Episode 89 – Mirages, MiGs, missiles & the Lomba River tango to the death

[Music] Welcome back to South African Border Wars with me your host, Death Latham. This is episode 89. We heard last episode how Operation Modular had begun and how Fuplars 21st Brigade had been stopped from crossing the Lomba River by major Hunters Nautman and his squadron of rattles using the experimental ZRT3 rockets in early September 1987. This was happening along a river where the approaches were a mix of tropical grasslands and river iron bush that was almost impenetrable. Despite a raid by Migs which bombarded the area shortly after the failed ground assaults by the 21st Brigade, the SEDF had managed to drive back all of Fuplars attempts at reaching the south bank of the Lomba. But a bigger challenge lay to the west where Fuplars 47th Brigade had managed to circumvent the river and the wetlands and had now turned eastwards to face Mavinga and the SEDF, the date September 11th 1987. South Africa's artillery kept up a constant fire towards the retreating 21st Brigade and Fuplars commanders there could be heard in radio ordering a general withdrawal along with phrases like annihilation when referring to the condition of their men. The SEDF artillery had managed to hold up 47th Brigade after they'd wheeled east from the southwards march. Fuplars then sent a vanguard of PT-76 amphibious lat tanks forward in a reconnaissance mission while half a dozen T-54-55s hung around between the advanced recon party and their Brigade headquarters further to the west. This was an ideal moment for an SEDF intervention thought major hot-sleeve. He went to attack the two forward enemy battalions with two infantry companies from 101 battalion on board their Casper armoured cars. They'd be supported by eight rattle 90s and four rattle Z-T-3s with ammunition with artillery adding to the firepower. The area around the south of the Lomba river is a little bit like the Okavango swamp with less water. The bush is dense, a bearitable grassland jungle and a flood plain. Tropicals, sadness infused with wetland and moments later dusty sandy grassland. Once in the thick bush the South Africans realised they could only see around 20 meters into the foliage. Their visibility had been significantly reduced. "We preferred mobile warfare," said Captain Dany Kralter. He spoke to Leopold Skulls later. "We would rather move to a point where we attack and be able to move at quickly and never get dug in." "Fopla were dug in. They had two days to prepare for any SEDF assault which they knew was on its way. Popla soldiers had dug quickly through the soft ground and created hidden trenches and foxholes. The wreckies were experiencing challenges trying to locate exactly where the 1547 brigade troops were hiding out. There was a general area where the brigade was presumed to be and Bravo combat group commander Major Robbie Hutsleyve ordered his artillery to soften up Popla with a heavy bombardment. By now a few hundred unit troops were also available as reinforcements. As this combat group advanced they managed to squeeze a large section of Popla's 47 brigade against the Lombar River. Then during a short and intense assault with rattles firing their much feared anti-personal grabshot from the 90 mm and the caspers spraying the area with machine guns more than a hundred Fopla were killed. It was time for the South Africans to move forward and everything was going well until they ran into the tanks. While reconnaissance had reported at least a dozen T-54-55s as well as these amphibious tanks were snooping around, it was always a shock to face a tank in the bush, particularly when you can only see around 20 meters ahead. The inadequate 90 mm rattle gun was almost useless against the thick hulls of this Russian tank with South African commanders reporting later they had to fire eight rounds before there was any effect on the T-54-55s. By now the South Africans were doing what the Germans had done against the T-34s. They were firing at the precise point between the hull and the tank turret, an area of a couple of inches. Of course the Engolins were firing back. What made this fight even more and even, at least on paper, was that the rattles could not fire while moving, whereas the T-54-55s could. It was a feat of training in close-quarter tactics at five of these feared tanks were hit and put out of action. The SEDF lost three rattles which bogged down. Support engineers then managed to pull them out of the midst of the battle. These tanks were heavy weapons of the first order and the SEDF had nothing in place at the lomba to really deal with them. One of the T-54-55s skirted the South Africans and headed towards the combat group's headquarters, firing on the SEDF support vehicles. Commandant Bird Sachsar was wounded. He'd been sent to help with unit aliase on now he was manned down. Another tank suddenly appeared in the midst of the SEDF firing at major hot sleeve section, just missing a rattle in his right, then it fired at an ambulance behind but missed both. Hot sleeve was facing the SEDF-54-55 head on, his rattle at a standstill and a sitting duck. The tank suddenly veered off to the left, showing its fragile flank to Hot sleeve's gunner, who fired four shots at the heavy Russian machine. Three missed the tank as it crunched through the bush. The camouflage used by the Angolan's was excellent, making it even more difficult to hit. The first round hit the ground