There is something I'm not understanding about the right wing Afghanistan narrative...

I doubt 100,000 pounds of people (and I am being very generous in that number) pose much weight and balance issues for a C-17 with almost twice that capacity. Given the fact you can't stack people on top of each other like containers. But it most certainly is an admirable mission. Thats a lot of people on the deck.

 

It is more than flying an airplane. I have owned a couple of airplanes over the years.

Making it all work is what counts. My last tour in the Air Force was in the 21st Air Force operations center. Briefly to make it all work they have to make crews, spare parts and fuel are available when they need it. They have to arrange the routes and scheduling to avoid enemy fire and make sure the right number of aircraft are on the ground at the right time to load the evacuees. That is the short version of that amazingly complicated operation.

 

Flying in at night to an unsecured parameter in Afghanistan has got to have some pucker factor. I understand no ILS approach exist out there right now. Doing tactical landings from high altitude for missile avoidance is enough on its own. Then loading 800 people and getting out only to come back and do it again?
Those guys have my respect. UTMOST respect.

 

I've seen no reports of troops in excess of the 2,500 total that Trump left in January.

Please cite, as I'd be interested in that.

As I've pointed out before, analysts absolutely did NOT believe that the Taliban would hold off on taking over Afghanistan once we started extractions of allies and contractors. In other words, it didn't really matter when we started doing that.

Whining about which airport facility we chose hits me as based on a cheap personal guess.

 

Agreed. Simply suggesting we would fly missions out of Bagram with those planes sitting on the airfield is just not a justifiable position to take without knowing what would actually be required (parts, fuel, base defense, etc.) and what missions we would fly that would have meaning.

I have no military experience. My last of several plane was a Piper Malibu. I loved that plane a LOT. My partner and I had to sell when he left the area, and I chose not to own it on my own. It's a plane that one really needs to fly frequently and spend the time on keeping up with maintenance and the yearly training requirements for insurance - which I never disagreed with.

 

No!!!! And your failure to tell us what difference that made after this being the FOURTH time I ask, clearly indicates that you don't either.

And I see I'll have no better luck with your two contradictory points, one claiming the evacuation was too slow, the other that it was too quick.

So thanks for playing...

 

Wait a second. You thought 2500 troops could run the air base for 1 year prior to the evacuation while providing security in Kabul?
Come on dude. Really? You have at least that many Airforce/Army personnel to operate a base that size with over 200 aircraft on duty.
Pilots, maintenance, mission planners, support, refueling, traffic control, weapons specialist, arming, logistics, mess hall staff, and building maintenance.

You couldn't possibly believe the same 2500 troops left in Afghanistan were providing those duties. I'm retired Army 09 Whiskey, I have some expertise in this area.

I can provide information on our evacuation of Bagram.
https://apnews.com/article/bagram-afghanistan-airfield-us-troops-f3614828364f567593251aaaa167e623

Our evacuation of Bagram 30 days prior to evacuating (in the middle of the night with no explanations to local command) dealt a SEVERE blow to Afghan forces moral. Which is another reason they took over 45 aircraft and a 1000 soldiers and fled Kabul two days before the Taliban got there.

Not to mention, we were tracking the Talbans advance through Afghanistan when they started their seizure of Afghanistan starting May 1st because Biden refused to get out according to the agreement. All we had to do was leave prior to their arrival in Kabul. Really not that difficult to grasp.

 

An ILS would most likely not be required.

While not officially a precision approach, GPS approaches are pretty dang good and don't require any kind of ground based radiation - like ILS, communications radio, radar, etc.

 

I said nothing about 1 year of anything.

I read your cite when first printed. It says nothing about requirements for operating that base.

When our military stated that we had no more than 2,500 troops in Afghanistan in January, I chose to believe them.

I do not agree with your assessment of what the Taliban would do when we commenced extraction operations. Your belief that they would NOT simply take Afghanistan at that point hits me as ridiculous.

 

Right. That's what I thought too. That if they didn't leave when they were asked to leave, and even offered to pay for their flights, the only possible reason is that they didn't want to. I think it was a dumb decision that many of them later regretted... but it was their decsion.

 

Thats what your threads are about. PLAYING
So you think taking my post out of context gets you points huh. Its GLARINGLY APPARENT why you refuse to post my entire quote with my questions.
Its because you can't answer them without looking foolish. But EVERYONE reading this thread knows better so you can continue to take post out of context claiming your little wins but the only one you're fooling is you.

So now on to air support (Like anyone would need that explanation)
Withdrawing our forces in the middle of the night without even informing local command told the Afghan army we must know something they don't. It was debilitating at the very least.

https://apnews.com/article/bagram-afghanistan-airfield-us-troops-f3614828364f567593251aaaa167e623

Had we evacuated prior to Taliban occupation (Like anyone playing with a full deck would do) our air support would be able to track and pin down any advancing army trying to reach Kabul hundreds of miles away. Like you couldn't figure that out for yourself.

