The South African Defence Force (SADF) until 1994 In honour of the SADF and it's achievements Home
Part1 To: Part 2
From the 60's into the 90's South Africa made it's presence felt in South West Africa (Namibia) and Angola, Rhodesia
(South African Police (SAP) operations in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe), Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique, Zambia, Transkei (surrogate operations and attacks on liberation and other organisations
opposed to the South African government) and in the Seychelles (attempted coup)
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The South African Defence Force was the thorn in the flesh of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe, the Cubans,
SWAPO and company. It was one among several factors that made it possible for the South African
government to negotiate from a position of strength.
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What makes an Army a decisive and formidable force
It is a combination of excellent leadership, discipline, professionalism and highly trained soldiers, outstanding strategic
and technical capabilities. This was the SADF, the greatest army Africa has ever seen
And remember despite the isolation the country faced at the time and the international arms embargo South Africa
manufactured artillery, combat vehicles, weapons, etc that stunned the world. Impressive achievements on African
soil.
Images: Left to right. Puma helicopter, the Olifant tank, a Cheetah fighter jet, the G6 and an Eland (SADF Photos)
Examples:
Combat vehicles
Olifant 1A/1B series main battle tank Centurion tanks modernised by South Africa, considered the best indigenous
tank design on the African continent
Rooikat 76 wheeled armoured fighting vehicleRatel 20/60/90 family of infantry fighting vehiclesMamba MKIII and RG-32 Nyala Mine protected patrol vehiclesCasspir MKIII mine protected patrol vehicles 
Various air deployable Artillery
GV6 155 mm self-propelled howitzerGV5 155 mm howitzer (75) replaced the G4 155 mm gun and the G2 140 mm gun Bateleur 127 mm 40 tube multiple rocket launcher Valkiri-22 24 tube self-propelled multiple rocket launcher Fighter jets
The Atlas Cheetah. Three different variants were created, the dual-seat Cheetah D, and the single-seat Cheetah E
and Cheetah C.
The Cheetah C fighter jet was built on the frame of the Mirage III South Africa bought from France in the 1960s. An arms
embargo against the apartheid regime from 1977 to 1994 meant the French fighter could not be replaced. As an alternative,
local experts started upgrading the Mirage's weapon systems and avionics by the mid-1980s, and the Cheetah was born.
The Cheetah programme to upgrade the South African Air Force's (SAAF) fleet of Dassault Mirage III supersonic fighters
was started in 1984, by the then Atlas Aviation (now Denel Aerospace). (Previously, from 1975, Atlas had assembled
some of the SAAF's Mirage IIIs as well as its Mirage F1s.) At that time, South Africa operated Mirage IIICZ (Z being the
suffix indicating that the aircraft were manufactured for the SAAF), IIIBZ, IIIDZ, IIID2Z, IIIE, IIIRZ and IIIR2Z versions. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/rsa/cheetah.htm
Impala MK1 Combat Jet
The Impala built under license in South Africa was in fact an Italian designed jet Aermacchi MB326
Helicopters
Puma
Allouette
The South African government and the SADF's involvement in what is termed the Border War (1966-1989)
The Border War refers to the conflict that took place in South-West Africa ( Namibia) and Angola.
"No one likes to be at the constant merry and whim of a bully. Yet bullying tactics were
the centerpiece of SWAPO's revolutionary program for Namibia. The only thing a bully
understands and respects is force."
Death in the Desert: The Namibian Tragedy by Morgan Norval
Where it all started
In World War I South African forces under command of General Louis Botha invaded the former German protectorate
of South West Africa (Namibia). South Africa then received a mandate to administer the territory it has secured for
the Allied forces.
Irrespective of the claims that South Africa was now responsible to the United Nations as far as the administration
of South West Africa was concerned Prime minister, Dr Malan stated in 1948 that "we regard South West Africa
as an integral portion of South Africa. The government of the day then introduced certain policies such as:
In 1954, blacks in South West Africa were from now on placed under authority of the SA minister of Native Affairs;
In 1968 the entire administration of that country was taken over by the different administrative departments of
South Africa; And the controversial homelands policy was extended to South West Africa.
