Speaker 1Welcome back to South African Border Wars, with me your host, Death Lathan. This is episode 105. The third battle of the Tumbo Triangle was about to begin, the date 23rd of March, 1988. The weary 61 Mechanized Battalion had withdrawn, the men exhausted after four months of shifting about and fighting popular, while their equipment was in bad shape. By the 13th of March, the tattered 2-0 Brigade, of which 61 Mech was part, had arrived back at Rundu, across the Kunene River, and for the third and final attack on the Triangle, Pat McLaughlin had returned command to Colonel Paul Fushia. If you remember last episode, he'd been sent back to the Republic to try and drum up another brigade, which he'd find difficult. He had turned to the Omana, the campers, or the Citizen Force, as it was known. French troops were brought in from South Africa, mostly from 82 Mechanized Brigade, and this would be the first time since 1984 that the Citizen Force would furnish most of the troops for the upcoming Operation Bacca. When you hear the makeshift formation, you'll understand that this operation was not going to be easy for any commander, however motivated the men were. The reality was, these were soldiers who were part-timers. They may have been excellent as National Servicemen, but now they were back in Civvy Street. Mentally, they had now to contend with wives and children. But they were far away. They were accountants and teachers. Helping Fushia put together the viable force was Commandant Gerard Lowe, the tank and armor constructor at the South African Battle School, based at Lohatla in the Northern Cape. Lowe was regarded as one of the most disciplined officers of his time in his early 30s and took the life of a soldier very seriously. His discipline was going to hold the men of his command in good stead in difficult circumstances. They would need every ramrod spawn they could get in the coming weeks. The Battle School's role was to keep the Citizen Force ready to go as much as possible. These men of the mechanized brigades would be called up as often as possible to try and keep their skills together, but this was just not possible. The SEDF's narrative of the time, and many of these men's narrative, was that they were as sharp as the National Servicemen and Permanent Force, but I'm afraid that's wishful thinking. Citizen Force tank crew from the Orange Free State Regiment, President Steyn, were mobilized in February 1988 and had less than a month to train up for the next assault on the Tumpo Triangle. Lowe arrived at the school the fortnight before these campers arrived, training the instructors who were going to prepare the Citizen Force O-Mana. Veterans of the previous two battles, from 61 Mech and Forsyth, were drafted in to help speed up 82 mechanized brigades' instruction. The summer of 1987 at the edge was one of the wettest on record back in South Africa, and the Orange River was in flood. One of the farmers who had been almost bankrupted by the deluge was Citizen Force tank commander Colonel Tobias Johannes von Skoltweg. His business was swept away by the flooding, his home was swamped. He asked to be allowed to return to try and recover what he could, and Lowe took over command of the two Citizen Force tank squadrons to lead them into battle as well. The haphazard nature of Pretoria's tactical planning and strategic understanding of how to fight a mobile war with tanks and infantry in thick bush was going to upend another group of tough South African soldiers. The generals were now interfering in all decisions, along with cabinet members, who were a hindrance to the officers on the ground. At least, according to their accounts, the micro-managing was to have implications for the men of 82 mechanized brigades. Despite the debriefings after Tumpo 1 and 2, the military strategists back in South Africa seemed to suffer from a brain freeze. The conventional battles in the bush were no longer the domain of the infantry taking the lead with some artillery support. It was now the domain of tanks and rattles, backed up by the artillery, with some infantry. The infantry had been exposed in both Tumpo attacks. Unita, which had been riding on the backs of the tanks and armoured vehicles, had suffered terribly after being raked by shrapnel by Fapla's artillery. Both the South Africans and the Angolans were focusing on their heavy weapons, their concentrated artillery fire, their armoured vehicles. The most important aspect of this period of the border war was Pretoria's seeming inability to get to grips with the basic tenets of these new tactics. They were bogged down in their preconceptions about how poorly Fapla fought, and by now, they had lost sight of what they could do in the face of the enemy. They had made up their minds that if they were to fight, they would not be able to get to grips with what they had learned, and they would not be able to do anything about it. This meant that they would not be able to fight back, and they would not be able to fight back. They would not be able to fight back. They would not be able to fight back. They would not be able to fight back. They would not be able to fight back. They would not be able to fight back. They would not be able to fight back. They would not be able to fight back. They would not be able to fight back. They would not be able to fight back. They would not be able to fight back. They would not be able to fight back. They would not be able to fight back. They would not be able to fight back. They would not be able to fight back. They would not be able to fight back. 