For most of the 20th Century, South Africa was protected from the chaos of greater Africa by a screen of friendly buffer states; Rhodesia, Angola and Mozambique. That buffer began to crack in 1974 when a military junta overthrew the Portuguese government and announced it would quickly withdraw from its African colonies. Angola especially became a tremendous problem for South Africa. Communist insurgents there offered safe harbor to various South African anti-apartheid groups and threatened South West Africa, a South African protectorate since the end of the First World War. The government of South Africa viewed South West, as it was called, as an integral part of the country. White Citizens of South West held South African citizenship and were represented in parliament.
The South African government, first under John Vorster from 1966-1978 and then PW Botha from 1978-1989, saw South Africa as a nation besieged, subjected to a 'total onslaught'. In their view, 'total onslaught' represented a military, political, cultural and economic war on South Africa and the Afrikaner way of life. That way of life included Apartheid of course, but the white South African's view of his country was much more complex. White South Africans saw themselves as part of the West, an outpost of Christian civilization on a continent that had descended into chaos with the end of colonial rule. South Africa was also a capitalist country with vast mineral wealth and a skilled workforce. As such, white South Africans were staunchly anti-communist and saw their struggle in Southern Africa as a front in the Cold War.
From the beginning, the South African government believed the nation's fight for survival must be waged on the political, economic, and social front as well as the military. Constant Viljoen, Chief of the South African Defense Force from 1980 until 1985, wrote that 'the military only represents about 20 per cent of the clash and 80 per cent is the political, psychological and economic situation.' Viljoen, and other South African military leaders deeply feared the Rhodesian example, where the government of Ian Smith never lost a battle, but failed to follow up military victory with a political accommodation with their own black population. South African generals were also keenly aware of time's advance, realizing that the longer white South Africa fought, the tougher it would be to find a just political settlement. Viljoen and company understood that the war could not be fought indefinitely. He wrote, 'I remember being very frank with the Cabinet, telling them we could carry on militarily for a very long period but eventually they would have to make some political moves to solve the problem.' In other words, Apartheid would have to end, but end on terms favorable to white South Africa.
When PW Botha took power in 1978, he resolved to meet the 'total onslaught' with 'total strategy'. Botha coordinated every facet of the government against enemy action. This included not just military action but also civil affairs within South Africa, education, public works and other efforts meant to build goodwill with the black population. Botha also sought to modernize apartheid and worked to repeal some statutes, such as laws banning interracial marriage. Botha even met with the jailed Nelson Mandela and began talks with him about political reform and power sharing. Though he fought the ANC and battled communist guerillas abroad, Botha laid the groundwork for further reform after his retirement in 1989.
The South African Army
The old South African Army was divided into three elements, the Conventional Force, the Territorial Force and the Training Establishment. Like their fathers and grandfathers, White South Africans were citizen soldiers, riding to the defense of their town in special Boer 'commandos' similar to the Minute Men of the American Revolution. Unlike the South African Navy and Air Force, both of which were dominated by English speaking South Africans, the army was a decidedly Boer institution where Afrikaans was the favored language. However, units did try to use both Afrikaans and English, usually alternating each month.
The Conventional Force was the main combat organization of the South African Defence Force and numbered more than 77,000 men. Principle formations were the 7th and 8th Divisions, each divided into three standard brigades plus an armored regiment, two artillery regiments, two anti-aircraft regiments as well as other support units. These were large organizations numbering in excess of 20,000 men. The Conventional Force also had two independent brigades, the 60th Mechanized and the 44th Parachute. The Conventional Force itself had two elements, a small standing Professional Force cadre of specialists, officers and NCOs, and the Citizen Force of citizen soldiers. Most army instructors were veterans of the Second World War, having served in Africa and Europe with the British Army. Naturally the SADF drew on British military tradition, emulating rank structure and etiquette. There was also a strong influence from the Boer War, a catastrophic conflict burned into the collective South African memory.
The Territorial Force was tasked with internal counterinsurgency operations. Its area of responsibility was divided into eleven sectors, 10 in South Africa and one in South West Africa. These were broken up into a total of 40 headquarters areas. Each area had a standing headquarters and could draw upon a pool of reserve units, called commandos in the Boer tradition, of about 150 men. Commandos were counterinsurgency specialists responsible for the internal security of South Africa.
