Episode 40 – 61 Mechanised Battalion special edition with former commander Roland de Vries

Welcome back to South African Border Wars with me, your host, Tess Leifan. This is episode 40 and it's a special edition focusing on one of the most successful military organizations in African military history. That's the 61 mechanized Battalion Group, which first saw action during Operation Randia as Battle Group Juliet, which was targeting Swappers West in front of Jetiqueta. As you know from previous episodes, one of the takeaways from the entire operation was the need to establish a permanent conventional mechanized combat unit inside the operational area. By January 1979, 61 Mech Battalion was formally named and established at Otavi before moving to Tumib in April 1979. It was eventually settled at Umutia, just north of a Tasha pan, while the HQ remained at Tumib. Joining me for parts of this episode is the former commander and founder Roland de Fris, a big thank you to him for spending time with me, outlining the rationale for the creation of a multi-service brigade. But first, a few words about Swappers arm-dwing plan and its decision to begin targeting white farmers and their workers south of Abambalan. In May 1979, 13 surgeons crossed the cut line and walked 250 kilometres south before attacking two farm homesteads, killing four people, two grandparents and their grandchildren. This led to 61 Mech's first deployment in account to insurgency role rather than a conventional mobile attack, for which it was created. As Roland de Fris explains, the plan to launch this unit had been in the offing for some time as he and Tony Savidez worked on the original blueprints. Tony Savidez is now retired like de Fris, and is regarded as one of the finest proponents of mechanized tactics in the African bush. Just a quick note, sorry folks, this is a Zoom interview, so at times the sound isn't exactly what I'd prefer, but bear with us as we expand the story of 61 Mech. Here's Roland de Fris. When 6-1 Mechanized Battalion Group was established in 1979, it became the baseline unit for the development of these doctrines. I later on became the commander of 61 Mech in 1982, and one of the books we saw that like there was the 6-1 Mechanized Battalion Group's standing operating procedure, which became the baseline for the further development of the doctrine. Then Tony and myself started writing the doctrine, this is one of the first doctrines that were written. It is the mechanized impotry pletuning battle, and this became the baseline for the development of mechanized doctrine in the South African army. De Fris has pointed out before that the combination of the mobile mechanized battalion working alongside unconventional units such as 3-2 battalion was one of the major successes for the SEDF. I think what was unique with regard to the South African concepts we developed, and this came to the fore during the battles that we fought in southern Angola, is where we combined the concepts of unconventional warfare in the form of 3-2 battalion operating far behind the enemy line, and mobile conventional units such as 6-1 Mechanized Battalion Group, and together these two units could act quite appreciably deep inside Angola, also behind the enemy line. It was the combined skills of both the troops on the ground and the officer caught at the time, which realized that using the tricks of night movement would be an advantage for the South Africans in the coming clashes. Having been part of some of these myself we quickly learned that unconventional use of the cover of the dark and changing directions was safer as the SEDF moved through southern Angola. It was the concept called jackal operations. It was all about observation, orientation, decision and then of course action. Jackal operations we're talking about the wideness of the jackal. This was really a concept that was developed by General Yannick Alvin's, to teach initiative down to the lowest rank. For example, at section level, a corporal level, where he motivated the leader group of our army to think on their feet and to think initiative. This, to my mind, formed part and parcel of the concept of mobile warfare, because one of the leadership concepts that we predicted was that of all-truck static mission command. What we refer to as command initiative, allowing your commanders to think two levels up and two levels down, allowing them a lot of latitude and flexibility, and also allowing to make errors. You can't wait until you have all the information required to make a decision. So, the concept of UDAR route became extremely important, and to cycle quicker through this cycle of decision making, then you'll vote it, which, and the UDAR stands for observation, orientation, decision and action. Now an extremely good example of the jackal concept was rooted in some of the tactics applied by three to battalion, which you know well. The art of war is mostly a dark art, full of diabolical tricks of deceit, convincing the enemy that you're in one place when you've left, or in other sites of hand, creating layers of deception, such as this ambush diffuses the scribes. I can remember well, during one of the operations, I think back now, it was probably 1981, 1982, there was an enemy detachment of Swap, who operating in the shallow area of south and gala, the area to the east of Ongeema and on Anka, where an enemy detachment was operating. And they assist from the evaluation that the enemy was extremely widely as well, but inquisitive. So, what I did was I wanted to ambush the detachment, and I selected the ambush site and as you well know, the definition of an ambush is a surprise attack on a moving enemy from a hidden position. And that's exactly what happened. They dump a few tires there and does that with petrol. And then they flew with a pure helicopter over the area where they resumed the Swap with the detachment work, and then they put a Swap generator off inside the chopper and made its splatter and it flew over the ambush site and sort of started the engine and disappeared over