HINDBUSTERS
Johan Opperman
Published by Johan Opperman on Smashwords
Copyright – Johan Opperman. 2011. All rights reserved.
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***~~~***
Part 1 – Angry Feet, Churning Wheels
Trouble
Ready
to Rumble
Manoeuvring
Brigades
Aloft
Flutter,
Flutter, Flutter
Duff
Gen
Options,
Options, Options
Tactics
and Plan
Operation
Weldmesh
Blood
Restless
Nights
Ignored
Wisdom
Mind
the Cracks!
Photographic credits
All photographs were taken by Johan Opperman during October 1985. Gun camera film and satellite images are exceptions. Satellite images were downloaded from the Internet.
***~~~***
“What is the law of the jungle?
Strike first and then give
tongue”
Rudyard Kipling: The Jungle Book
***~~~***
Prologue
During the mid-1980’s South Africa was engaged in protracted military operations in an undeclared war in Southern Angola. Ostensibly the military operations were aimed at eradicating the threat posed by SWAPO guerrillas operating out of safe bases in Angola.
At this time the SWAPO operations were mostly confined to the south western area of Angola in the geographical area of the Cunene province which Forças Armadas Populares de Libertaçao de Angola (FAPLA) called the 5th Military Region.
UNITA forces in this region were protected by association with the South African forces and in return they created a buffer zone between the distant SWAPO bases, where the insurgent forces trained and the South West Africa/Namibian border area where SWAPO carried out its guerrilla operations.
It was a crazy time with the MPLA fighting a Soviet/Cuban sponsored counter-insurgency war against rival UNITA forces, succoured by South Africa; and South Africa fighting a counter-insurgency war against SWAPO forces, supported by a MPLA/Soviet/Cuban pact.
In 1981 South Africa carried out a large scale, limited, semi-conventional military operation (Operation Protea) against FAPLA brigades deployed in Xangongo and Ongiva, two influential towns in the south of the 5th Military Region.
In 1983 the FAPLA 11th Brigade was attacked and destroyed in its base at Cuvelai in the Cunene province (Operation Askari). The SAAF played an important role in each of these operations and provided air superiority for the SADF ground forces to carry out military operations unhindered by Angolan Air Force counter attacks.
The success of these military operations had far reaching effects and saw the SWAPO militants forced ever further north and closer to the main FAPLA military bases for protection from SADF cross border raids. This in turn created in a large buffer zone under the nominal control of UNITA which was much to the liking of the South African strategists because it forced SWAPO to run a gauntlet between its training bases and its operational zones before encountering the South African Security Forces.
During 1984 a failed attempt was made to bring peace to the region and a Joint Monitoring Commission was established with South African and FAPLA military commanders and staffs meeting on Angolan territory, but two of the belligerent parties, SWAPO and UNITA were never part of the Joint Monitoring Commission and so it was doomed to fail sooner or later – and fail it did.
UNITA had its main headquarters and camps for rest and recuperation, military training, and logistics, etc. in the adjacent Cuando-Cubango province, which was part of the FAPLA 6th Military Region. The MPLA commanded the provincial capital Menongue (formerly, Serpa Pinto) and some smaller towns in close proximity to Menongue but UNITA in effect, controlled the province in the outlying areas and moved freely through the area to its operational zones in the north, north-east and central regions of Angola.
UNITA located its headquarters Jamba and its main bases in scattered bush camps dispersed over a sizeable area in the general vicinity of Mavinga, a former Portuguese colonial town. By the mid-1980’s UNITA was starting to make headway with its military operations in the central and northern provinces of Angola and it was a foregone conclusion that the MPLA would at some point attack UNITA in its south eastern stronghold to change the status quo.
In late 1984, early 1985, a case for military intervention in the Mavinga area was duly made and presented to the MPLA Politburo, who extended approval for a military operation, code-named “Operation Second Congress,” to be carried out.
Operation Second Congress was scheduled to commence with the end of the summer rainy season in mid to late May, when movement with motorised and heavy mechanised forces was possible through the usually muddy, swampy terrain of the region.
By August 1985 the area was sufficiently dry, the field forces were assembled, trained and ready for action. The signal to begin the advance was given and reluctantly South Africa was drawn into a military fray not of its design to support its ally in Angola.
