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...

December 1975 Enter UNITA

Up to now our alternative timeline has largely ignored UNITA's role in the events leading up to Angolan independence and beyond.

We suspect that the South African secret service and/or special forces are behind an arms deal in Vienna that may have been aimed at obtaining Bulgarian weapons for Savimbi's forces. With the failure of the FNLA to take Luanda, either from the north with the support of white mercenaries and Zaire, or from the south with the support of the SADF, the role of UNITA in the war is going to get bigger.

So, what do we know about UNITA? Blogger Jim Hale has written a very pithy account of the real history that we'll use to build our counter-factual

http://warsinpeace.blogspot.co.nz/p/angola-1974-1980.html

'UNITA was both smaller and out-gunned by the other two factions and like the FNLA had fought the MPLA as much as it had fought the Portuguese. Although supported by China, the vast distance from Tanzania, where the Chinese mission was located and the hostility of Zambia, who relied on the Benguela railway line that UNITA kept attacking, made supply difficult. Zaire was very much behind the FNLA, so that route was out of the question too. During the Liberation War therefore, UNITA became self-reliant, built up an infrastructure within Angola and took what it needed from its enemies when it could.

Occupying the Central and Southern regions of Angola, UNITA were in a much better position to receive aid from South Africa. Portugal had previously secured Namibia's northern border, making insurgent (SWAPO) operations over it very difficult. Now that this security had gone, the South Africans wanted to create a new 'buffer zone' in its stead. By aiding UNITA against the MPLA and securing their aid against SWAPO forces in Southern Angola, they believed that this could be achieved. Despite ideological differences, UNITA and the South Africans shared a common enemy, the Soviet-backed MPLA....

South Africa's forces at this time were not the ultra-modern force it was later to become, at this time, but it was able to supply basic weapons and the men to undertake training UNITA troops with them (commencing 14th July 1975). UNITA had established its own diamond and other concerns within the areas it held and South Africa acted as its main trade route to get them out of the country.'

Jim also neatly sums up South Africa's stance in 1975

'The South African plan was to fortify the main UNITA stronghold Huamba, establish a formal training camp at Silva Porto 'flying columns' and assembled a strike force; 'Task Force Foxbat', which blunted the MPLA advance and was subsequently followed by 'Task Force Zulu' to take on the advancing MPLA, clear them from Southern Angola and then take Luanda, so as to install UNITA as the de facto government before independence in November.
'
So, in our counter-factual, there is room for shadowy elements in the South African security forces and military establishment to have quietly worked at supporting UNITA while their more visible colleagues embarked on the invasion of Angola that was foiled by Colonel Menendez and his comrades.

As Cuban personnel and Soviet equipment pour into Luanda, and as the Cuban led MPLA forces start to push north against the remnants of the FNLA, and south against the retreating SADF/FNLA, UNITA will become increasingly important.

Like the MPLA, UNITA is a client of more powerful intervening players, in this case South Africa and, indirectly, the USA. Again like the MPLA, UNITA has its own objectives, and whilst these are sometimes part of their common ground with the supporting power(s), they may just as often be entirely different. UNITA is based in central and southern Angola, and its support base is amongst the Ovimbundu peoples. It appears that once again ethnic divisions may be cloaked in 20th century ideological differences, a consequence of the fact that the Europeans who carved up Africa had scant regard demographic realiy on the ground and drew their borders along lines of latitude or convenient (to the cartographers) rivers.

So, it's December 1975. The Cubans and MPLA are advancing. European mercenaries are meeting in airport hotels in London and Paris. South African troops are heading south but BOSS and SADF Special Forces are organising supplies of weapons to UNITA cadre in Huamba and the surrounding area.



Peter de Jong, a Dutch arms dealer with family and commercial connections in South Africa has just purchased a former New Zealand Airways passenger aircraft through a Luxembourg registered shell company. The aircraft is refitted in Capetown to carry freight. A freighter registered in Greece has just picked up a shipment of 'machine tools' from Beloslav in Bulgaria. The machine tools are to be shipped to Robert Harbour near Luderitz in South West Africa. Then, who knows where they will be taken to?

I feel a game or two coming on...

Progress Report

A busy week and a half over Christmas and the New Year with 6 x T55s, 6 x BTR 60s, 6 x GAZ 69 Jeeps 'Technicals' and 6 x Toyota Pick Up 'Technicals' painted and based. I've also finished off 20 stands of Cuban Infantry and have made progress painting 10 stands of Cuban RPGs.

The T55s and BTR 60s will obviously be Cuban/FAPLA, as will the GAZ 69 Technicals. The Toyotas could be FNLA/UNITA or FAPLA.




T55s and a BTR 60



GAZ 69 Jeeps and a Toyota Technical

Toyota Technical with 23mm AA Gun



The Cuban/FAPLA army is almost complete. I have to paint some mortars, URAL trucks, a couple of helicopters and MiG 21 (although I'll probably leave the air support until after I've completed the FNLA/UNITA/SADF ground forces). UNITA and FNLA infantry are just about finished- the big job is going to be the SADF vehicles and infantry together with some trucks and Landrovers that will be also used by UNITA and FNLA. I have another couple of weeks off work so should be able make a dent in that lot...we'll see.