In 1966 the General Assembly of the United Nations made it clear that South Africa has no longer the right to
administer the territory and that henceforth South West Africa comes under the direct responsibility of the United
Nations. In 1969 the United Nations passed another resolution in which it calls upon the government of South Africa
to withdraw it's administration from South West Africa. However in real terms there was nothing the United Nations
could do to force South Africa to comply.
During this period, on May 31,1961 South Africa became the Republic of South Africa. Two years earlier, in April 1959,
the Ovamboland Peoples Organisation (OPO) was formed. 10 Years later it became the South West Africa
Peoples Organisation (SWAPO).
SWAPO upset by South Africa's presence in South West Africa turned aggresive. Under the leadership of Sam
Nujoma, began a more intense guerrilla campaign. The organization began to operate from Zambia and later (1975)
from neighbouring Angola. In that year the SADF arrived in SWA.
South West Africa infiltrated by the enemy
In 1965 the first infiltration by armed insurgents of PLAN (People's Liberation Army of Namibia) took place over the
border of Southern Angola/Namibia, and set in motion what was to become a war lasting 23 years and ultimately
involving not only Namibians and South Africans, but also Angolans, Cubans, Russians and Americans.
Border violations by SWAPO, intimidation of and attacks on local people left the police with no other option but to
react swiftly against any terrorist infiltration SWAPO increasingly faced well trained forces in the process:
*Commandos specially trained in counterinsurgency warfare;
*S.A. paratroopers - 1 Para Batt. In 1966, they participated, with the Police, against terrorist insurgents
in S.W.A.;
*The SADF which arrived in that country in 1974 to assist the police;
*A reserve force;
*Bushmen trackers in the Caprivi Strip (31 Battalion);
*33 Battalion in the Eastern Caprivi;
*34 Battalion in Kavangoland;
*35 Battalion in Owamboland;
*36 Battalion in Bushmanland;
*41 Battalion in Windhoek and so on;
*The reconnaissance forces, or "recces."
*A Namibian specialist unit was formed to train the infantry in tracking, the use of dogs as trackers, as
well as using horses and dirt-bike motorcycles for rapid deployment and patrol work in the bush....
*And then there was Koevoet. Statistics have it that from its inception until the end of 1988 the unit had killed at
least 3,000 SWAPO insurgents.
In the year 1980 all military units created in South West Africa became part of the newly formed
South West Africa Territorial Force (SWATF)
These units and the tactics they used were highly successful. It prevented SWAPO from infiltrating Namibian
terroritary effectively and as a result seriously jeopordizing their strategies and objectives.
Cross-border operations by the SADF against both SWAPO and FAPLA
The reason for the cross-border operations
SWAPO camps and bases were located inside Angola. By 1978, after the withdrawal of the SADF., SWAPO,
supported by FAPLA forces, established a presence in southern Angola, especially at Xangongo, Ongiva,
Ongwa and Cassinga, thus threatening S.W.A. Xangongo and Ongiva were key bases from where they
conducted operations in Kaokoland, in western and central Ovamboland, in central and eastern
Ovamboland and in the Kavangoland.
Some of the operations conducted in Angola by the security forces:
Operation Reindeer: the attacks on Cassinga and Chetequera camps (4 May 1978)
There were also attacks on a number of SWAPO facilities in and around Chetequera (an area known by SWAPO
as "Vietnam")
Operation Sceptic began as a lightning attack on a SWAPO base complex called ‘Smokeshell (June 1980)
Operation Protea - destruction of PLAN headquarters at Xangongo and Ngiva (August 1981)
Operations Daisy in 1981, Super and Meebos (1982), Phoenix and Askari (1983), December 1983 Operation Askari
Boswilger (1985), Modulêr and Hooper (1987–88), Packer and Displace (1988)
The enemy suffered enormously
In all these operations targeted at SWAPO and essential Angola fascilities (petroleum, etc) reports read:
the enemy suffered great losses, defeats, casualties, destruction of towns, SWAPO/FAPLA bases and camps
destroyed, the enemy will take a long time to recover, the enemy driven from the border deeper into Angola, enemy
operations and logistical support and command and control capabilities disrupted, etc.
Image: Jonas Savimbi (1934–2002), leader of the anti-Communist rebel force
UNITA in the Angolan Civil War. This movement was mainly active in southern
and eastern Angola, The MPLA in the central area, including Luanda the capital
and the FNLA in the north.