The primary objective of Operation Second Congress was to reach Mavinga and take control of the entire area by establishing a strong military presence there and then systematically begin annihilating UNITA by destroying its headquarters, its supply bases and to cutting off its logistics to the UNITA frontline, thus placing the rest of the UNITA military machine under severe pressure.
When the FAPLA offensive started, UNITA hurriedly withdraw some of its fighting forces from the north to help defend the home-base. The march on Mavinga had to be stopped at all costs and the SAAF was called upon to help with transporting combat troops into the Mavinga area. The SAAF flew some daring night operations deep into Angola to fetch and carry the UNITA troops for defensive duties at home.
Meanwhile logistics, especially ammunition supplies to UNITA where stepped up and the Chief of Staff Intelligence Division was charged with determining the operational situation and monitoring the progress of the FAPLA advance plans.
Politically, it was a difficult time for South Africa and the government was loath to sanction large scale conventional military operations against FAPLA forces. However Special Force Reconnaissance Commandos (Recces) and elements of 32 Battalion were deployed to assess the tactical situation on the ground. Later elements of 62 Mechanised Battalion, with Ratel 90mm IFV and some artillery pieces, including a troop of 127 mm Valkiri MRL would be deployed to support the South African ground troops and assist in delaying the FAPLA advance wherever possible.
One
of four SADF Valkiri 127 mm MRL deployed in a temporary base about 25
kilometre North West of Mavinga. Fresh branches were cut every second
day from areas 2-5 kilometre away to use for camouflaging the
vehicles and the temporary base. Insert shows one of the other MRLs
with a foxhole in the right hand fore-corner.
It was soon clear that the lightly armed UNITA guerrillas and the SADF COIN forces were not a match for the better equipped FAPLA mechanised infantry units with their heavy fire support. The South Africans planned to make a stand on the banks of the Lomba River to the north of Mavinga as it offered the only real key terrain between the advancing FAPLA forces and Mavinga. It was thought that an orchestrated air strike using SAAF bombers would be helpful in slowing the march on Mavinga and reverse the odds in favour of the defenders.
After some deliberation, authorisation to carry out the air strike was given and a mixed force of SAAF combat aircraft deployed to bases in Rundu and Grootfontein in South West Africa/Namibia, from where the air strike was carried out and the FAPLA field forces were bombed.
The air strike did not fully achieve its intended results and although the FAPLA brigades slowed down to lick their wounds and refurbish their depleted fuel and ammunition supplies they remained resolute and carried on the march to Mavinga. In the meanwhile the South African politicians and the military commanders dithered in overcautious decision-making and withheld the SAAF knockout punch when the FAPLA brigades were in a vulnerable state. This gave the field brigades time to regroup and reorganise for a push onto Mavinga. The danger was not alleviated and another method to stop the advance had to be found.
Sometime during the reassessing of operational objectives a plan was hatched to cut off the helicopter air bridge to the FAPLA field brigades by attacking the helicopters ferrying in fresh supplies and evacuating the war casualties from the battle zone.
This gave rise to a specialist SAAF air operation code-named, “Operation Weldmesh”, an operation within the UNITA-support operation to help defend the UNITA home-base.
Operation Weldmesh had limited objectives, but the ramifications of the operation, I contend, will only be fully appreciated with the hindsight of a clinical history appraisal.
I served as the senior South African Air Force Intelligence Officer during the execution of Operation Weldmesh and was privileged to work with some remarkable personalities, military men who made success possible with their tactical cunning and tenacious determination to prevent the downfall of UNITA in the field.
This is my account of Operation Weldmesh.
Angry Feet and Churning Wheels
Trouble
On a Sunday, my wife and I spent time together sight-seeing around Johannesburg and visiting with her family. We had recently returned from a three year tour of duty in Oshakati, South West Africa/Namibia where I was stationed as a South African Air Force Intelligence Officer at 10 Air Force Command Post (10 AFCP).
We were slowly getting back into a more normalised civilian lifestyle after leaving the “operational area” and its freedom limiting safety concerns. The 1980’s were busy military times and in the non-mobile telephone era it was not quite so easy to get hold of someone who was out and about, away from home. And so it was that when we arrived home early in the evening we found a terse note jammed into the front door asking me to immediately contact my new boss at Air Force Headquarters in Pretoria.