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Fidel Castro had decided months before that these battles were going to be won through his MiGs and his artillery, along with the tanks, rather than relying on the infantry, and history proved him correct. Also lining up near the Chambinga high ground was UNITA, which had managed to send 3rd and 4th Regular Battalion to join the 5th Battalion, which then bolstered Lowe's attacking numbers, but all of these men were on foot. Four other semi-regular UNITA battalions were also going to play a role in the coming battle around Cuito Cuanavale. Two of these battalions on the east bank of the Cuito River, and two on the west. They'd be conducting hit-and-run assaults to try and destabilize the Cuban and Angolan defensive positions south of the Tumpo River. Meanwhile, the main attack would be carried out north of the Tumpo River, following the south bank of the Dala, then turning left, or further south, towards Fapla Base behind a series of minefields. And it was these minefields that were going to cause havoc, particularly with the Ulefant tanks, as you'll hear. The minefields had already caused problems. On the night of the 9th of March, 3/2 Battalion Lt. Tai Taron stepped on a Soviet anti-personnel mine while patrolling the Anhara-Lapanda flatlands, and lost his right foot. The Regiment Khrut Kru was attached to 3/2 Battalion, and began a series of diversionary missions to the south of the Tumpo River, building bridges, and making a lot of noise. By now, however, the Cubans, the Russians, and Angolans had learned to ignore the obvious noise being made by the South Africans. They'd figured out there was just too much going on for this to be the main area of attack. They'd been using the same diversionary tactics over and over for 10 years, and used the same tactic for five previous attempts to trick Fapla. It's a bit like a magic trick. When your audience has figured out how the rabbit came out of the hat by Act 2, and you're using the same hat and the rabbit in Act 6. Not clever. There was more bad news on the 19th, on the eve of the battle, when an SA Air Force Mirage flown by Major Willy van Kopenhagen crashed in northern Namibia while flying back to Kruutfontein from a bombing attack into the Tumpo Triangle. The SA Air Force said that his Mirage had experienced a technical problem at low altitude leading to the crash. Another irreplaceable accident. An irreplaceable pilot lost, another Mirage gone. By now, Fapla had just over 1,400 men on the eastern bank of the Kuito River, including two fire brigades HQ with three infantry battalions, supported by hundreds of men from 66 Brigade and 13 Brigade. Fapla also had 15 tanks as part of three tank battalions parked on the eastern Kuito River bank. But 10 of these tanks were not serviceable. They'd been dug into positions and were set up as artillery with B-10 recoilless guns between them. There were apparently more than two dozen 23mm anti-aircraft rapid-firing guns stationed around the Tumpo bridgehead. These provided a devastating crossfire. To the west, Fapla's 13 Brigade was based just outside Kuito Cuanavale, reinforced by a Cuban company. The west bank of the Kuito River was now bristling with artillery of all kinds, massed in places to provide truly phenomenal firepower. There were batteries of the D-31 22mm guns, the 36, the 130mm heavy artillery and then BM-21 and BM-14 multiple rocket launchers. Protecting these from the reccees and the SAGF forward artillery observers was a battalion of 36 Brigade stationed between the Kuito and Cuanavale rivers. Another battalion from 36 Brigade had moved west of the Kuito River. An even further west, 59 Brigade was protecting the Menong supply route into Kuito Cuanavale. These were significant defensive positions and the Fapla soldiers were motivated to fight back against the SAGF. Russian advisers had made a big difference by now, along with the Cubans. They were adding a great deal of skill to Fapla's basic fighting capacity. They had also shown the Angolans how to survive being hit by an anti-tank mine inside their armoured vehicles by leaving their hatches open. Battening down the hatches meant that the blast wave inside the vehicle had nowhere to go and flattened everyone inside. If you leave it open, you might get away with concussion and perhaps some shrapnel wounds, wrote translator Igor Zhdokhin. They had also taken to brewing rice vodka, and the Russians said afterwards, once they had had a few shots of their rice vodka, they had listened to the Voice of Moscow, Voice of America, BBC and the SABC, the South African Broadcasting Corporation. The Russians spent a lot of time drinking, as adviser Vyacheslav Barabulia explains in the book Bush War, published in 2007. They had been hit by daily bombardments by the SAGF, and by now they had tapped into the almost 100% proof alcohol used in the Pechota anti-aircraft system. They had used this as a form of sleeping tablet, just to get over the shock of the SAGF shelling. "The hardest time is when everything is over," he wrote. "When you return to your billet and begin to rest, the shock switches on." So, 200 grams of water, half diluted with 96% spirit, was essential. Barabulia was afraid of that. Barabulia was afraid of the mirages, and