Unita and the FNLA received support from the SADF against the MPLA,
Cuban forces, Angolan forces and Soviet advisors
Comments and Remarks
a) What former officers, soldiers, reporters and people say about the SADF
*The SADF....the best of the best, gone but not forgotten
*A lot can be said of the apartheid era defense force and the way they destabilized the neighbouring states. But they were
a prime example of a highly disciplined force
Unfortunately for the guerillas and despite an international arms embargo, the apartheid regime in South Africa created a
very lethal military force. This force went on to crush guerilla movement after guerilla movement and then easily out fought
the Cubans as well.
*The old SADF was one of the best in the world
*Standards in the SADF were high , most MK members who are ranked Colonel and higher in the SANDF
nowadays would not even be considered for a rank higher than Corporal in the SADF
*The SADF does not exist anymore, as for the SANDF who succeeded them, I have not the faintest idea of what they are
capable or incapable of, what I can say with fair degree of confidence is that they are not, and never will be, in the same
leaque as the SADF.
b) When it comes to the Border war and Cuito Cuanavale
Fact: The SADF smashed the enemy in Angola
*The SADF thoroughly destroyed the 13, 16, 21, 25 and 59 brigades in Tumpa - I was there and I saw it with my own
eyes - Cubans and fapla ran like rabbits when we pulled in!!
*The Angolans often fled in the face of South Africa attacks, and so landed Unita with valuable Russian military
hardware. Mhambi
*The small South African force also appears to have achieved some remarkable tactical successes. The relative losses
give an idea of what was achieved.
*Be grateful South Africa never declared a full-scale war on Angola. Just imagine the disastrous implications that would
have had. The Cubans and friends would have been slaughtered.
*Chester Crocker later wrote:
"In early October the Soviet-Fapla offensive was smashed at the Lomba River near Mavinga. It turned into a headlong
retreat over the 120 miles back to the primary launching point at Cuito Cuanavale. In some of the bloodiest battles of the
entire civil war, a combined force of some 8,000 Unita fighters and 4,000 SADF troops destroyed one Fapla brigade and
mauled several others out of a total Fapla force of some 18,000 engaged in the three-pronged offensive. Estimates of Fapla
losses ranged upward of 4,000 killed and wounded. This offensive had been a Soviet conception from start to finish. Senior
Soviet officers played a central role in its execution. Over a thousand Soviet advisers were assigned to Angola in 1987 to
help with Moscow's largest logistical effort to date in Angola: roughly $1.5 billion in military hardware was delivered that year.
Huge quantities of Soviet equipment were destroyed or fell into Unita and SADF hands when Fapla broke into a disorganized
retreat... The 1987 military campaign represented a stunning humiliation for the Soviet Union, its arms and its strategy.
It would take Fapla a year, or maybe two, to recover and regroup. Moreover the Angolan military disaster threatened to go
from bad to worse. As of mid-November, the Unita/SADF force had destroyed the Cuito Cuanavale airfield and pinned down
thousands of Fapla's best remaining units clinging onto the town's defensive perimeters."
HIGH NOON IN SOUTHERN AFRICA -Crocker, pp.360-361
*After 13 years in Angola the Cubans had still not achieved their aim of destroying Unita and marching into Namibia as
"liberators". They had badly underestimated the South Africans and discovered to their cost that they were facing highly-
trained, battle-hardened troops. If they had taken the trouble to examine South Africa's military history, they might perhaps
have paused for thought at the fact that the forefathers of these troops, the Boers, had held the full might of the British
Empire at bay during the Boer War, when 450,000 British troops took three years to subdue a force of little more than
20,000 Boers.
There is this perception or rather call it myth that Cuban and Angolan
forces including SWAPO had defeated the South African Defence Force
at Cuito Cuanavale
Images: PW Botha and FW de Klerk (Photos.News.BBC.co.uk)
The Facts
*As for South Africa losing to a 3rd World nation, we didn't. We simply pulled out, there was no surrender
*The SADF did not loose the battle of CC. Any serious student of modern military history will be able to confirm my
statement! What South Africa and especially the SADF did loose was the propaganda war! The perception that the
Cubans/FAPLA defeated the SADF at CC is incorrect! The SADF came out of the series of battles in south eastern
Angola during the latter part of 1987 and beginning of 1988 as clear military victors!