The Citizen Force was formed in 1967. Service in the Citizen Force was the duty of all white male South Africans, who registered in 11th Grade. After school, recruits were liable for a period of training lasting from between nine and twelve months. By 1977, this had been raised to two years. Between 25,000 and 30,000 young men passed through Citizen Force training camps per year. After this period of service, CF soldiers were liable for call-up for another ten years. Call-ups typically lasted 90 days, but could be extended as needed, totaling 720 days over ten years.
For the most part, South Africa's Bush war was one of small units in which South African troops practiced 'aggressive patrolling'. These entailed small unit actions fought at the section level. The basic South African unit was the platoon, commanded by a lieutenant and a sergeant. Platoons were subdivided into sections of ten commanded by a corporal. South African doctrine emphasized mobility, concealment, fire and movement. South African units could call in artillery support from small, mobile 60mm and 81mm mortars, but in larger battles, such as Cuito Cuanavale, relied upon the accurate and deadly G-5, a 155mm howitzer based on a Belgian design but manufactured in South Africa.
The South African Military Industrial Complex
As part of the international effort to end the Apartheid regime, South Africa was subjected to a global economic embargo. The embargo included military hardware, forcing South Africa to develop its own arms industry.
Fortunately for the SADF, South Africa possessed a first world economy with the natural resources and skilled workforce needed to produce its own weapons systems. The task fell to companies like the Armaments Corporation of South Africa (ARMSCOR), which developed several vehicles perfectly suited to operations in the African bush. Other corporations important in the development of SA vehicles were Reumech OMC, and TFM Manufacturing, a multinational corporation headquartered in London.
Because the Bush War was fought on a front that was wide and deep, on terrain that was mostly flat but crisscrossed by small fordable rivers and ditches, the SADF needed long range vehicles capable of overcoming various natural obstacles. As landmines were a favorite weapon of communist forces, South Africa invested considerable time and energy developing mine resistant vehicles. During the 1970's and 80's, the South African arms industry developed several quick, rugged vehicles suited to conditions in the bush.
The Rooikat is a wheeled armored vehicle uniquely combining the roles of reconnaissance and tank killing. It is capable of speeds in excess of 50 km on cross-country missions and has a fuel range of 1000 kilometers. The Rooikat is extremely agile, able to cross ditches and obstacles in excess of 1 meter, and ford rivers up to one and a half meters deep. It also has extensive under armor to protect it from land mines and features a turret mounted 76 mm cannon. The 76mm fires HE and anti-personnel rounds with a muzzle velocity of 1600 m/s that can penetrate the armor of most Soviet made tanks. The Rooikat has a crew of four.
Another important anti-tank platform was the Ratel. This is a South African version of the French Panhard armored car. The South Africa Ratel is a 6x6 wheeled infantry fighting vehicle, which, like the Rooikat is suited to long range, cross country missions in support of infantry. It is also extremely versatile. While the majority of Ratels mount a 90mm semi-automatic cannon, some are outfitted with multiple turret machineguns. The Ratel has a standard crew of four (two man turret, driver, commander) and can carry up to eight infantry dismounts depending on the model. While its armor is light, the Ratel's speed and maneuverability make it a potent anti-tank vehicle. Many Ratels were outfitted with the ZT3 Missiles System. This is a three tube, laser guided missile mounted atop the Ratel, and had a range of up to 5000 meters. The Ratel 90 and its variants were used by the South Africans with devastating effect on Angolan armored forces at the battle of Cuito Cuanavale in 1988, destroying dozens of T-55 tanks.
The South African Police and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research developed a unique infantry transport, the Casspir, an anagram of SAP and CSIR. The Casspir has a raised V shaped hull designed to deflect landmines, a crew of two and can carry up to twelve soldiers. The Casspir has a standard top speed of 70 km/h and a fuel range of 500 km. As it was used in the townships by SA Police, the Casspir came to be widely associated with government crackdowns in black areas of the country in the 1980's and is today seen as symbol of the Apartheid regime. The US Marines' MRAP was inspired by the South African Casspir.
Even with its large force of anti-tank vehicles, the SADF needed an armor element. To meet this need, South Africa founded the Olifant Manufacturing Company in the late 1970's. OMC later became the above mentioned Reumarch OMC. The Olifant is a derivative of the British made Centurion tank, a vehicle which saw great success with the Israeli Defense Force.
