More AK 47 in Angola

Cuban Intervention Halts South African Invasion

The Guardian 26 July 1985

Sources in Luanda claim an invasion of Angola's southern Cuando Cubango province by South African forces has been halted after fierce fighting.

'For several weeks the apartheid regime has been sending tanks and mechanised troops over the border in support of CIA backed UNITA terrorists who are challenging the authority of the legitimate MPLA led Government of Angola,' said a spokesman in Havana.

'Cuban soldiers have assisted their Angolan comrades to fight off this assault, and after a series of battles have successfully expelled the South Africans from Angolan territory' he said.

'The South Africans have suffered heavy losses, particularly in their armoured formations, whilst Cuban and Angolan casualties have been minimal,' he said.

Sources closer to the front line in Angola's southern town of Menongue report heavy military traffic, all heading south, over the past week. 

If Havana has committed combat troops this could represent a major escalation of the so called 'border war' that has dragged on in this region for the best part of a decade since Angolan independence in 1975. Since the mid seventies, Cuban forces have largely been confined to garrison duties as well as providing training and logistical support for the MPLA Government forces. Most of the actual fighting in Angola has been between the western and South African backed UNITA rebels and the MPLA forces. Additionally, Pretoria has been fighting a low intensity war along the Namibian - Angolan border with SWAPO guerrillas who use bases in Angola for their efforts to destabilise South African occupied Namibia.

Washington alleges that East German and Soviet pilots and aviation technicians have recently been deployed in Angola. If true, this is further evidence that that Moscow is escalating a proxy war in southern Africa.

Cuban tanks take the objective - a destroyed MPLA T-34 marks the crest of the hill

 Cuban Motor Rifle troops seize the railhead - UNITA militia take cover in the background

A murderous little battle for a territorial objective - SADF mechanised infantry fight off  enemy T-34s, BTR 60s and infantry

In other words we've played three more games using the original AK 47 Rules. This has really given us fresh enthusiasm. Whether this will manifest itself in renewed interest sufficient to breath more life into these blog posts we'll see. When I started this blog the narrative was a much bigger part of things - we'll see...

AK-47 Original

Yesterday we tried out the original AK47 Rules for the first time. Peter Pig have released these as a pdf and I bought a set for the princely sum of GBP10.00. 

After a quick read through I found myself asking why they ever bothered writing a second edition? The rules are really good - simple, and fun to play - definitely a game rather than a simulation, but who cares?

One nice touch is the pdf is personalised with a neat little cross reference to Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket: 'this copy of AK47 belongs to John, there are many like it but this one is his'.

There are enough web accessible modifications for anyone who wants more complexity or chrome to add as they see fit, even extending the rules to other periods like the Russian and Spanish Civil Wars and World War II. There is even a Cold War Central Front variant that looks very intriguing.

Our game pitched the Cubans and SWAPO against the South African and Namibians in northern Namibia in the mid '80s. The background was a major SWAPO incursion had attracted a lot of attention from local forces and their South African backers and the Angolans and Cubans had got  in involved in a fit of internationalist solidarity.

 As a result of the political flowchart being played out in the pre-game sequence, the SADF/Namibian forces benefited from increased determination, resulting in their one militia graded unit being regraded to regular, . For their part the two big SWAPO militia graded guerrilla units acquired an HMG apiece. The flowcharts worked well, gave a few laughs and resulted in the SADF/Namibians being on the offensive. Much better than the clunky pre-game in second edition.

Above: the table after The Cuban/SWAPO deployment. Comrade Jeff was terribly unlucky and only started with one - three BTR 60s and six stands of infantry- of his five units on the table. This meant he could only secure one of three objectives. He elected to deploy on the reverse slope of the hill in the top right of the photo; leaving the road junction in the village unsecured and the hill in the top left corner exposed to the South African advance which would begin from the board edge on the left,

Uncharacteristically, SADF Colonel Chris was very cautious, advancing slowly down the centre with three armoured cars and even more slowly towards the village with three Buffels full of troopies. 

In the photos above the South African armour is grinding its way across the board whilst a small unit of Special Forces walk up the hill top left, thereby securing the objective, and lie down in the grass to watch the fun. Comrade Jeff was frantically throwing dice to try and bring on his troops but the commander of those T55s must have failed his map reading course. We know that this part of the word is big and easy to get lost in but this was beyond a joke.

The South African Buffels finally make it to the village about the same time as a unit of friendly Land Rovers and a bunch of local forces infantry arrived from off table. The infantry were short of a truck and were presumably late because half their number (probably the native troops...) had to walk. I'm unsure what excuse the guys in the Land Rovers had...