*I have been doing a vast amount of research on Cuito with sources ranging far and wide from around the globe. The bottom
line is that there would never have been an ultimate military victor in Angola, the geopolitical situation was laying the
foundation for the independence of Namibia and ultimately of South Africa - there were many factor splaying a role at that
time and it was merely politicians playing for time on all sides of the front. In the end and after many years of bloodshed,
we saw a peaceful transition in Namibia and SA (if you discount the local violence in the run up to the 94 election as non
military engagements.) If the ANC wishes to celebrate Cuito as a victory, i would not be surprised. It is just a continuation
of the smoke and mirrors campaign we see so rife in SA today. Eventually the smoke disappear and the mirror shatters -
if they regard the “victory at Cuito” as their ultimate achievement in the Angolan conflict, i say to them, wake up, look at
the stats and if you still regard yourself as the victors, damm, you really need to take a very close look in the mirror - it
might not be there soon at the rate you carry on.
*Up until then we had no air support at all. It would have helped to make things easier, but was not necessary. We knew
they had more forces to the North, but even a quarter of the SADF’s current military power, would have wiped them off the
face of the earth. http://www.geocities.com/sadfbook/7sai.htm
*Recently progressive politician Van Zyl Slabbert pleaded with South Africans “not to fall for an invented history”.
This included what he called the myth that Cuban and Angolan forces had defeated the South African Defence
Force (SADF) at the Angolan battle of Cuito Cuanavale. Mhambi
*But the world was changing as well. Come 1987 the Russians had already indicated to the Cubans that they were
interested in some negotiated peace. The Soviet Union was in retreat. So too was Cuba and its economy suffering come
1987. The treat of diminished Soviet economic support loomed large for Cuba. Internally there was much talk of dissent
to the Castro regime. Mhambi
*The SADF were outnumbered: 60000 troops against 15000 South africans who could have called up another 500000
if we wanted to! Communism is dead! The imperial Cubans were defeated and humiliated. We had surrounded Luanda
in the 70's and withdrew after driving out FAPLA and SWAPO. If we wanted Angola we could have dropped a nuclear
bomb on it.
Losses of the enemy at Cuito Cuanavale
Tanks destroyed: Cuba/Fapla 94, SADF 3
Troop carriers destroyed: Cuba/Fapla 100, SADF 5
Logistical vehicles destroyed: Cuba/Fapla 389, SADF 1
Soldiers injured: Cuba/fapla 1800, SADF 280
Soldiers killed: Cuba/Fapla 4 785, SADF 31.
Just over a billion Rand in soviet equipment destroyed or captured
As a result of this battle the Cuban commander, Genl Arnaldo Oshoa Sanchez and a “Hero of the Republic of Cuba’
was executed by a firing squad on his return. (Ex chief of the Defense Force, Genl Jannie Geldenhuys in
reaction to the Cuban/ANC claims)
Division General Arnaldo Ochoa Sanchez, commander of the Cuban Expeditionary Force in Angola between November
1987 and January this year – the man, in other words, sent in to clean up the mess after Unita and the SADF had thrashed
the MPLA and its Soviet advisers at Mavinga – was executed on charges, principally, of attempting to smuggle cocaine to
the US in cahoots with Columbia’s notorious Medellin cartel.
Or so at least the Cuban people and the world have been asked to believe. The transcripts of those sections of Ochoa’s
"trial" that were broadcast on Cuban television, and other evidence, suggest that the truth is rather different. The general
may, tangentially, have been involved in the drug trade, but that was not the reason for his arrest and liquidation.
Ochoa, according to those who knew him (including diplomats involved in the Angola/Namibia settlement process), was
a man of striking countenance and much intelligence and charisma.
He knew his mission was to preside over Cuba’s last hurrah in Angola and that the "heroic" defence of Cuito was, therefore,
a vainglorious fraud, designed to cover a retreat that had already been decided. The 15 000 new troops who followed
Ochoa came to save Cuban face, not the MPLA.
Defence Minister Raul Castro, Fidel’s brother, quoted the general as saying: "I have been sent to a lost war so that
I will be blamed for the defeat." That was, indeed, his view. Source
In the book The Opening of the Apartheid Mind .....Options for the New South Africa it's said:
The ideological confusion and skepticism of black activists about the new politics of negotiation can be traced to such
past indoctrination. The assumption was that the government would make no concessions unless absolutely forced
to do so. But that regime almost outradicalized its opposition in adaptive political maneuvering.
