The Rhodesian military issued restricted maps of excellent quality, although my own stick often came across “recently” erected fences which farmers had put up, and which weren't marked on them. I don`t think the maps were updated that regularly, and in my experience at the end of the war, they were at least a few years out of date. While on a few night patrols my stick occasionally came across unmarked fences which shouldn`t have been there. We used to take the red filter off a pen-light torch and inspected the age of the barbed-wire etc, and they were all obviously only a few years old or less, and so probably not a problem.

My stick only genuinely got lost once, in a very hilly region at night where we had no horizon to work with. We eventually saw a light and walked in on it, and it turned out to be a hotel we all knew of. “Unfortunately” we "just had to" spend the rest of the night there, in front of a fire-place with a pile of logs, and a full blown steak supper and a few free beers.

Actually it was very funny when we first arrived and went straight into the Cocktail Bar, camo`d top to bottom, stinking from a few days patrol, and armed to the teeth. The bar was fully of Ladies and Gents in their best evening finery, and the conversation in the room completely died as we walked in with our FN`s pointing at the ceiling. We smiled our bestest smiles , and I said, "Good evening, mine`s a Lion" (a type of beer), and we promptly fled to go find the manager. Although we apparently scared the hell out of everyone , they all seemed quite glad to have 4 RLI "troopies" on the premises, as long as we stayed out of their bar and didn`t stink the place up any further! It certainly beat freezing our butts off out in the middle of an African winter when the temperatures can drop easily below freezing, especially in that mountainous area. We never did tell our Troop (Platoon) Officer where we were that night, and the other two sticks of our Troop basically slept in the mountains and froze. Ag man what a shame.

My father also had an interesting experience while on patrol with PATU (Police Anti-Terrorist Unit), when in the middle of the night his “sixth-sense for trouble” kicked in and he told his stick leader to leave a fence crossing for 10 minutes or so. Sure enough a terrorist gang of some 20 guerrillas came marching down the fence line, using it to walk in on the farmhouse they intended to attack. The terrs had a bad day.

On night marches it was usual to take a bearing every 20 minutes or so, pick a star on that bearing and then walk on it until running into expected objects like fences, windmills, roads etc. I can`t honestly remember using “paces” as a means of measure, but it was decades ago now. I do remember my stick frequently used maps for grid references, but the savanna allows a lot of “general” position fixing using “gomos” or hills, river bends etc. If in need of chopper support, all our Alouette IIIs had Direction Finding equipment fitted and all that was required was for us to key the mic for 15 seconds with a hand over the mouth-piece when commanded to. They would then fly in on that bearing and we would call when they flew over head. Alternatively a smoke grenade is useful too. Our Troop Officer also insisted that all the soldiers within the call-sign be aware of the sticks position on a map, just in case, and we generally stopped every hour for five to ten minute breaks and checked the position. Sticks on a “follow up” however generally did so “on the run,” and there wasnt a lot of time for those sort of niceties, which is why the DF kit on the Allo`s was so useful.

As for Mozambique, I am lead to believe those maps were pretty good too, largely due to the fact that there was a lot of cooperation between the Portuguese and Rhodesians prior to 1975. I can`t speak on Zambia, no idea. For more detail on “external” maps you would need to speak the Stick Leaders who used them.

Some time ago I found the following web page which shows some maps of border regions with Mozambique, some dated 1975. The scale is far larger than those normally used by us, but at least these give a general idea.

http://eusoils.jrc.it/esdb_archive/E.../lists/czw.htm

And while I think of it, farmers sometimes also put up power lines and telephone cables which were a hazard to low flying choppers, especially in valleys. These weren`t marked either, and a few choppers hit them and went in, killing all on board, including one with a lot of high ranking officers.

Sorry not really much info for you

I.R