Once Biden ALLOWED the Taliban to occupy the city PRIOR to evacuating, not the 2500 soldiers (that were evacuated to the airport you knew nothing about) or the entire US Air Force could have helped. Which is why we lost 13 American warfighters thus far.

So now you can return to your playing.

 

Or maybe it was because Biden told them (and everyone else on the planet) he wasn't evacuating until 9/11, 30 days away from when he was forced to evacuate leaving them stranded behind enemy lines.

 

Once again, the same unsubstantiated assumptions and refusal to admit the situation as per 1Q2021.

 

True.

Regardless of the few who have integrated themselves in Afghanistan and actually don't want to leave, I can not even SLIGHTLY believe we've found all our allies and contractors and provided extraction.

It's been a long time since we could travel across Afghanistan to find potential evacuees.

 

You better offer some sort of evidence of that!!

You just keep whipping out crazy ideas as if they should be believed until someone follows up with evidence that your idea is nonsense.

 

Victory, as John Kennedy observed, has a thousand fathers, while defeat is an orphan. Hence the vitriol misdirected (in some cases) at Biden.

 

The 2500 troops were there in Afghanistan after Trump evacuated 13,000. Its old news. Boots on the ground (Troops) are just as advertised. Troops

It wasn't supposed to tell you how many were operating the air base. It was provided so you know how we evacuated that base 30 days prior to the Kabul evacuation and how it was done. So we had 2500 Troops in Afghanistan January through the evacuation. And after we evacuated Bagram, we still had 2500 troops on the ground.

Troops don't include Air Force support personnel which are not fighting troops. If you feel like you were lied too about how many troops were on the ground you might want to visit the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing website that were assigned to Bagram when it was evacuated.

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan -- Airmen assigned to the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing at Bagram recently had the opportunity to share their mission with U.S. Army Gen. Stephen Lyons, commander of U.S. Transportation Command, during a Veterans Day visit Nov. 11.
Lyons is the 13th USTRANSCOM commander and leads an enterprise of more than 144,000 logistics and transportation professionals.

Not sure how many that puts in Bagram but I am sure you can figure it out

https://www.afcent.af.mil/Units/455...9776/transcom-commander-visits-bagram-airmen/

Its not my belief, its already a historical fact. They started their seizure of Afghanistan May 1st as they threatened they would because Biden ignored them, broke the agreement, and stated he was going to evacuate on the 20th anniversary of 9/11.

It took the Taliban 4 months to get to Kabul. Nothing you can post is going to dispute that fact.

 

I have yet to see anything you or anyone else have provided disputing my claims but please feel free to do so, I wasn't aware so many were unaware of the largest news stories in the media and Pentagon press briefings.

But here is your information on Bidens claim about 9/11 evacuation.

President Biden will withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan over the coming months, U.S. officials said, completing the military exit by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that drew the United States into its longest war.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...8c3cae-9beb-11eb-8a83-3bc1fa69c2e8_story.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/us/politics/biden-afghanistan-withdrawal.html
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-afghanistan-taliban-d2c54073ce67f3b162c77b4f9f2f0ddd
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/14/biden-announces-us-troops-to-leave-afghanistan-by-sept-11.html

 

The NATO allies had about 5000,

 

Then why don't you tell me which claims are suspiciously unknown to you. Do you even watch any Pentagon briefings, news, or military advisors? Am I your only news source?
I seem to be.
Provide me with your unknown information problems you claim I am just posting for political reasons.
Try me. If you can.

 

I remember seeing that.

I'm not sure what there mission has been or how much it has impacted US plans.

 

Given you have optimal weather operations 24/7 for 2 weeks. GPS only gives you location data. Not approach and decent data or provides any valuable information that can be used in inclement weather approaches. Rain, Fog, low ceiling, or other factors.

 

You claimed distress at leaving Bagram airbase.

But, you don't point to any specifics concerning the reasons for that departure or the size of investment required to maintain its operation or what kind of missions our military states would have justified keeping it.

Or, maybe you have evidence that it was abandoned without any thought or opinion by anyone in our military or government.

 

Well, the Taliban now have control of HKIA, too, so screws to any Americans still stuck there.

 

No, GPS does give altitude information - just not accurate enough to qualify as a precision approach. Plus, airplanes of that caliber have instrumentation for determining height above terrain.

I've landed in the soup using GPS approaches and with no height above terrain capability. The main disadvantage is that the ceiling can not be as low as is the case for precision approaches such as ILS.

There are even approaches that are purely based on ground radar. Your approach controller uses his scope to give a rapid fire cadence that indicates your position wrt the approach. I did that once for practice at a military airbase. They allow it sometimes, as it gives the approach controller practice. Of course, I was not allowed to touch down!! At a decision height I had to go missed approach and follow a departure.

Is radar too dangerous? I don't know.

I think someone with actual military training could land at a big fat runway in Afghanistan without ILS as long as there was some room below the ceiling.