the Russians were generally impressed by the SAF's pilot's skill, diving for cover as the mirages swooped in less than 50 meters above ground. "We'd hear a sudden savage roar and rush for cover," he said. The mirages were dropping 500-kilogram bombs with delayed action mechanisms. In one attack, he saw three of these bombs hit a swampy area and get stuck in the mud, standing up on their ends. A FAPLA BTR-60 ATC drove up, the men got out and patted the bombs, then got back in their vehicle and drove off. They were barely 300 meters away when the bombs exploded, sending the mud and water heaving skywards. "The Angolans were just lucky it hadn't happened when they'd thumped the bomb," Barabulia observed. Watching and waiting, these Russians knew that the SAGF was gathering on the east side of the Chambinga high ground. Just before the Battle of Tumpo III, SA intelligence had also come to a chilling conclusion. "These Angolan, Russian and Cuban defenses were all but impregnable," they said. As you've heard, the overarching order given to 82 SA mechanized brigade was to clear the eastern bank of the Cuito river of all enemy forces, help develop the bank as an obstacle to hold off any counter-attack, and hand over control to UNITA, blowing the bridge and leaving. However, an SAGF intelligence document drawn up in mid-March 1988 and known as the "Hazer Collection" sounded interesting. It is once again emphasized that FAPLA has no intent to give up the east bank and Tumpo log base without further ado. FAPLA thus attempts to bring about maximum delay and casualties by means of minefields supported by artillery fire from the west bank and air support, it said. The Hazer Collection report said that these concentrated artillery units had ranged their guns and were going to fire extremely accurately. Just in case the top brass was hoping for mobility, the intelligence units had gathered information about the minefields and this was a real eye-opener, had the top brass had their eyes open. The area between the Dala river and the Tumpo river has several minefields laid on the most probable routes of approach. The SAGF was of course going to take one of these probable routes, and furthermore, FAPLA had refined their tactics, while the 82 SA brigade was going to follow exactly the same axis of attack as 61 MEC had attempted a couple of weeks earlier. Military theory can be smart-arsed and artificial, but it's also definitively correct if you're looking at stats. Now and again something will come up that contradicts the logic, but it's not often. And it wouldn't be this time either. Take a step back for a moment and analyze what's going on. Sun Tzu and Clausewitz and Sir Basil Little Hart all warn about this. Hart specifically warned attackers should choose the line or course of least expectation, then exploit the line of least resistance, and do this when the defender or the enemy is off-guard. Finally, everyone at military school 101 is taught never to renew an attack along the same line after it has failed. The SAGF is here to help. The SAGF is here to help. The SAGF is here to help. But Hart's comment goes further. He says no general is justified in launching his troops into a direct attack on an enemy firmly in position. When the SA attacked at Lomba, for example, they had followed Hart's rules and they had been successful. But after battering themselves against Faple east of Kueto Kwanawale for some reason, the folks making decisions back in Pretoria seem to now believe in miracles rather than the basic tenets of well-worn tactics. Colonel Jan Breitenbach called the battle plan truly misguided, which for him is a somewhat muted comment. Commandant Gerard Loew was not happy about the plan either and asked Brigadier Eddie Webb, who was chair of the SAGF advisory group, to explain just how stupid the plan was to General Kat Liebenbach. General Constant Verlun, who had some of the clearest ideas about mobility and warfare, also let it be known he thought the attack plan was bad. General Constant Verlun, who had some of the clearest ideas about mobility and warfare, also let it be known he thought the attack plan was bad. All of this before the start of Tumpo 3. Yes, it's easy to be clever in hindsight, but these experienced vets were being clever before the attack. It's just that the men in charge appear to have forgotten how to think. Later, Gerard Lowe visited the battlefield in 2018 and told Leopold Schultz that when he stood on the ground held by FAPLA and looked towards the direction that the South Africans would have taken back in 1988, he said, From the high ground on the west bank of the battlefield lies a diorama spread before one to the advantage of the defender. The Cubans and Angolans had a defensive system in place that was cunningly rethought. They had boosted many of their anti-tank mines with 130mm high explosive shells buried alongside, and the minefields had now become awesome destructive weapons. The South Africans were going to steam straight into these minefields with devastating results. What happened next is for episode 106. Please rate the podcast on iTunes. It helps raise the visibility of the series. If you want to contact me, head off to abwarpodcast.com. There's a contact form on the homepage. Or you can contact me on iTunes. Or you can direct message me on Twitter at DearsLatham. Until next, plus bait.
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