Progress Report

The South Africans arrived last week courtesy of Peter Pig. Great service - I only ordered thm what seems like a few days ago - and lovely figures and models.

So, I now have my Cuban/UNITA/FAPLA/SWAPO infantry to finish (and after a marathon session yesterday these are coming along nicely - pictures to follow) as well as tanks, APCs, technicals, a couple of helicopters (Mi 24 and Mi 17) and a MiG 21 as well as the South Africans. My forthcoming month off is going to be busy.

I've been thinking about terrain and have decided that whilst my miniature world maker river and roads will suffice I'm going to get new hills, trees and buildings as well as a new basecloth for this project. The thinking at present is 'teddy bear fur' in a light beige or sandy colour for the basecloth: three of Battlefront's desert hills, one extra large and two large; and about a dozen or so buildings from Peter Pig & Timecast. For the vegetation I'll use Irishserb's technique of model railway trees and lichen.

I hope to be able to play my first game by mid February.

Up to know events in War for Slow Readers hae mirrored what actually happened. That will change soon. Once the South African 2nd Infantry Division crosses the border to secure the  Ruacana-Calueque hydro-electric scheme and the US begins to send money and arms to back UNITA then the Cuban response may or may not follow history's script.

FNLA on the rampage...

A number of counterfactuals are possible:

• A stronger or weaker Cuban intervention than what actually occured
• UNITA and or the FNLA capture Luanda in late 1975 or early 1976
• South Africa intervenes more decisively
• The Soviets airlift Cuban troops en mass and provide naval and air support on a large scale
• The US and British, through mercenary troops and covert assistance to UNITA and the FNLA, shore up the South African position far more than they really did.

And that only takes us to March 1976!

There are the fascists Helmut!

As the war unfolds we may get an SAS raid on Luanda airport to destroy Soviet spy planes shadowing the Royal Navy Task Force heading for the Falklands; East German Kommandoes and Soviet Spetsnatz being deployed along and across the Namibian border; and Cuban mechanized troops taking on the SADF in support of SWAPO.

Soviet Tupolov Luanda 1982

The 80s are going to be very interesting in Angola...

Angolan Blitzkrieg

I bought a copy of Strategy & Tactics Magazine # 235 a couple of months ago when I was embarking on this project.

This edition features two games under the title 'Cold War Battles': the first is Budapest 1956 and the second, Angolan Blitzkrieg 1987,is the one I'm interested in.

The latter features Cuban and South African forces battling it out in Southern Angola in 1987-88. These battles, centred around the town of Cuito Cunavale, are the subject of much controversy. There are almost completely contradictoy accounts of events, depending on the political sympathies of the writers, in much of the literature. Both sides claim victory in what was the biggest battle in Africa since World War II.

There is something of an industry that seeks to claim victory for South Africa in both the published literature and on the web. The theme seems to be that the South Africans were the military victors and these accounts often quote, in great detail, realtive casualty figures and equipment losses to demonstrate this. The debates in internet foums are often not very fertile: when the view that the South Africans 'won' is challenged it is often rubbished by veterans who quickly use the 'you weren't there so so you can't know' argument. Joseph Miranda, the designer of this game and the author of a very useful article in the magazine, appears to sympathise with the view the South Africans were the 'victors'.

I'm not so sure. After Cuito Cunavale the South Africans withdrew from Angola and shortly after that aparheid collapsed. In purely military terms, the South Africans may have inflicted more casualties on their communist opponents, but the fact remains that the political victory went to the Cubans and the MPLA. Whilst I accept Mandela's rhetoric, that Cuito Cunavale was the death knell of apartheid because black Cuban and Angolan troops fought the white South Africans to a standstill, may be exaggerated, I believe there is enough truth in it to merit giving it some weight. After all, war is a political phenomena.



Close up of a game in progress

The game is very useful for 'War for Slow Readers', if only for the orders of battle, map and the detailed article in the accompanying magazine. I've played a couple of turns and fiddled around with the counters and it's given me plenty of ideas for scenarios and back stories for my campaign. Particularly intriguing are some of the unit counters featured: a Soviet Communications Unit, East German Special Forces (the 'Angola Kommando'), South African Paras and Special Forces as well as UNITA and FAPLA guerillas.

I've yet to come across any evidence that East Germany sent anything other than advisors and aircrew to Angola but the prospect of painting up a company of the Angola Kommando and deploying them in Soviet built helicopters is tempting...

Alvor Agreement, Lisbon, January 1975, and Subsequent Events

Leftist military officers overthrew the Portugese Government in the Carnation Revolution on April 25, 1974, The MPLA, FNLA, and UNITA each negotiated peace agreements with the transitional Portuguese government and began to fight each other for control of Luanda and the country. Holden Roberto, Agostinho Neto, and Jonas Savimbi met in Bukavu, Zaire in July and agreed to negotiate with the Portuguese as one political entity. They met again in Mombasa, Kenya on January 5, 1975 and agreed to stop fighting each other, further outlining constitutional negotiations with the Portuguese. They met for a third time in Alvor, Portugal from January 10-15 and signed what became known as the Alvor Agreement.