“Pack personal kit for a three day stay in the bush”, he told me when finally I managed to contact him. We would leave for Air Force Base Rundu at 05:00 hours the next morning and he would brief me on the reason for the trip en route to AFB Rundu.
My three days extended to a six week sojourn and thrust me into a unique air operation, the memory of which is still vivid despite the passing years.
Very little has been written or recorded about Operation Weldmesh, yet from an Intelligence perspective it is an important operation, for this was the first time that “real-time intelligence” was successfully used to carry out a SAAF air operation. Let it be noted that all air operations have a measure of “real-time intelligence” for attacking aircraft are subject to various threats at all stages of the mission and require intelligence to counter threats and locate targets. This operation was different in the sense that it could not succeed unless intelligence succeeded. In fact I contend that the operation was so significant that it had major geo-political ramifications for a wider stage than Southern Africa, but more on that speculation later.
Ready to Rumble
South Eastern Angola is a beautiful country – it was at the time sparsely populated. Its people were divided along ideological lines, supporting either UNITA or MPLA, depending on who was more prominent in their immediate vicinity and history.
It was an area of great contrasts with harsh weather conditions at certain times of the year. The region was covered in densely wooded areas with tall trees and undergrowth bush that limited visibility on the ground to just a few meters in some places, but it presents a multi-coloured feast for the eyes with many shades of green, yellow and even reddish-brown hues in the dry months.
Mopane
tree forested area – typical of the vegetation and undergrowth in
the theatre of operations. Visibility in top photograph restricted to
about 40 m with the naked eye and a little better in the bottom
photograph.
In between the jungle woods, grasses and interesting plants hug shady areas or seek out hot sunny spots, all struggling in the thick, silicate-like white Kalahari sand so prevalent throughout the region. It is a region well watered by streams and rivers which, when in flood during the raining season, swamp the area, creating shallow, muddy “shona” pans that are indistinguishable one from another and confine movement to hard earthen paths trodden out by the tough local cattle and wild animals. This fascinating terrain with its high water table is generally flat, undulating, with the rivers and streams creating small depressions in the landscape and restricting north-south movement to well-known tracks and routes.
But in 1985 the area was treacherous; the main routes were trouble spots with regular ambushes, vicious, silent, deadly landmines and muddy pits that could entrap vehicles off the road and suck all movement to a dangerous stop.
When this happened the vehicle crews and occupants were left with little choice but to dig the vehicle out of its swampy entrapment and scout around for a way past the obstacle. A lone vehicle or a small convoy of vehicles with limited escort was a sitting duck target for guerrilla ambushers who would pick them off like ducks in a duck shoot.
The FAPLA forces of the 6th Military Region were well aware of the constraints that the geography posed. However, they were resolute, buoyed with the enthusiasm of the MPLA Politburo decision, keen to take the fight into UNITA’s heartland, to its bush capital, Jamba, in the Mavinga area some 300 kilometres to the south east of Menongue. Impassable routes and bundu-bashing was to be a toil leading to the eventual ridding of the UNITA prickle.
Operation Second Congress aimed to re-establish MPLA control over the Cuando-Cubango province so that it could root out the UNITA headquarters and disrupt its command and control of the guerrilla forces at war with the MPLA. It would cut off the supply lines that brought in the much need ammunition and other war supplies from South African. If UNITA was denied the free use of the region it would lose its safe havens for resting and training its troops and it would have to give up its co-ordinated war efforts in the other provinces in eastern and northern Angola.
Operation Second Congress would unleash a partly mechanised force with the necessary firepower to bash its way through to first, Mavinga and then, Jamba, to control and dominate the whole region. It would be a force large and powerful enough to defend itself and enforce a military outcome desired by Luanda.
Manoeuvring Brigades
The South African intelligence community was, by the middle of March 1985, abuzz with reports of Operation Second Congress and the military build-up in the 6th Military Region.
It was not hard to second-guess that a major offensive was intended for the dry winter months, although there was some doubt about Jamba as the final target. The arrival of some 5000 fresh combat troops throughout March, together with the stockpiling of weaponry and other logistics quickened heartbeats and prompted some preliminary planning to weigh up options and play out possible scenarios of desirable outcomes.
