The Turkish-backed National Syrian Army (NSA) announced on October 17 that its militants had captured a large ammo depot of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria.
The NSA didn’t mention the exact location of the ammo depot. However, it claimed that the SDF used the ammunition stored in the depot to shell civilian areas in southern Turkey.
Photos of the ammo depot reveal that it contained dozens of Grad 122mm rockets as well as loads of light and heavy ammunition. An AT-4 anti-tank weapon, likely supplied by the U.S, was also found inside the depot.
Grad rockets. Click to see full-size image
AT-4 on the left side. Click to see full-size image
Click to see full-size image
Click to see full-size image
Over the last 24 hours, NSA militants captured two Humvee armored vehicles and an improvised Grad rocket launcher from the SDF. Most of the weapons were captured around the border town of Ras al-Ayn in northern al-Hasakah.
The U.S.-led coalition has supplied the SDF with loads of weapons since 2014. Most of the weapons were purchased from eastern European countries. However, some, like the AT-4, were likely supplied from U.S. military stockpiles.
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Well, it looks like that Kurdish military behavior is so bad and so stupid so far.
2 Humvee’s and a rocket launcher is the best Turkey has managed to bag in all this time? I wouldn’t call that signs of poor Kurdish military behavior. If anything its a sign that the YPG is doing very well, because if they had done poorly and ran, leaving their stuff behind as gets implied, we’d be looking at enough captured vehicles and equipment to outfit a small army with. The Saudis lose more equipment and supplies to the Houthis every day.
What I call the sign of their poor military planning and operation is losing large number of villages, towns and positions despite talking big and tough. It is also a sign for delusions of grandeur and being out of touch with reality.
Loosing and capture of a HUMVEE or two is not a sign for military might/poor military of either side, but they made a fuss about capturing an MRAP on a trailer a day before (and I find it curious that the fella bragging about “Rojava soil” and “Kurd comrades” several times pointed to “look, it’s Turkish flag on car!”.)
Kurdish fangirls being fangirls is obviously just as bad. But that is why they are fangirls. Like I said, even the best armies that advance lose stuff to the enemy from time to time. Even by 1945 the Germans could still score a successful counterattack now and then and produce propaganda material showing destroyed Allied and Soviet equipment and confused looking prisoners. With the Kurds I expect them to milk every Turkish bicycle they still manage to capture as a sign of them doing well. Considering how much faster and better the Turks have advanced in this amount of time compared to how slow they were at first in Afrin I expect more of them then just two Humvees and a rocket launcher.
Of course they’re not capturing much…b/c the Kurds RAN rather than fight! They are abandoning most areas, only in places where the SNA is weakest are the YPG/PKK actually fighting, and even then, they are getting hammered.
Have you ever studied armies that got routed? As in fleeing for their lives? When the Germans invaded the USSR the Red Army left so much gear behind the Germans could (and did) equip whole divisions with it. Similarly when ISIS invaded Northern Iraq the Iraqi Army left enough gear behind for ISIS to become a conventional army. 2 Humvees and a rocket launcher is not a sign of an army that is fleeing for their lives, that’s the sign of an army in a well organized withdrawal.
I’m no Kurdish fangirl in any way (that’s why I call them fangirls), but while the Turks are taking land, they don’t seem to be routing the YPG.
Much of the border area is also rather ‘open’ and the SDF, which is essentially a Light Infantry force with few, if any, heavy weapons, and has a great disadvantage when combating an invasion by All Arms mechanised force’s.
Now that the SAA is bringing in artillery support the dynamics will change, but only as long as SAA and Russian air support can be bought into the equation IF Turkey persists in her land grab adventure.
Nah. Looks like the Kurds left behind munitions that they couldn’t use in close quarter fighting.
This is all plan from Turkish-USA so called safe zone doing to make kurds back from border and reconing those areas So turkish terrorists and intelligence push so easier and resupply and reinforce for the kurds be so hard.
Now that SAA is there it doesn’t matter what old stuff they capture. Russia will be supplying them now.