The agreement did not establish a mechanism to verify the number of troops that could be maintained by each political group. All three parties soon had forces greater in number than the Portuguese, endangering the colonial power's ability to keep the peace. Factional fighting renewed, reaching new heights as foreign supplies of arms increased. In February the Cuban government warned the Eastern Bloc the Alvor Agreement would not succeed. By spring the African National Congress and SWAPO were echoing Cuba's warning.

Leaders of the Organization of African Unity organized a peace conference moderated by Kenyan President Jomo Kenyatta with the three leaders in Nakuru, Kenya in June. The Angolan leaders issued the Nakuru Declaration on June 21, agreeing to abide by the provisions of the Alvor Agreement while acknowledging a mutual lack of trust led to violence. Many analysts have criticized the transitional government in Portugal for the violence that followed the Alvor Agreement in terms of a lack of concern about internal Angolan security and favoritism towards the MPLA. High Commissioner Coutinho, one of the seven leaders of the National Salvation Junta, openly distributed ex-Portuguese arms and military equipment to MPLA forces at the expense of the other competing parties.



Admiral Coutinho, centre, with Agostinho Neto of the MPLA, left, and Joans Savimbi of UNITA, right.


Edward Mulcahy, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs in the US State Department, told Tom Killoran, the U.S. Consul General in Angola, to congratulate the PMC rather than the FNLA and UNITA on their own and Coutinho for Portugal's "untiring and protracted efforts" at a peace agreement. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger considered any government involving the pro-Soviet, Communist MPLA, to be unacceptable and President Gerald Ford oversaw heightened aid to the FNLA

In July the MPLA violently forced the FNLA out of Luanda and UNITA  withdrew to its stronghold in the south and declared war. By August the MPLA had control of 11 of the 15 provincial capitals, including Cabina and Luanda. South Africa intervened on October 23, sending 1,500 to 2,000 troops from Namibia into southern Angola.

Angola in 1975: Some Basic Facts

Angola's borders in 1975 were the same as today. It had, and has, an area of  481,321 square miles (1,246,620 km²). It was, and is, comparable in size to Mali and is nearly twice the size of the US state of Texas, or five times the area of the United Kingdom.


In 1970, when the last official census was completed the population was 5.8 million. By 1975 it was estimated at 6.5 million. 


Angola was bordered by Namibia to the south, Zambia to the east, Zaire to the north-east, and the South Atlantic to the west. The exclave of Cabinda also bordered the Congo to the north. Angola's capital, Luanda, lies on the Atlantic coast in the northwest of the country.


Crudely, the country can be divided into a coastal plain 60-100 km wide, a hilly and mountainous belt and a high plateau.

 The climate is Angola's average temperature on the coast is 60 °F (16 °C) in the winter and 70 °F (21 °C) in the summer. It has two seasons; dry season (May to October) and hot rainy season (November to April). The vegetation is largely savannah with belts of tropical rain forest near major waterways. 

The factions that fought the colonial war against the Portuguese, and each other, had their bases in different geographical regions. The National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) were strongest in the north and had troops in neighbouring Zaire, as it was in 1975. The Marxist MPLA, or People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola's, core support came from the the Mbundu ethnic group as well the educated intelligentsia in Luanda, and other urban centres, as well as Angolan activists in Portugal. The party had formal links with Soviet and East European Communist parties. UNITA, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, was founded in 1966. UNITA was led by Jonas Savimbi after he broke with the FNLA.  UNITA's leadership was drawn largely from the Ovimbundu in the Central Southern region.

Storm Clouds

February 1975

 

“Peele’s source in Luanda finally came up with something on the Cubans”

“Anything of substance Neil?”

“Hard to say Sir, a Major Perez and a Major Cadelo spent the last couple of months over there on a ‘fact finding mission’, they met with Neto, who apparently asked for the world, but we know nothing of the response from Havana”

“Is Neto’s star on the rise?”

“The MPLA seem to be gaining ground but it’s hard to tell. The Portuguese are trying to broker a deal between the factions but I suspect they will cut and run eventually. The Chinese dabbled with the FNLA but they’ve pulled out. The Cousins are spending a bit on Roberto and his merry men though”

‘’Hmm…and Savimbi?”

“Unsure Sir, UNITA are very quiet. There’s some indication that Pretoria are taking an interest there.”

“Do the Cousins know that?”

“Highly unlikely Sir, should we tell Ross?”

“Over lunch Neil, over lunch”

August 1974

‘…the next item gentlemen, is Angola…the Cousins tell us Havana has sent two representatives of the DGI to Luanda…they want to know if our people know anything about this…Harry?’

‘Peele may be able to tell us something, he had a source in Luanda, at least he did until there was a rush on flowers in Lisbon’

‘Find out what you can. Next…there is a delicate matter in Cyprus I believe Anthony?’

January 1975 The White House

'Gentlemen, this is a map of Africa and here is Angola. Now, in Angola we have three factions. There's the MPLA, they're the bad guys. The FNLA, they're the good guys and there's UNITA and Jonas Savimbi we don't know too well'