About the same time a large group of SWAPO guerrillas chose to appear, took one look at the dust cloud heralding the advance of the SADF armoured cars, and promptly ran for the nearest area of thick bush to hide in. Three GaZ jeeps toting heavy machine guns drove on the table at high speed and promptly got stuck into the Land Rovers and the territorials. Clearly their commander had been schooled in the Che Guevara heroic style of leadership. Sadly he and his brave men came to the same sort of sticky end, despite inflicting some casualties on the enemy infantry, for once Chris found his mojo and started using the recoiless rifle on one of the Landies it was all over very quickly

The clock was ticking down rapidly and it was only after the Commissar riding with the Cuban tankies demoted the Lieutenant in charge and grabbed the map and compass that the T55s made an appearance. They were all set to shell the living daylights out of the SADF Kommandos sunning themselves on the hill when darkness fell and hostilities ceased.

By the time we'd totted up the victory points, even after penalising Chris for all sorts of trumped up transgressions (chief among which was him playing cautiously for once), the South Africans could claim a decisive victory. In fact, as the rules put it 'the victor will be writing the history book on this'.

I'm sure we'll be doing this again soon.

A Clear Victory - Now the People Demand Investment in Infrastructure!

We played a game of AK47 Reloaded yesterday and for the first time ever I managed a clear victory in a cross border incursion. My combined FAPLA-Cuban force successfully defeated a largely infantry SADF force despite losing two of the three objectives to the enemy.

The South African Paras were very professional, quickly occupying their objective, a built up area near a road entrance, without casualtiesand digging in. This deterred a Cuban tank unit from trying to take them on at close quarters. A good tactic for infantry faced with tanks in AK47, as in real life, is to hunker down inside built up areas so the armour has to close with them, allowing the footsloggers to close assault.

In the above picture you can see the Paras deployed in the built up area with the tanks approaching. The South Africans have just called in an airstrike, hence the explosion near the T-34s.

Elsewhere, a big unit of FAPLA militia successfully destroyed an SADF infantry unit in close combat although a second SADF unit secured the objective (the built up area with the crashed Mercedes objective marker). The destruction of this South African unit was to make a big difference to the Cuban-FAPLA victory points total.

In the above photo the marauding Cuban T-34s have just seen off a unit of SADF armoured cars. The vulnerability of armoured cars against tanks was underlined in this encounter. The South Africans were very brave in that they closed quickly with the tanks in order to maximise the effectiveness of their firepower. Unfortunately for them, this wasn't enough to knock out the  Cuban armour. What followed was swift and deadly - professional units get a re-roll when firing and armoured cars are not very well protected against high velocity armour piercing shot.

The game ended shortly after this with FAPLA having secured only one objective, digging in on the reverse slope of the gentle hill in the centre of the photograph. Communist casualties were light though and it was the body count that made all the difference in the end.

The upshot was that the SADF retreated back across the border at nightfall and the locals welcomed their liberation with calls for the Cuban engineers to sort out the roads and water supply!

Ngiva AAR

 15 km inside Angola across the South West African Border there is a road junction. In March 1979 this was the place where the front in the war between South Africa and Angola was formed. The South African 62 Mechanised Battalion, the spearhead of Operation CROSSBOW found themselves attacked by elements of the Angolan 11th Motor Rifle Brigade. In the picture above the South Africans will try to secure the junction and the surrounding high ground - three gentle rises that barely qualify as hills.

Left: A South African  command element is trying to consolidate atop a low ridge south of the road. A knocked out Angolan T-34 is on the skyline and Angolan Air Force MiG 21s are being used in the fighter bomber role against the SADF troops.

Despite being caught in the open by the MiGs the South Africans managed to avoid suffering serious losses and successfully dug in on the hill, thereby securing one key objective.

The MiGs were flown by East German pilots and it's believed that the Communist forces experienced problems co-ordinating  air support with their ground troops.



Left: Angolan T-55s are brewed up by South African armour. The South African Olifants destroyed two thirds of the Angolan tanks but were surprised when the Communists kept closing the range and knocked out several Olifants.

The Angolan armoured troops were commanded by a cadre of Cuban officers and NCOs.





Below: South African troops have succeeded in consolidating on another of the low hills south of the lateral road. The Angolans have advanced in their BTR 60s into the woods at the foot of the slope and have disembarked their infantry but cannot cross the open ground dominated by the South African machine guns and RPGs.

The game ended with a clear South African victory as they held two of the three objectives. The Angolans successfully stormed the village north of the lateral road with two inexperienced units of infantry and managed to inflict some casualties on the SADF troops. The hill north of the village was also taken by the Angolans and with some firm leadership from the Cuban advisors they stayed put and dug in.

Both sides launched abortive airstikes and artillery support was notable for it's ineffectiveness.

A good fun game of AK 47 Reloaded that could have gone either way. The effectiveness of the South African armour was a nasty shock to the Angolans but the determination with which relatively raw Angolan troops maintained their attack into the village gave the South Africans something to think about.