in front of the tank, spewing dust. The second went over the top, the third landed ahead, then the fourth was a bull's eye. Incredibly, nothing happened at first, the tank seemed impervious and kept going. Hot sleeve said afterwards, "We fired another six altogether seven bull's eyes on the tank, of which two penetrated the turret. The tank started burning and the crew jumped out." Hot sleeve's machine gunner shot them down. The South Africans were in a bit of a pickle. The tanks had their upper hand, at least when it came to firepower. But the SEDF rattle units were better trained and they had the additional advantage of a tainted turn ratio despite the tank tracks. This turned into learning on the job stuff, as the battle developed inside this dense bush, rattles began to turn the T-54-55s. The tactic was pretty jaw-dropping, the rattle would rush past the tank but too close for proper firing, then turn and attack them from the rear. The T-54-55s rear armor was 20mm thick, whereas it was more like 80mm at the front, that's almost a meter of iron and a 90mm cannon could not penetrate. Fappers' tanks also began to turn, leading to a kind of heavy metal pirouette between these two major tools of war, the rattle and the T-54-55 are kind of terrible tango to the death. Young Bratenbach actually called this the "dance of death." Two more rattles then reported difficulties. In one, a driver was screaming about being surrounded. Northman jumped out of the rattle arm to the R-5 rattle and charged towards the first stricken rattle. Behind him was a recovery vehicle but when he arrived he saw nothing could be done. It was on fire that our right hit from a T-54-55 had passed through the right hand door, killed the driver instantly, then bounced out through the front window. Captain Mack McCullum and six of his men inside this rattle died when they were hit by the T-54-55 armor piercing round. Pieces of the destroyed rattle remain at the spot to this day. Northman then ran towards a secondary stationary rattle, call Sarn-13 Alpha, which had hit a tree trunk. The engine was running and the doors were open but it had been abandoned. He called for a recovery vehicle, wondering what had happened. And as he walked to the other side of the rattle he spotted fuplar boots under the door, moments before the enemy soldier fired at him. He fired back on full automatic, killing the man. Another was inside, grabbing kit that was lying around. And Northman shot at him as well. The soldier turned and fled. Northman's run smacked into the foodtons the enemy soldier had in the bag on his back, then he was done. Moments later, combat group Charlie rolled up in support. The fight then progressed for the rest of the day. The eventually word reached the weary South Africans. At six more tanks were seen heading their way. 101 battalion began to withdraw when they received this news, so hot sleeve decided to live to fight another day and ordered a general withdrawal. The battle group retreated to lick its wounds. The surge of these battle tanks had shaken the South Africans. This was a case of the SEDF taking a knife to a gunfight. Members of 101 battalion were enraged and said they were being used as cannon fodder. And a few days later, almost 50 of these men resigned, although the SEDF said they were released from service. They also pointed out that they no longer wanted to fight as unita mercenaries. This is the evening of the 13th of September. Seven SEDF soldiers were dead, seven others wounded. One rattle was lost along with two caspers. Five fuff blood tanks were burning, and about 300 of these soldiers laid dead. But they still had a huge weight in both numbers and material advantage over the SEDF to the east. Who would make the next move on the lumber? 47 Brigade. It halted the advance on livinga. It had dug in south of the lumber wetland. For the first time in this border war, a long fight developed here. A fight that was going to last at least two. weeks. Operation modular commander Farreira wanted to try another direct assault on 47 Brigade to hurl them backwards. He turned to quibis Smith's combat battle group Alpha as the main force. Hartzler was ordered to head back east just in case 21 Brigade, along with 16 Brigade, trying to cross the lumber for a second time. And that folks is exactly what they were planning. So Smith led battle group Alpha, which was really 61 mechanized battalion, was a few days earlier that Petoria had told all senior officers that Alpha could not be deployed against what they called general targets. Army commander Kat Limenbach had said that he personally would give the order to send Alpha to battle, and made it clear that 61 Mech would only be sent in for what he called the proper confirmation of a defined objective. Defeating 47 Brigade was apparently the objective, although usually it was a point or a town or something. Petoria was meddling in operational and tactical decisions for a number of reasons. It was under extreme pressure about Namibia, and its own internal uprising back home, and had very little room for politically charged error. The PW Buddha government was also still laboring under the illusion that could somehow spin the way out of being in southern Angoda at all. The SEDF officers at the front scoffed at this obvious silliness. Everyone was wondering around going "nudge nudge wink wink". The Russians had proof South Africans were involved, including bits of Valkyrie