Battle of the Totals
While working toward an acceptable political settlement, the South African government decided that it had to act aggressively against the communist government in Angola, which was allowing the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) and its armed wing, the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), to operate within its territory. Opposing the Marxist SWAPO was UNITA, founded and led by Jonas Savimbi. Savimbi was born in 1934 to a well to do family but was active in the early days of the Angolan independence movement. During the 1960's, he and other UNITA officials trained in China, where they learned the Maoist art of guerilla war. Savimbi also spent time in Nasser's Egypt. During the 1980's, the United States sent financial and military aid to UNITA. President Reagan even hosted Savimbi in the White House. By the end of the decade, UNITA's army numbered some 60,000 men, about half regular forces, the rest guerilla. There was also a vast logistical infrastructure based in UNITA's unofficial capital at Jamba in southeast Angola.
Throughout the Bush War or Border War, as the South Africans called it, the South African Army raided Angolan territory. The most celebrated of these was 1976's Operation Savannah. This was a large raid conducted by South African forces deep inside Angola in support of UNITA. Supplied by the air, multiple columns drove north and west toward the capital of Luanda, engaging Angolan, PLAN and Cuban forces and disrupting their military infrastructure. The raid pushed PLAN forces out of southern Angola and saved UNITA.
The reality of 'total strategy' against 'total onslaught' led, in 1978, to the establishment of the National Security Management System. The system existed to coordinate all branches of the government in the defense of the state against internal and external threats. The system enabled the quick and easy coordination of military affairs with civil affairs designed to win the hearts and minds of local peoples. Management committees were established to handle civil affairs, the building of roads and schools for example, in areas where the ANC or other anti-government organizations were strong. South African army officers usually commanded these committees. This system led to a new kind of South African officer, the so-called 'securocrat', a soldier whose day-to-day activities revolved around, not the battlefield, but the boardroom.
After Operation Savannah, South African forces routinely launched preemptive raids into Angola and other neighboring countries. Throughout the 80's, the South Africans attacked PLAN and Forças Armadas Populares de Libertação of Angola (FAPLA) bases in Angola. These raids usually involved the aerial insertion of an ad-hoc force of paratroopers and commandos into Angolan territory. Sometimes South African forces conducted ground-based, cross boarder search and destroy missions against PLAN and FAPLA targets. The largest of these, indeed the largest South African military operation since the Second World War, was Operation Septic. Here, a South African force divided into three battle groups moved overland into Angola and attacked the FAPLA base at Chitumba. The initial attack was so successful, and yielded a windfall of intelligence; Septic was prolonged and expanded against FAPLA targets throughout the area, resulting in 380 enemy dead and the destruction of vast military stores and infrastructure.
The South Africans also attacked the political and military wings of the African National Congress, which maintained extensive facilities in Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho and Botswana. In the case of Mozambique, South Africa actually lent technical and material support to RENAMO, an anti-government guerilla organization until 1984, when the regime agreed to shut down most ANC facilities in the country.
People's War
After seeing mixed results in South Africa throughout the 1970s, the ANC changed tactics. While it would continue to fight a low-level insurgency, the ANC adopted the strategy of 'people's war', which they copied from the Vietnamese. The new strategy sought the total mobilization of the black populace against the Apartheid government and called for civil disobedience and civil unrest. These efforts included terrorist attacks against government infrastructure but, more importantly, mass demonstrations, boycotts, and non-participation movements against institutions. The ANC unleashed the people’s war strategy in 1984 and by 1985, the black townships were being torn apart by violence. In many places, the ANC completely undermined the South African government and replaced formal government institutions with shadow institutions of their own. The ANC declared these places 'liberated areas'. The unrest grew so great the government deployed the army to the black townships. South African soldiers universally loathed township duty, as it forced them to fight an urban counterinsurgency for which they had not been trained. Even worse, the war in the townships pitted well-trained and armed soldiers against rock throwing demonstrators. As western camera crews were always on hand to film demonstrations, the township operations were a public relations disaster for South Africa.
All Out Ground War
During the 1980's, South Africa became deeply involved in Angola's conventional war. Every year, Communist FAPLA forces attacked UNITA in the southeastern part of the country but failed to dislodge them. By the middle of the decade, FAPLA was receiving massive material assistance from the Soviets, who also sent hundreds of advisors. There were several thousand Cuban troops as well. The main FAPLA assembly area was at Cuito Cuanavale, a small crossroads in the southeast of the country. In 1986, General Jannie Geldenhuys, the new chief of the South African Armed Forces wanted to take preemptive action. UNITA and a few batteries of South African guns attacked Cuito Cuanavale. The spoiling attack was a complete success, destroying much equipment and forcing FAPLA to pull back to the north.
