.
 
Velocity173 said:
I can’t believe we didn’t have anything overhead during this whole evolution. Same thing when ISIS took over Iraq. Easy targets. I seriously doubt the Taliban will be able to operate them for long.
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There are US combat aircraft flying over AFG as we speak. I'm guessing it is a similar situation to what I experienced over Iraq in 2014 for about a month before we got approval to go kinetic against ISIS.....hands tied, just watching (bad) stuff happen.
 
Half Fast said:
No, but they can sell them to people who do know how to operate them. Not to mention knowing how to disassemble them, learn their weaknesses, copy desirable features, etc. Stupid move to let these things fall into enemy hands.
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Oh they’re old Black Hawks and the contractors already removed all the secret stuff in them. Heck, you can easily buy a GSA version or a civilian version on Controller. Not much of value in obtaining a 40 year old design.
 
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Velocity173 said:
Oh they’re old Black Hawks and the contractors already removed all the secret stuff in them. Heck, you can easily buy a GSA version or a civilian version on Controller. Not much secret to a 40 year old design.
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Don’t know much about Blackhawks. If any Apaches are left behind, I hope they’ve removed the MTADS and MPNVS.
 
Velocity173 said:
Oh they’re old Black Hawks and the contractors already removed all the secret stuff in them. Heck, you can easily buy a GSA version or a civilian version on Controller. Not much of value in obtaining a 40 year old design.
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We already sold Blackhawks to the Chinese, prior to Tiananmen Square. At that point, we realized "Hmm, maybe best to not sell them any more front line tech they can/will copy."

Point is, I don't think there are any secrets embedded in the Blackhawk's aiframe.
 
Brutal day at duffelblog

df6065ede0e7ad64fe0b90a1d8510cc0.jpg
 
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