rocket parts which you needed did not use. Plausible deniability only works when there's no information, but of course Petoria was more interested in convincing its own people back home that it was avoiding sending its young men to die on you need his behalf rather than convincing the international community of the truth or not. It's a bit like what Moscow is doing in eastern Ukraine and started doing in 2013 and 2014, using their troops to assist the breakaway Donbass and other regions, then lying about it, keeping their home fires happy so to speak who cares what anyone else thinks. However, this is a politically schizophrenic strategy and liable to receive shock treatment. In approaching 47 Brigade's defensive position, Comodun Smith knew their dug-in facing an attack expecting to come from the south and the east, at least he hoped so. He decided to pull off a swinging flanking attack, marching past Fuplar's southern flank, then doubling back to hit them in the rear from the west. But the South Africans didn't seem to realise was that Fuplar had fought the SEDF for long enough to know that the enemy loved to create the impression of an attack from where they launched, only to slip around the back door. They expected the attack from the back. The date for the assault on 47 Brigade was set for 16th September. But a phenomenal equaliser was in the way called the Angolan Riveron Bush. This is thick stuff, thicker than any bush Smith had fought in before. His battalion was drawn up for a quick march, but they ended up arriving at Fuplar's positions well after midday instead of dawn. As you'll hear, they had apparently missed the boat and the SA Air Force. Because they had conducted their first sortie at 0545, opening their air offensive with a combined strike against 47 Brigade's presumed position. Dropping 100 Mark 82, pre-fragged devices, these are a hefty 250 kilograms each and were modified American Mark 82 bombs. The casing had been altered to allow larger diameter ball bearings to be squeezed in, and these balls could penetrate lightly armoured personnel carriers. Comedan Johan Ranking led one of these attacks, and he was wary because by now reconnaissance and drone flights had picked out Russian SA-6 and SA-8 missiles in the area. Despite this, Ranking hurtled in for the Färhui, the farthro-technique bomb run low level, rise up to release the ordnance, sink back to low level, and the bomb arcs across the sky, like a deadly sine wave. After the release, the Marajas would pull a 130 degree bank and dropped to low level to avoid the missiles. Ranking Julie released his bombs and rolled back towards ground, then heard on his radio that a number of missiles were actually hitting his way. He spotted numerous smoke trails that were clearly coming towards his Maraj. He fixated on the danger, and for a few moments stopped flying Maraj. It dropped towards the ground approaching the speed of sun, and at the last minute he saw the treetops out of the corner of his eye, rolled horizontally and pulled back, and the Marajas was about to hit the trees when the foliage parted like the Red Sea, and he plunged straight into an open area, a Shona. The extra 50 feet saved his life, while the Ranking left a plume of dust in the Shona, and then he made a b-line back to Andungwa. The Migs were nowhere to be seen. There was only a few days before this operation that the SAF was pilots were going to receive a clear indication that the Angolan Air Force had changed their motorcycle Miranda. They were now both hunting each other. A few days before the assault, SAF was commandant Kala Gajiano, and Captain Anton van Lorenzburg had found themselves in a dogfight against two Migs in the Marajas. As the aircraft victed towards the bogies, Gajiano had asked for a heart check so it could climb above the Migs. He in front of Lorenzburg jettisoned the empty drop tanks, and moments later they had the two Mig 23s visual. The founder Lorenzburg managed to turn onto the tail of one of the Russian planes, which spiraled down as he attacked, firing two Metro 550 missiles. The first exploded behind the enemy plane causing no damage, while the second also seemed to go off too early. Gajiano in front of Lorenzburg headed back to Air Force Base Rundu, and the Migs turned for home. This was a big moment for all involved. On the South African side there were more confident about fighting these Migs, and on the Angolan side they were more confident about fighting the Marajas. From now on the South Africans were far more worried about the SA-6s and 8s, and for good reason. In little did Gajiano know he'd face off against Migs sooner rather than later. Back on the ground, the South Africans and Fuplar were now into week two of this battle for the Lomba, with another side managing to seize the initiative. Fuplar wasn't giving up further east either. Suddenly on the 19th of September 21 Brigade made another run for the southern bank of the Lomba River, and at the same place they'd failed previously. The SDR from monitoring the radio and knew that Fuplar was coming, so pulled the limited force back south of the crossing point just in time to avoid the heavier Angolan artillery barrage. Hundreds of Fuplar troops backed by armored vehicles and tanks, once more, trying to cross the river, but waiting for them with the G5 and Valkyrie mobile rocket launcher sections, which lay down at counter barrage. The second attempted crossing failed, Fuplar pulled