However, UNITA's respite was only temporary. In 1987, FAPLA amassed a huge force at Cuito Cuanavale, including 350 T-55 tanks, 150 T-54 tanks, and 50 PT 76 APCs. FAPLA's air support was considerable, numbering nearly 100 aircraft and another 100 attack helicopters. Hundreds of Soviet and Cuban advisors assisted the FAPLA force. In all, FAPLA assembled 9 brigades for the attack. UNITA retreated before the FAPLA onslaught. Understanding that their ally was in imminent danger of being destroyed, Prime Minister Botha authorized the South African air force to intervene. Two batteries of Multi Rocket Launchers were also dispatched to assist UNITA. The South African air and artillery reinforcements stiffened UNITA's resolve and stopped the FAPLA attack near Mavinga. As FAPLA recouped, and FAPLA made good their losses, UNITA launched several spoiling attacks. South African Special Forces sunk a Soviet merchant ship loaded with weapons at Luanda. These efforts prevented a major FAPLA attack in 1986.
In 1987, FAPLA launched a large-scale offensive against UNITA. For the effort, FAPLA amassed a force of five brigades around Cuito Cuanavale, more than 30,000 men with Soviet general Konstantin Shagnovitch in overall command of the attack. Pretoria sent significant reinforcements to southeastern Angola, including batteries of G-5 guns, and the elite 32 Battalion. In July, Shagnovtich advanced toward the Lomba River on a four-brigade front. FAPLA 21 Brigade was met by UNITA forces and elements of 32 Battalion and 101 Battalion. With heavy artillery support, the combined UNITA/SA force decimated FAPLA 21 Brigade in two days of fighting. There was sporadic fighting over several weeks as FAPLA 21st Brigade tried to ford the river, each time without success as the South African G-5s inflicted devastating losses on troops caught in the open. Shagnovitch regrouped and advanced on a four-brigade front.
To open the attack FAPLA 59th Brigade tried to advance across the Lomba from the north while FAPLA 47 brigade tried to take the UNITA/SA left flank. The brigades advanced Soviet style along a wide front with infantry in the van, followed by APCs, and finally tanks. South African Mirage and Canberra and G5 batteries pinned them down. Fortunately for the UNITA/SA force, Pretoria had dispatched 61 Mechanized Battalion to the battle. This force arrived in time to engage FAPLA 47 Brigade. In the battle that followed, the South Africa Ratel-90s, using quick shoot and scoot tactics, made short work of the lumbering FAPLA 47 Brigade, destroying 127 vehicles by the end of the day.
After their victory at Lomba River, UNITA/SA forces pushed FAPLA north toward Cuito Cuanavale. This time a squadron of 13 Oliphant tanks assisted. The South Africans fought several small engagements in mid November, killing more than 500 FAPLA troops and destroying more than 30 vehicles. The UNITA/SA force pushed to the outskirts of Cuito Cuanavale. UNITA/SA forces attacked communist forces at the town of Tomba, just east of Cuito Cuanavale but were turned back, though once again they inflicted heavy losses upon FAPLA. While the ground effort was halted by communist forces who subsequently trumped it up as a great victory, General Geldenhuys insists it was a spoiling attack launched at Tumpo only. 'We also had a stream to cross. A very big stream - the Cuito River. We lacked the wading capability of Russian tanks, and we did not have the necessary bridges readily available.'
In 1989, PW Botha suffered a stroke. This personal blow was followed by a political one, in which FW De Clerk challenged and defeated him for party leadership. After taking the office of president, De Clerk unbanned the ANC, released Nelson Mandela from prison, repealed Apartheid, and dismantled much of South Africa's security regime, including the National Security Management System. In 1990, the De Clerk government agreed to end its decade's long rule of South West; the former territory became the independent nation of Namibia. In 1994, white minority rule formally ended with the election of the ANC and other parties to a super-majority in the South African Parliament. The ANC did not dismantle the South African state; they merely took the reins of power. Given the fate of other former white ruled nations, from Congo to Rhodesia, the efforts of South Africa's security forces must be judged a success.