Looking for older FID manuals

[Colin Robinson]

Does anyone have accessible copies of the older FID manuals from the 1960s and 1970s? I'm a PhD student with the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom trying to ascertain what guidance was available to the first Western officers trying to reconstruct armies after civil wars in the 1980s: especially Zimbabwe with the BMATT but also later efforts.

Cheers and thanks

[max161]

Try this link to Fort Leavenworth.

http://cgsc.leavenworth.army.mil/CARL/index.asp

They have a large number of manuals that are obsolete in PDF files that are easily downloaded. If you go back to the 1950s and 1960s you will need to use key words such as counterinsurgency (look for the 1963 field manual US Army in COIN) and counter-guerrilla operations as FID was not yet invented. Also you will need to look for Low Intensity Conflict.

[William F. Owen]

Does anyone have accessible copies of the older FID manuals from the 1960s and 1970s? I'm a PhD student with the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom trying to ascertain what guidance was available to the first Western officers trying to reconstruct armies after civil wars in the 1980s: especially Zimbabwe with the BMATT but also later efforts.



As concerns UK manuals, none that I can think of. Most well read UK officers would have been familiar with Kitson, Paget, and a few other of the usual suspects.

Also bear in mind, that Zimbabwe was more about integrating the rebels into the existing - if re-branded - Army. The Army did not need re-building. The man who commanded UK forces in Zimbabwe during the transition was Major General Ackland. I believe he is still with us.

[Colin Robinson]

Thank you both. I seem to have found the manual that summarised FID - or what there was of it - in the late 1970s, FM 31-20 Special Forces Operations, 1977. That's definitely a step in the right direction.
Mr Owen thanks for your thoughts on Zimbabwe. I have a list of the heads of the BMATTs from an Army Quarterly and Defence Journal article - Acland apparently handed over to Maj. Gen. C P R Palmer who headed it in 1980-82, then a Maj. Gen. C.T. Shortis, etc. What I really need to find out, given my focus on doctrine for rebuilding/integrating armies, is whether they took/adopted any doctrinal guidance with them from existing manuals, or did they make it up as they went along from adoptions of British procedure. I need to check if at all possible. Would you be able to give me any thoughts as to how?
Kind regards from NZ

[Tom Odom]

Colin

I went through the Sudanese Junior Command and Staff Course in Omdurman in 1984. It was modeled on the British course and nearly identical to our CAS3 (I almost got credit for CAS3). A British Army Training Team (3 officers and one warrant) taught the tactics and the Sudanese taught the admin portions. The BATT used standard British training materials with lesson plans adapted to the locale. I suspect they did the same in Zimbabwe.

On FID and COIN we looked at Palestine as a case study, a choice that made for interesting discussions with the "arab" Sudanese students.

Tom

[William F. Owen]

What I really need to find out, given my focus on doctrine for rebuilding/integrating armies, is whether they took/adopted any doctrinal guidance with them from existing manuals, or did they make it up as they went along from adoptions of British procedure. I need to check if at all possible. Would you be able to give me any thoughts as to how?
Kind regards from NZ

My guess.... based on experience of researching UK infantry doctrine, is that they "sort of made it up as they went along."
The UK tends to apply their own manuals to this sort of problem. So take PAM 45 as adapt it to the local bods, whoever they may be.
I very much doubt if their are any specific manuals relating to this area, but I could be wrong. Brits writing useful stuff down is, sadly, pretty rare.

[Mark O'Neill]

but if you want I can send you a copy of 'The Division in Battle. No. 11 Pam, Counterinsurgency PM me.

The other guys you must talk to (you probably know this) are Alex Alderson at Warminster, Richard Iron (in your loc, I think) and David Benest (maybe also in your loc).

Also look up Daniel Marston ( I can provide contact) and you would be crazy to ignore Mockaitis' work,

cheers

Mark

[davidbfpo]

Colin,

I looked at the role on BMATT in Zimbabwe many years ago and found there were a few laudatory press articles. More serious works were done by the Canadians, which I may be able to locate. Those involved such as Major General Acland will now be in their seventies. I don't know who were thier junior staff alas.

BMATT did have a "hands on" approach with ZNA training and notably during the mutiny at Etumbane, near Bulawayo - when a SNCO training the ZNA to use French armoured cars (AML90) went with his trainees to ambush a convoy coming into Etumbane to join the mutiny. All strictly un-official.

The Namibian BMATT was tiny in comparison and when I was there cited as being mainly involved in officer selection from both armies i.e. SWAPO and the Defence Force.

I'd look through old issues of British Army Review, which should be in the NZDF Library, for reports on BMATT in Zimbabwe.

More recent is the intervention and follow-on training in Sierra Leone, which being in the Internet age should be available to research. Cannot recall that this was called BMATT.

I've got David Benest's email somewhere, standby.

davidbfpo

[William F. Owen]

Alex Alderson at Warminster, Richard Iron (in your loc, I think) and David Benest (maybe also in your loc).

David's retired, but I know him so PM me if required and likewise for Richard Iron who is on the staff at Shrivenham.

[Colin Robinson]

Dear all,
Thanks for your thoughts.
Tom and William, 'making it up as they went along' was exactly what I suspected. What I really need to do now is get access to the original reports / and the junior staffers to confirm. As you two indicated, I'm pretty sure that they simply adopted British doctrine, but for a PhD I really need to confirm.

Mark thanks for your thoughts. The thing is 'FID' is only the term at the time for how to assist foreign forces. I'm not looking at COIN, I'm wanting to look at the doctrine on what is now 'Security Force Assistance' or, for the Brits now, LWC Doctrine Note 7/16 Building Indigenous Armies. So the COIN/FID title can be misleading. But thanks for the thoughts anyway.

David thanks again. I'm trying to find data on all the BMATTs - Zim, Namibia, and then later in S Africa though their role is pretty well covered. I have one article from BAR on simulator training and two from Army Quarterly and Defence Journal on Zim and the efforts supporting Mozambique. I am looking at SL later but have a reasonable amount of data, including a recently published book on SSR in SL. Did you say you were posted with BMATT in Namibia? If so, can you confirm the Team wasn't working from anything but
their own sense of British doctrine, as adapted for local conditions?

William thanks. I'll probably ping you to get those two e-mails - really helpful.

[davidbfpo]

On my Zimbabwe bookshelves are:

From Rhodesia to Zimbabwe: The Politics of Transition by Henry Wiseman & Alastair Taylor (Pub. 1981 IPA) only provides the setting.

Managing Arms in Peace Processes: Rhodesia / Zimbabwe (Pub. UNIDR 1995) again setting and good on how relations between the Rhodesians (RSF), ZAPLA-ZIPRA and the Commenwealth Monitoring Force (CMF). Includes references to three interviews: Major General Acland (died 2006), Colonel J.B.A. Bailey and Brigadier Roderick-Jones (CMF became BMATT).

Transforming Settler States: Communal Conflict and Internal Security in Northern Ireland and Zimbabwe by Ronald Weitzer (Pub. 1990) interesting wide study of the issues.

Weitzer refers to Gukurahundi: The Development of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces 1980-1987 by Mike Evans, in Strategic Review for Southern Africa 10 (May 1988). The author was in the RSF and ZNA so saw BMATT at first hand and is now in Australia (PM if email needed).

I think some articles, critical, appeared in the SADF literature too on Zimbabwe.

Finally, no I was not with BMATT in Namibia.

davidbfpo