the horizon. And when the enemy came to investigate, they were, of course, ambushed. And this was typical, a typical example of jackal operations. Of course, 61 mechanized battalion was also highly aware of its military links to a much older conflict, the Anglo-Buel war. The SEDF offers a core working on new concepts of how to use heavy equipment in a non-conventional way. We're also well-read in history, it appears. In fact, in a kind of life-imitating art moment, Thomas Packenham referred to the Boers as using a jackal-like method in the manner in which they deployed way back in 1899. It's a beautiful description where Packenham describes the word columns, operating in a field as operating with the wireless of a jackal and, of course, with the nimbleness of a hunting cat, which I think is a great description of units such as CETA battalion and, of course, as of 61 mechanized battalion. Having observed 61 MEC battalion in action, one cannot help but to recall its snake-like capacity as it moved through the bush. Having compass headings almost like a sea creature twisting through southern Angola, a long, long line of vehicles that slid through the night. This was a battalion that used African techniques to deal with the unique requirements of a subtropical war, in thick sand, often, and on an extremely flat territory, which was without high ground. It was like a moving military base, as the Frees explains. And what was interesting about 61 MEC battalion, I mean, it was a large organization, if we moved through the bush from the front end of the column to the rear, was approximately 53 kilometers. So it took you a while to sort of travel from the end part of the front hall. And this column could operate freely in Angola for up to 14 days, carrying its own axles and spare engines and commodities such as ration packs and fuel bunkers, and even up to bunkers for helicopters, and, of course, your own water bunkers. We could operate quite independently for long distances, and I can remember with one particular operation, we traveled four distance of about 1,600 kilometers further than from Janusburg to Cape Town, through the thick bush at an approximate speed of 12 kilometers per hour, doesn't matter whether that was day or night, and that was quite an achievement if you think about that. But this unit was able to disperse extremely quickly in case of an air attack, we spoke about Fispron Tactics, and they could move far distances and also operate far behind enemy lines, wonderbashing them and using roads. Fispron Tactics was not something you hear about every day, perhaps one of the most important of the more controversial documents the SIDF Tacticians were reading as they prepared to launch 61 Mac, was known as the Rommel Papers. So much has been written about these with some claiming that they're merely an attempt to rewrite history, however the bits about the use of surprise and mobility were very important, at least according to the Fries. The basic tenets are quite simple, split the enemy's force, then decide how and when, you're going to target these two forces by taking the initiative. That sounds all very well, out on the dry expanse of the North African desert, but what about the Anglo-Nomies decision to stick to towns in the bush? One of the important books that we studied was Rommel Papers. Now, one of the rules for desert warfare, that was that Rommel, well he practiced it in Northern Africa, but that was to split the enemy's force in terms of time and space, and then to concentrate your own force and to attack at different times. Now, what made Warfin, against hot blood and government on regional forces, easy for us, was the fact that they were addicted to nutrition warfare, with other words, they invested towns with some point defensive positions, and they were split out all event, going on, this came as the chance to sort of move through the caps in their lines, and then to concentrate our forces and to attack them from different directions. What is interesting that we normally, when you look at the doctrine for an attack, you need to attack with a force of three to one, but normally we attack with a force of one to three, so we were always outnumbered. So, surprise and deception was extremely important. As we've already heard, the fact that the Russian advisors were present in southern Angola and training the MPLA and the Army Fuplar was going to be a big problem, at least in the early phases of the border war. Russia's military involvement was both a positive and a negative for the Angola. Firstly, access to heavy weapons, intelligence, satellite imagery and high-end communication equipment was a big advantage for Fuplar. At the same time, in actual battle conditions, the Russian style of leadership meant that the average troop was not encouraged to use their own initiative. This is somewhat ironic because in the Second World War, the Russians had developed initiative at section level, particularly during the battle of Stalingrad, and yet their style of training in Angola was more inflexible, which was to the South African's advantage. After the MPLA's success in taking over Angola in 1976, Moscow believed in its military prowess to such an extent that it moved to invade Afghanistan in 1978. These are direct links between the two parts of the world. Inevitably, Angola was part of this gigantic global stage. The period 1976 to 1979 saw an extensive reorganization of the Angolan army, the exorcite of popular Angola or EPA, into infantry brigades along conventional Soviet lines. But the rigid structure lacked an effect of counterinsurgency capability, and Soviet advisors attached to each brigade were almost their day facto leaders. Since the Angolan Air Force, or forciar area, popular Angola or papa, not to be confused with papa, lacked pilots and personnel who were qualified, Eastern European, and even other African pilots filled the gap and the Soviets ran air logistics until the late 1980s. So what started to happen was that the Soviet support began to paper over the real situation