back once more. 21 Brigade had been so badly mauled that were told to hand over the heavy weapons and supplies to the reinforcement brigade called 59 and then withdraw from the Lomba. So, as combat group Alpha tried to art flank Brigade 47, most of the Angolans are now pulled out of their tenuous position, and as Smith's Alpha group rolled into the empty set of trenches, he later radioed, he believed a mortar section was all that had been taken out, but he also said his men could not see a thing. Navigation in Angola is difficult, and in the thick bush without GPS the challenge was mounted. Then the South African was killed, and Armand Car Squadron leader Major Pete Cloutier was wounded, along with two other soldiers. Ferreira had a good think about matters, and when Gubber's Smith asked for combat battle group Alpha to be allowed to call off the attack, he granted permission. Both sides now reconsidered their next moves. Things, though, were developing in the air war. On the morning of the 27th September, 1987, a reconnaissance sortie was flown escorted by three squadron over the Lomba River. Then, at 1,530, three pairs of Mirage F1CZ scrambled for a MIG intercept. Once again, Karla Gajana was in the air, along with Arthur Piersi, Pierre Duplacie, Frank Tonkin, Rudy Mess, and Jaco De Beer. The first two Mirages were going to set up a holding point while last pair Mess and De Beer were vected 40 degrees off to the left by radar. They were going to be the cut off aircraft should the other MIGs try to attack. Gajana and Piersi were the main intercept pair. They pitched up heading towards the MIGs, and approaching the enemy planes head on, they dropped their tanks, as they were about to reach the enemy planes. Gajana spotted one, and hit his push to talk button, said, "SU-22, correction, MIG-23. The Mirage pilots turned left while the MIGs did the same. They were conducting the own aerial version of the Grand Forces' dance of death." One of the MIGs managed to get into a good position and let fly with three front-sector Am 8 missiles. One was picked up on Gajana's camera gun film, passing just over his canopy. The other two headed Piersi's way. One missed, but the other exploded alongside his left side near the tailpipe. Piersi then dropped to tree level, and fortunately the two MIGs disappeared. Gajana joined up with Piersi, who now had his hands full coping with hydraulic failure and leaking fuel. Gajana flew alongside Piersi's Mirage and set over the radio, "Arthur, you've had your tail feathers ruffled." It's about bringing a general dick-lord called the "Understatement of the War." As they approached Rundu, Pse realized that his drag parachute had been shot off and that fuel was leaking from holes on the right side of the mirage. His hydraulics were gone, there were no breaks, and he was now using the emergency throttle to coax this plane home. So now this is where the rash to set up Rundu's airfield for the use by mirages was going to backfire. Remember last episode I explained that it didn't have time to set up any form of arrest of barrier. Pse had it back to the short airfield on a wing in a prayer. He had no shoot, he had no breaks, he had no arrest of barrier, but now he was going to try and save the plane. He couldn't control the fighter jet properly, but somehow managed to line up for final at Rundu. He came in too fast, he hit the runway, perhaps it's best to describe this as a crash, because the force of the hit caused his ejection seat to fire and he was thrown out of the cockpit. But the mirage was on the ground, and that is just not enough time to deploy a parachute. Pse's seat hit the ground with a shoot in the process of opening, and when emergency crews reached him, he was still strapped in. He'd shattered his lower spine, he was now a paraplegic. It was a somber SAFOS group that faced a terrible fact. The technological advantage in the war in Angola now lay in the hands of the enemy. A new order was issued from that day, that for the foreseeable future three squadron was restricted to base defense and escort duties. The SAFOS rethought its tactics led by Commandant Mossibason, who was an ex-1 squadron pilot. He knew the South Africans had to change their air combat maneuvering program in order to face the Sam 7 and Sam 8 missiles. His first act was to ask Ptoria to buy the latest Metro Magic missiles for the mirage, but sanctions meant this was out of the question. Then on the 28th of September, President B. W. Butter flew to Mavinga to meet the SEDF leadership of 20th Brigade in an attempt at showing up UNITERS' resolve. It was following this visit that the battle really took off. Colonel Ferreira was ordered to direct all his forces at Ptoria's 47 Brigade, starting on the 3rd of October. Hundreds of troops from 61 Mech and Gulf Company of 3 Tubertaian, along with 50 rifles in three lines were going to cause panic when they descended on Ptoria's 47th Brigade. Folks, this is possibly one of the most remarkable battles fought in Africa through the 20th century, and is thought of as the biggest mechanized battle in Africa since Germany's Africa Corps was defeated in Tunisia in 1943. We'll hear more about this next episode. Please rate the podcast on iTunes, it helps raise the visibility of the series. If you want to contact me, you can head off to abwarpodcast.com. There's a contact form on the homepage or direct message me on Twitter @deaslaven. Until next, goodbye. [Music]