Afghanistan

[BigDataPro]

Courtesy of USA

[OwlHoot]

Courtesy of USA

Personnel qualified to maintain all that hardware:
0

[vetran]

Personnel qualified to maintain all that hardware:
0

[lorakeen]

Personnel qualified to maintain all that hardware:
0

most of them are made in China, and China's very cozy with the Taliban. I think they'll manage

[OwlHoot]

most of them are made in China, and China's very cozy with the Taliban. I think they'll manage

And samples of the few not made in China will soon be in Chinese labs, being analyzed for weak points or good ideas to pinch!

[d000hg]

Army equipment is designed to be rugged and easy to maintain, and presumably the US also left loads of manuals and things behind.

[Paralytic]

Army equipment is designed to be rugged and easy to maintain, and presumably the US also left loads of manuals and things behind.

They just need to Google "Embraer EMB 314/A29 Super Tucano User Manual". They might get a few sponsored sites that try to charge them a few quid for the manual, but scrolling down will get them to the sits with the free downloads.

[AtW]

Won’t be a problem to maintain 16k night vision goggles (batteries not included, but oh well).

That alone will change calculus for night SoF operations - they will become a lot more dangerous, especially without good air-support.

Taliban might also switch to Western rifles - more accurate than old AKs

Western radios (lots of them) also likely to be far better than what Taliban used

Taliban now needs modern anti-aircraft weapons to stop any violations of their airspace - Iran (and likely Russia) will gladly assist

[OwlHoot]

Won’t be a problem to maintain 16k night vision goggles (batteries not included, but oh well).

That alone will change calculus for night SoF operations

I think passive IR night vision gear needs regular liquid nitrogen refills, presumably in special modules.

And they'd have to be bonkers to risk using illuminated IR, as anyone else using night vision would be able to pinpoint them as surely as if they were waving a torch around shouting "Yoo hoo - Here I am!"

Western radios (lots of them) also likely to be far better than what Taliban used

Wouldn't military radios these days rely on time-limited encryption modules and keys? Maybe not British radios, as we're probably still using valve models from the Boer war, but the Yanks would have the latest kit.

[AtW]

I think passive IR night vision gear needs regular liquid nitrogen refills, presumably in special modules.

I don't think so (for goggles), we are not talking about Javelin missiles here that do indeed require cooling down of IR matrix before firing it.

That kit that was left was certainly lower grade than in current elite units use, but having mass night vision capability is going to be a big problem regardless, plus there will be plenty of night vision scopes left behind also.

Radios left behind are also probably not particularly good - unlikely US would have trusted proper NATO kit with frequency hopping and good encryption since Taleban lacked kit to do heavy interception anyway.