15 March 1979: South of Ngiva

Captain Pieter Van der Horst's radio crackled:




'Enemy now within 3 kilometres of your position, mixed tanks and APCs, infantry dismounted'

Van der Horst looked at his radio operator, his eyebrows raised...there wasn't supposed to be any enemy armour in the area...

'Alpha One, this is Sierra Six, hostiles at location 485674, prepare for contact, shoot on my command, over'

'Roger Sierra Six, over'



Elements of the South African 62 Mechanised Battalion, supported by tanks from the School of Armour, are about to engage the the Angolan 11th Mechanised Brigade some 15 km inside Angola. The SADF forces crossed the border late last night, launching Operation Crossbow, the second major 'external' of the border war to date. Their objective was to disrupt SWAPO actvity in the border region, now they have encountered Angolan regular forces.

Our alternative timeline of the war in Angola is about to re-start. The guerilla war between SWAPO and the SADF and their South West African Territorial Force allies has been gradually escalating. The South Africans launched their first major incursion into Angola last year with an airborne assault on SWAPO at Cassinga. This was a military success but the political consequences have not been as favourable to South Africa - western public opinion is even more negative towards the Apartheid regime and Cuba and the Soviet Union have increased their support to the Angolan government.

Alerted by SWAPO forces on the border, Cuban and East German pilots flew reconnaissance missions at first light and have detected the SADF columns. Angolan forces and their Cuban advisors have moved swiftly to meet the incursion.

In other words, a game of AK 47 is scheduled for tomorrow evening...

Back on the Border...

I dug out the three QRF Ratels I bought over a year ago and cleaned up and assembled them this evening before spraying them with black car paint as an undercoat.

A remark by my regular gaming partner about how he'd enjoyed our AK 47 games set in Angola prompted me to do this. I've been thinking that I might put a bit of effort into this period over the next few weeks and see if I can rekindle some interest.

My models are a long way from looking like the one pictured above but it shouldn't be too hard to knock out something that's as good. I have plenty of Unimogs, Buffels, Elands, Landrovers and Centurions to take on the BTR 60s, T34s and T55s...

I'm thinking of a Angolan-Cuban invasion of Namibia in 1979, as a reaction to the South African raid on Cassinga in 1978 and as part of a wider communist offensive in Africa.

Not sure if we'll use the AK 47 rules off the peg or whether I'll go to the trouble of drafting scenarios. I probably won't - I think it's time to just get the little men and models on the table and start rolling dice...

Task Force Orange

The third South African Task Force in our campaign is Task Force Orange. Like Zulu and Foxbat, TF Orange crossed the Namibian border on 15 October and by 25 October was driving on the airstrip at Menongue.

To date the advance has proceeded relatively smoothly over 380 km or so, the biggest challenge has been mines and ensuring the column well supplied.

Portuguese FNLA Mercenaries serving with TF Orange

Like the other two southern task forces Orange comprised an FNLA motorised infantry battalion, albeit with a greater proportion of Portuguese mercenaries, and two SADF motorised infantry battalions together with  an armoured reconnaissance element and engineering and artillery support.

Early in the morning of 25 October a company from 1 Para was parachuted in and, after a short pause to get organised, had seized the airfield.

Orange's task now was to rendezvous with the paras and secure a base at Menongue. An airlift of fuel, rations and ammunition would then re-supply the column before the drive on Luanda would resume.

The lack of resistance to date has prompted the SADF command to make Orange the priority column. It was still over a 1000 km from Luanda but air reconnaissance indicated that significant opposition was unlikely and there were still two and a half weeks to independence day on 11 November.

TF Orange was operating in relatively remote territory but the MPLA and its Cuban advisers were aware of its presence by 25 October.

The question was what, if anything, could they do about it?

Cahama 19 October 1975

The South African objectives were to secure the road entering the battlefield on the right, the crossroads over the bridge to the left and the road exiting the battlefield at the top of the picture.

A motorised company of FNLA militia was assigned to sieze the wooded area to the right of the river at the top of the picture and cross the river by the nearby ford; three FNLA technicals were ordered to drive over the bridge and take the crossroads in a coup de main; and an understrength company (two platoons) of SADF regulars were to secure the kraal in the right foreground. A full strength SADF infantry company, supported by six Elland armoured cars was in reserve. The accent was on speed and aggression: since crossing the border four days ago Task Force Zulu had not encountered any significant opposition from the MPLA or their Cuban allies.

The Bridge at Cahama

FNLA Technicals poised to charge over the bridge: the graffiti on the building on the right should have been a warning...

 The plan went wrong almost from the very beginning. The technicals drove across the bridge at high speed and ran into a well laid ambush at the crossroads. Cuban trained FAPLA troops, armed with recoiless rifles and dug in amongst the buildings, opened up on the softskinned FNLA column. Two thirds of the FNLA vehicles were knocked out immediately and as the remainder tried to retreat across the bridge they fell prey to pre-registered mortar fire.

