Soviet Tank Graveyard
Tuesday, 7th March 2006 by James Turnbull
To the North of Afghanistan's capital Kabul is the "Tank Graveyard". Here there are hundreds of Soviet tanks, left there since the end of the Soviet war in 1989, slowly rusting away.
Apparently the Taliban used this field for collecting spare tank parts to service the active tanks in the military base just to the East. You can see that the U.S. bombers have destroyed most of the buildings in this base and there are large craters in the surrounding grounds.
Good ground level pics of the graveyard on this Russian page (warning: site features some NSFW advertising).
Thanks: jher
Guess the “lord of war” hasn’t been through Kabul in a while.
For all you black helicopter spotters!
View Placemark
Dang! Get me some steel wool and a plane ticket to Kabul!
I wonder what all these towers are for View Placemark
The towers look like radio towers to me, used for transmitting or receiveing something…
This air base is pretty impresive aswell. I’d assume this is probably occupied by US/allied forces. View Placemark
Found quite a few US miltary planes in the region. I think I’ve identified most.
A C-5 Galaxy taxiing
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A C-141 Starlifter with a nearby C-130 Hercules on the tarmac
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C-17 Globemaster taxiing with additional C-130’s (possibly AC-130 Spectre gun ships?), various helicopters (Chinooks, Apache Longbows, etc.), A-10 Thuderbolts/Warthogs… but cannot identify the other dark delta wing aircraft near the C-130’s.
View Placemark
I think they are Harriers peter.
Lee – I believe that you are correct and that would make sense. Thanks!
lee I dont think that they are harriers.
1) harriers are rarely used in U.S. military operations anymore, not efficient enough.
2) they seem to resemble f-16A hornet’s with that delta wing. harriers have a more swept wing
@ randall: f-16’s are falcons, not hornets. the f/a-18 is the hornet. anyway, the tail is all wrong to be f16’s and the sweep isnt severe enough. i agree with the harrier assessment, despite the logistical arguement against it.
They are USMC AV-8B Harrier II’s. I could come up with the tail numbers if I look around…
“USMC Harrier IIs saw action in the Afghanistan campaign ……… providing support for Marine special operations forces operating in the country.”
-Bill USMC Retired
Randall, You are correct that the Harrier had technical problems. In the late ’90s the Marine Corps started to refurb their Harriers and are now proving to be very mission capable aircraft. The Brits are also upgrading their Harriers so I believe they will be around for some time. They are very good at Close Air Support missions for protecting ground units.
I personally did not work with the Harriers, but we often deployed our FA-18 Hornets to the same forward operating bases… FYI, Harriers pilots are NUTS!
ah well tanks very much for that… hahahaha sorry just felt the need..
Thank you Bill,
S/F Dogboy
those other aircraft are EA-6B Prowlers.
I am looking for a electric starter 24volts for a Russian tank engine anyone can help the engine model not available its a 12 cylinder diesel engine the starter is srapped onto the side of the engine pinion is 11 teeth and 2-1/2 Diameter
The Russian tank graveyard is great!the buildings in the second picture are in fact Russian built repair shops-I toured these buildings 1n 2004-2005,while attached to the Afghan Army’s Kabul Military Training Center.These buildings are seperate from the main compound.they most probably contain unexploded ordnance-I DO know that they contain posionous snakes,and scorpions–DONT GO IN!!! A lot of the tanks,APC’s,trucks,and the occaisional helicopter are in the adjoining field-also a Bear bomber(in large pieces) If you want junk,and you have a sense of adventure,go on in!
I’m looking on Google Earth now, I think the fighter jets are F-16’s or F-2A’s (they look pretty much the same). And I think I also see some UH-60’s.
Behold F-16 and AV-8B Harrier
I’ll let you decide, I think its the F-16 personally.
Okay I suck at HTML as where it says the aircraft names above it Should be a link BUT its not so I’m going to give you guys a direct link to blueprints which give and aerial view. I see the similarity but I think its the F-16 seeing that the harrier’s intake at the sides is more obveous but are not so apparent in the images on GE.
F-16: http://www.militaryfactory.com/blueprints/imgs_ac/f16.gif
Sea Harrier: http://www.militaryfactory.com/blueprints/imgs_ac/bae_harrier.gif
AV-8B Harrier: http://www.militaryfactory.com/blueprints/imgs_ac/av8b.gif
Note how the Harrier’s tail starts quite a little AFTER the end of the wings whereas the F-16’s tail starts right after the Wings.