As a result, many activists have manufactured a new myth to explain the contradiction: Pretoria had no
choice but to capitulate at home because it has been defeated militarily in Angola and economically through
international sanctions.
At the July 1991 ANC conference in Durban, outgoing President Oliver Tambo received the loudest applause during his
lengthy report when he said that the South African Defence Force “met their match” at the battle of Cuito
Cuanavale.
This reveling in an imagined victory was all the more remarkable since no ANC units were involved in the stalemated
siege: the conference delegates were appropriating foreign heroism. Likewise, Andrew Clark, an analyst at the Ottawa
North-South Institute, wrote that Pretoria suffered “a sobering military defeat at the hands of Angolan Cuban and SWAPO
forces at the Cuito Cuanavale” (1991, 46). Similar assumptions are widely cited in European literature on the left as the
main reasons for Namibian independence and the concessions by Pretoria.
Military defeat was also given as the reason for Pretoria’s willingness to negotiate by ANC stalwart Elias
Matsoaledi, a former Umkhonto we Sizwe commander in Johannesburg: “The government mounted talks with the
ANC because it had been ‘shaken militarily’ ” (Cape Times, April 12, 1990). Such explanations are sometimes
combined with exhortations in support of military education: “To shoot down the enemy’s aircraft you need mathematical
knowledge, so get into the classrooms and learn military science,” University of Cape Town students told their boycotting
peers.
Other adherents to the insurrection myth see the “armed struggle” as interchangeable with negotiations: “Whether
we enter Pretoria with tanks, mortars and bazookas, or whether it is done via a negotiated settlement, the option is
left to the enemy to decide.
Ironically, in the view of the state it was the military victory of the apartheid forces, rather than their defeat,
that led to the policy changes and to negotiation with the adversary. “The military successes of the SADF in the
late 1980s in Southern Angola paved the way for the political dispensation in South Africa,” declared Magnus Malan on
the day of his demotion and reassignment (Argus, July 30, 1991). The former commander of special forces tells soldiers
of a typical Dolchstosslegende (stab in the back): “You did not lose in Angola. You did not lose in Namibia. You
were betrayed by politicians acting under foreign pressure. Obviously, for both sides the myth of victory seemed
a crucial precondition for realignment. But both cannot be right, and the question remains, Who has the more credible
claim?
James Barber has appropriately commented:
“Although South Africa did not lose the war in a strict military sense, after the stalemated battle of Cuito
Cuanavale the cost of continuing the war was considered too high by all sides, including Pretoria.
The South Africans calculated that they could not afford to lose three hundred white soldiers in a full-scale
assault on the newly reinforced Cuito Cuanavale. Although South Africa had lost air superiority in Angola,
owing to the arms boycott, it is doubtful that “military realities in Southern Angola had been the single most
important factor forcing the South African government to the negotiating table.Other developments, such as
the increasing cost of the war in a declining economy, together with the end of the cold war and the less adversarial
relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States on regional conflicts, would seem far more important
causes for the shift. The war in Angola had long been unpopular among those on the far right, who viewed it as an
American-inspired adventure. With the ANC weakened—cut off ideologically and financially by its disintegrating
East European sponsors—the National Party saw a unique opportunity to gain global legitimacy, especially after the
demise of the unpopular P. W. Botha after a stroke.
Sources and links
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/South%20African%20Army - SA Army through history
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/rsa/army.htm - Brief history of the SA Army
NATURE AND EXTENT OF THE SADF'S INVOLVEMENT IN THE ANGOLAN CONFLICT Over a year after the secrecy
surrounding Op Savannah had led to propaganda victories for the communists, the SADF released this account to reveal
the actual course of events.
How Washington Lost its Nerve and how the Cubans subdued Angola The author, Robert Moss, shows that the United
States, having begged South Africa to put troops in to offset the Communist intervention, lost its nerve and failed to
stop the great build-up of men, guns and aircraft from across the seas, which had started, trucked right across the
African continent, way back in 1964.
MOSCOW’S NEXT TARGET IN AFRICA What the Russians learned from Angola is that war by proxy pays off.
The Battle of Bridge 14 An account of a major defeat of the communist forces in Angola during Operation Savannah.