UNITA forces were preoccupied in the Luena area to the north of the 6th Military Region and would find withdrawing back into the heartland challenging in the rainy season and by the time its redeployed forces traversed the 600 to 1000 kilometre distances they would be too exhausted to put up meaningful resistance to a well-organised, well-equipped, fast moving conventional Army force tasked with the mission of establishing MPLA control in an outlying province.
This FAPLA offensive force would take control of UNITA’s Jamba headquarters area and form a wedge between the stronghold of the home base and the operational forces far to the north so that the northern forces would be prevented from launching successful counter-attacks to distract from the systematic destruction of the Jamba bases.
From Menongue, FAPLA started moving troops and equipment forward by road to assembly points in Cuito-Cuanavale, a sleepy town about 165 kilometres distant. Here the units would assemble in combat formations, conduct operational training exercises to integrate the infantry and mechanised infantry units and to mobilise as is the want of campaigning armies.
In all, five FAPLA brigades would assemble and prepare for war. The personnel strength of the brigades varied widely but generally consisted of about 1 500 to 2 000 troops.
The SAAF would task its relatively modest fleet of C-160 Transall transport aircraft to help move the distant UNITA troops in the dead of night to the Mavinga area so that they could redeploy in new positions to fend off the feared advanced on Jamba.
By mid-August 1985 all was ready and war was the agenda.
The order for the FAPLA advance was given and angry feet marched alongside the churning wheels of heavy laden combat vehicles as the brigades set out from the sanctuary of the Cuito-Cuanavale training grounds and headed in a south easterly direction to the Mavinga objective on a spreading double pronged advance. A sprint of about 150 kilometres, through hostile territory with unfriendly folk intent on stopping an unwanted advance, awaited them.
Four brigades left Cuito-Cuanavale, with the 8th and 13th Brigades taking up positions on the eastern prong of the advance and the 7th and 25th Brigades taking up positions on the western prong of the advance.
To an observer in Mavinga the advance would appear to be from the north and the north-west. For the moment the 16th Brigade remained in entrenchments to the east and north east of Cuito-Cuanavale as a reserve force that could respond rapidly in either direction if its services were needed by the dictates of the operational situation.
Each of the FAPLA brigades was made up of regular infantry units tasked with normal infantry search and destroy tasks. They travelled on foot or in “soft-skin” military trucks. The regular infantry was supported by mechanised infantry units mounted on BTR 60 PB armoured personnel carriers and co-equipped with PT-76 light tanks for armour support. Artillery fire support was provided by heavy (81mm) mortars, light (60mm) mortars, Zu-23-2 (23 mm AAA), ZPU-1/2 (14,5 mm AAA) pieces and BM-14 or BM-21 (122mm Grad P multiple rocket launchers). Some T-55 medium tanks were undoubtedly used in the advance but the D-30 (122mm) howitzer guns were left behind in the Cuito-Cuanavale area because they would impede the movement of advancing units.
FAPLA
equipment captured by UNITA in October 1985
Additional anti-air protection was supplied by Soviet man portable surface to air missiles with 9K32M Estrella-1 (NATO codename SA-7 Grail) or 9K34 (NATO codename SA-14 Gremlin) or 9K38 Igla (NATO codename SA-16 Grouse) designations and all were effective heat seeking missiles for use against low flying aircraft. At the time these were all commonly referred to as SA-7 surface to air missiles by the SADF.
Typical track along river flood plain. The
tree line in the distance is on the opposite side of a flood plain of
a river
The FAPLA brigades manoeuvred in formation with a vanguard force preceding the main body and a reserve force following up as a rear guard. The vanguard included reconnaissance and engineering elements to reconnoitre and find passable routes through the bush, because there were no roads to use. The calcrete roads built in the colonial Portuguese era were unsafe and were heavily mined by all the belligerent parties who sporadically operated through this area from colonial times.
The reconnaissance units were equipped with BRDM-1 armoured reconnaissance vehicles and the engineers were tasked with securing the route ahead and building makeshift bridgeheads to cross the bigger streams and rivers. The initial going was slow and cautious, especially over the rivers where the heavy vehicles tended to bog down in the muddy banks of the river approaches.