The FNLA motorised infantry successfully approached the ford but were caught in withering fire from an understrength FAPLA militia company led by Cuban officers and instructors from their southern training camp. The FNLA retreated and went to ground.

The South African infantry approached the kraal with caution. Given the unexpected amount of firing and the confusion that was apparent from the radio traffic, their commander had decided a careful advance was called for. Once amongst the cover of the primitive dwellings, he was astonished to see half a dozen soviet built jeeps bristling with heavy machine guns drive at full speed over the bridge and take up position in the buildings where only half an hour ago the FNLA technical crews had eaten breakfast. He and his men spent the rest of the morning pinned down by machine gun fire. What he didn't know was that a Cuban special forces captain had commandeered the jeeps and, seizing the initiative, had driven straight through the FNLA position.

Securing the Kraal

The South African Commander acted decisively and committed his reserve. Fortunately for him Bravo Company had found the river to the south of Cahama to be easily forded and had outflanked the FAPLA position on its left. Even this good luck was limited however, as his troops entered dense bush and found themselves involved in close quarter combat with Angolan troops led by Cubans.

As night fell the South Africans counted the cost. All nine FNLA Technicals were destroyed, The FNLA infantry were refusing to move and his most successful unit had lost nine dead and over a dozen wounded. total casualties were 27 wounded and 14 dead. It was a disaster.

The Cuban commander made a quick appraisal of the situation. Astonishingly his men had suffered no fatal casualties although he had six wounded, one seriously. It was clear this was a large enemy force and the fighting in the bush by the river had left him in no doubt he was up against South African regulars with armoured support. Now wasn't the time for heroics.

As night fell the Cuban and FAPLA troops melted away and, under the cloak of darkness, headed north.

Pretoria September 1975

'This gentleman, is what we plan to do in Angola'



'The aim is to put a friendly government in power in Luanda by 11 November, the day the Portuguese leave and when Angola is officially independent. Of the three factions fighting the Portuguese and one another Holden Roberto's FNLA will receive the full support of the South African Government and any and all military and political assistance we can furnish.'

'Operation Savannah will commence in mid October. Three brigade sized groups, codenamed Task Forces Zulu, Foxbat and Orange; will attack across the Namibian frontier on converging axes here, here and here. The objective is to reach Luanda by independence day. A fourth Task Force, codenamed Blue, and in similiar strength, will invade Angola from Zaire.Same objective'

'Each of the Southern Task Forces will comprise three motorised infantry battalions of the SADF, with appropriate reconnaisance, engineer and artillery support. Airborne troops in company strength will be responsible for seizing key bridges and airfields ahead of the ground troops. Each Task Force will have a battalion of FNLA troops made up of black soldiers and mainly Portuguese mercenaries. It is important we give the impression the SADF is assisting an indigenous Angolan liberation movement...'

'Task Force Blue will be made up of two battalions of FNLA troops and a battalion of Zairian motorised infantry. Artillery support will also be provided by Mobutu's army. This force wil be stiffened by a cadre of white mercenaries, again mainly Portuguese, although there will be British and French soldiers of fortune present.'

'We do not anticipate any serious resistance from either SWAPO or the MPLA. The biggest challenge will be the distance the southern task forces are required to advance and the associated supply problems. Each airfield will be a staging post for the next leap forward. The key is speed and aggression. The paras take the airfields, we follow through hard and the air force will fly in supplies.'

'The one potentially serious problem, apart from the distance we need to cover, is the presence of four Cuban training camps. We have yet to locate a single one of these although signals intelligence and aerial reconnaisance indicates that two of them may be across the projected lines of advance of Zulu, near Benguela, and Blue, to the north of Lunada, here and here.'

'At this stage it is unclear just how many Cuban troops are present and how heavily armed they are.'

'Z Day is currently set for 15 October. There's a pack here for each of you. I suggest you study it and we re-convene at 1400. Any immediate quesions?'

SADF Build Up

I've spent the last week painting dozens of SADF infantry and vehicles and here are some of the results:

Full marks to Peter Pig - these are lovely figures. I'm really pleased with the results. All figures were spayed matt black as an undercoat and after painting in the faces, hands and arms with Vajello Dark Flesh and dry brushing the hardware with Vajello Gunmetal Grey I painted the trousers and jackets/blouses Vajello English Uniform (which I reckon passes for SADF 'nutria') and the webbing Vajello Khaki. The helmeted figures had their battle bonnets dry brushed khki as well. A 25% brown acrylic ink wash did wonders to shade the figures and after varnishing with matte acrylic the job was done.

This week I'll do command figures, weapon crews (HMGs, mortars and RRs) an vehicles and crews.