that the MPLA was one of the weakest of the Angolan liberation movements. As I've pointed out before, this obfuscated what was really happening, that there was a fundamental ideological and financial dependency on Moscow by a weak Lewandand government which began to indulge itself in massive bouts of corruption. This did not bode well for Fapler and the Angolan forces on the ground who suffered from oral deficiencies. No analysis of 61-makers complete without an understanding that the SADF was following an old handbook called Blitzkrieg. For all its undertones of Nazi extremes, the military reality was sound. Fast moving mechanized forces striking quickly and with powerful blows at an enemy is not nimble. It was all about what's known as Kessel slugged or cauldron battle and a number of other basic tenets, Schwerpunkt or the crucial focal point and a number of others. Yes, Roland de Frisse with a few more. There were basic operational concepts taught to the Germans which they applied with their Blitzkrieg concepts which I found invaluable and I'm going to mention quickly. The first one was Kessel slugged and referring back to the concepts of Rome that you were speaking about and in the way that the enemy was following the concepts of attrition warfare was we were applying the decadence of maneuver warfare. So Kessel slugged implies battles of encirclement and annihilation and then the next one of course is Schwerpunkt, the other concepts of focus of main effort were you need to assess the vulnerabilities in the enemy's makeup and then to concentrate your strength against the enemy's weakness. Other concepts that were extremely important was the concept of ultra-static, the concept of mission command which we referred to in Africa as the concept initiative to mount initiative, allowing control of your execution or of your plans down to the lowest level and allowing subalterns to make their decisions and allowing them to make it even if they don't have sufficient information. Other concepts were the very first kind, the whole principle of movements and improvisation. I can mention one example of Sichuan maintaining operation daisy when we did a deep infiltration traveling through extremely difficult terrain and it was during the wet season so it was difficult for the rattles to travel along these sort of deeply ratted areas and thick sand and heavy bush. What the troops did was to cut off stumps of trees and loaded onto the rattles and as the first rattles traverses a folding area, they will throw the stumps down behind them and they will make a bridge as the rattles columns progress along that path. So these were typical some of the improvisations that the troops had put thematically because they were thinking on the field and then of course the last concept, the Germans taught me was the concept of "inexconceive integration of effort, unity of command which is extremely important" and this is something we exercise a lot at Sichuan making in preparation for operations, allowing subalterns and seconding commands to take over command positions to participate in planning so that everybody in the new unit knew exactly what to do and how to do it. And this allows a lot of luggage you down to junior elite group level. Every battalion and every army has its standard operating procedure, SOP and 61 Mech was no different. As the story of the border war unfolds, you will hear more details about the SOP but it was basically handed to all new recruits, rapidly learned that the favoured drill by all 61 was via belt action or fear, hordle, I see. Coming back to this little bit critic, the SOP, the standing up ratings procedure of 6-1 Mech, one thing which was extremely important during training and preparing for battle were certain battle principles and concepts that we applied on 9-9-3 which is the command masqueraded, marching ready, battle ready and fire ready. This is these are short pre-orders commands that you give which means a lot to happen after you've given the command which is automatically executed by recruits. You say marching ready, they know exactly what was happened. Now with regards to the practicing of immediate action drones, what was extremely important was the ability of our small combat teams and and sub-sub-units to be able to group and to regroup extremely quickly on a command. And they'll even change radio frequencies on the move to come under command of another organization. What we practiced the day and night was the concept of fire and maneuver forward and rearward and to the flames. This was something that the troops could do as if by second nature. And another thing that we were extremely good at was at fire support coordination. And I think our organizations, they were probably pretty few of them in militaries elsewhere who could attack from the line of advance. With other words, automatically going into an attack, the mortar's coming into action, 60 millimeter mortars being fired from the roofs of the rifles. And then the troops with great comfort going into action in extended line attack formation. Apart from these drills, the SOP included handling prisoners of war, mind drills, clearing enemy trenches, operational movement by road and cross-country, fire support. Fighting inside towns and maintenance of equipment amongst others. And so we'll end this episode, special Christmas edition. Thanks again to Roland de Frist for his initial comments about 61 Mac. We got to hear a lot more about this organization through the series and from other members involved. Next, we'll return to the day-to-day border war and meet an amazing woman called Tani Pompi, who was a one-person communications centre for Tsumim Krufrenten and Otavi. We'll also hear about the escalation of attacks on civilians, particularly white farmers, which started in 1979. Please rate the podcast on iTunes if you can. Or if you have comments or want to contact me, you can do that through the website abwarpodcast.com. All direct message me on Twitter. My handle is @daislaytham. Until next, happy Christmas. Goodbye. [Music]