The
normal routes were constantly monitored by UNITA guerrillas and
whenever vehicle movements were spotted, ambushes were laid if there
was sufficient cover for the ambushers who would then engage the
enemy in fire fights, cause as much damage and confusion as possible
and then quickly slip away into the surrounding bush to regroup ahead
of or behind the FAPLA brigades for new ambush attacks.
Different views across river plains. Top
photograph shows one of the crossing points over the Lomba River
where a FAPLA force attempted a crossing, while the bottom photograph
shows a track used as a road, running parallel to the river.
Movement, especially vehicle movement in river flood plains is conspicuous and potential attackers are shielded from clear view in the trees of the edge line along the river flood plain. The flood plains are mostly wide, open grassy areas sometimes extending for hundreds of metres either side of steep river banks. Closer to the river the ground is sometimes muddy and swampy and this is where the heavy military vehicles got stuck in the mud and made good targets for UNITA sharpshooters and skirmishers to pick off.
In this way UNITA guerrillas were able to constantly harass the advancing FAPLA forces and test the mental resolve of the enemy commanders, but the skirmishers did not have the ability to permanently halt the aggressors in their advance.
The advancing brigades made slow but steady progress; mostly at a walking pace or slower. Vehicles that bogged down in the thick loose sand had to be dug out with spades to extricate them and the landmines and booby traps that were detected had to be defused or neutralised before the force could move on. The larger groups went go to ground in all around defensive positions and frighten off would be ambushers but small groups were very vulnerable in these situations and were punished by the UNITA guerrilla forces.
Trees were chopped down for logs and material to build bridgeheads and to fortify and camouflage hastily dug defence works, trenches and vehicle revetments for the manoeuvring brigades to use when they encamped for a night or longer.
Orders were issued in the evenings as the different units rotated on vanguard, main body and rear guard duties. Logistics were replenished, weapons were cleaned and vehicles were serviced or repaired and all the time danger lurked about causing casualties and war wounded who needed extraction from the battle zone. Dawn and dusk were particularly dangerous times and all the forces were placed on high alert stand-to at these times.
The manoeuvring brigades diligently followed Soviet tactics, using the vanguard to clear a way for the main body to follow and the reserve rear guard to sweep behind the main body and keep the logistic routes free of trouble.
The logistic tail soon found itself in a spot of bother however and was forced to move with the main body or face UNITA skirmishers and ambushes. The stagnation of the supply lines forced operational commanders to use air support to bring in critical logistics, like ammunition and fuel.
Command and control was exercised through dual headquarters, a highly mobile forward command post and a less manoeuvrable main headquarters within the main body. One of the command posts was always static and on the air with HF and VHF radios, ready to issue orders and instructions as the other moved. The command posts in effect “leap-frogged” each other as they crawled along the prongs of the advance.
Some Soviet and Cuban advisors were deployed along with the command posts to counsel on tactical plans and combat preparations and they needed extra protection to prevent them from falling into UNITA hands.
Aloft
In the build-up to the offensive, the Angolan Air Force, Força Aérea Popular de Angola (FAPA), was tasked for various missions. Firstly the transport squadrons airlifted the necessary supplies and troops from Luanda and other areas to Menongue. From there the supplies were moved mostly by road and helicopter to Cuito-Cuanavale.
Approximately 336 AN-12 and 458 AN-26 air transport flights were monitored over a period of 30 days between mid-August and mid-September 1985. The airlift capacity was capable of moving at least 5.3 million tonnes of supplies and thousands of troops in various load combinations.
The fighting component consisted of a mixed Combat Aircraft Regiment deployed at Menongue. The Combat Aircraft Regiment consisted of one flight with a mix of 4 MiG-23 BM/MiG-23 ML fighter jets for multi-purpose combat missions and one flight of 4 MiG-21 BIS for armed reconnaissance and interceptor duties and 1 MiG-21 UM double seater for training. The Combat Aircraft Regiment also included one flight of 4 SU-22 fighter-bombers from Namibe specifically for ground attack missions. All the fighters flew extended air reconnaissance missions over the areas to the east and north east of Menongue in the build-up to the offensive.
A single Mi-8 and an IAR 316 Alouette-III helicopter were placed on search and rescue standby for the combat jets, but they were never called out for such missions, even when UNITA successfully shot down FAPA fighter aircraft. Combat pilots were left to fend for themselves if they got into difficulties during an operational sortie.