Rhodesian COIN (consolidated thread, inc original RLI)

[baboon6]

. But you can be assured that there are plenty plus US and Brit kids as young as we were back then who would be up for a modern fire force version even more violent due to the weapons and stuff available today. And like in our day there will be plenty of young helo pilots who will take their chances with RPGs as our young pilots did back then.

Correctly he states that Rhodesians were fighting for the very existance of their country, their way of life and everything they held dear. It was the end game. That is why Rhodesian 18 year olds were able to pull enormous reserves of courage and endurance and innovation from within to achieve such results against seemingly impossible odds. This is not the same for the troopies in Afghanistan.

Aren't you contradicting yourself here? Are you implying US and UK soldiers in Afghanistan aren't trying their best within the political and tactical constraints they are operating under?

The point it's not just the ROEs or the motivation (which I doubt is lacking), many people in this thread have pointed out technical and tactical reasons too. The way you go on about it you would think you guys had invented the wheel or something. Fireforce was obviously very effective at that place and time, but again as others have pointed out other militaries have used variations on the theme before eg. the US Army Eagle Flights and USMC Sparrowhawk forces in Vietnam. Helicopter-borne quick reaction forces have been used in Iraq and Afghanistan too, obviously not quite in the same way.

Finally, while Rhodesia operated under some major disadvantages, as Wilf posted above you had some advantages too- operating on your own territory, able to gather intelligence far more easily, without the constant and sometimes debilitating scrutiny of the politicians and media, without the need to keep a coalition of nations together, without the need to satisfy the whims of a host/client government. There are certainly lessons to be learned from the Rhodesian experience, and you are undoubtedly correct about some of the major mistakes the NATO governments and militaries have made. But we've been through this numerous times before.

[Rex Brynen]

While I don't want to divert this thread into a political discussion, it is worth pointing out that, in at least two ways, the high Rhodesian kills rates achieved against ZANLA and ZIPRA were politically problematic.

First of all, the military success achieved against black nationalist guerillas appears to have blinded many in the the Rhodesian government to what had been perfectly obvious since 1965: that, in the end, the Rhodesian experiment with white minority rule was doomed to eventual failure. By delaying the point of implementing one person, one vote it ended up weakening Rhodesian negotiating power (which would have been far stronger in, say, 1967 than it was at Lancaster House, by which time Rhodesia had become almost universally reviled). At the same time the war actually strengthened ZAPU and ZANU relative to other potential political forces in the country (much as the wars in Vietnam, Algeria, Mozambique, or Yemen strengthened the Viet-Minh, FLN, Frelimo, and NLF/YSP).

Second, Rhodesia's external operations—while hugely successful in a narrow military sense, with kill rates of up to 3000:2 in Op Dingo—also served to weaken rather than strengthen the country's international position, and thereby increased external pressure. Certainly those in the international anti-Apartheid movement at the time saw them as a political godsend, facilitating efforts to paint Rhodesia as a rogue, racist state.

While there's no doubt that ISAF ROE could be tweaked in a variety of useful ways, the political reality is that if ISAF started racking up similar kills rates, greater civilian casualties, and conducting major raids into Pakistan it would have the effect of undermining US domestic and international support for the counterinsurgency, weaken Karzai, alienate Pakistan, and probably increase Taliban recruitment rates. As Wilf and Ken are inclined to remind us, the military is an instrument of policy, and wars are fought in a context. There's no point undertaking operations that win battles at the cost of losing the broader political-military struggle.

On a side issue, might I also suggest that we start referring to the black Zimbabweans killed in the war as ZANLA, ZIPRA, "black nationalist guerillas," or something else a little more appropriate than terrs and gooks? SWJ has always frowned on the use of "gooks" for the Viet-Cong, "ragheads" or "hajis" for Iraqis or Afghans, "wogs" in the former British Empire, "kaffirs" for blacks, "stücke" or "figuren" for Jews and gypsies, etc,—regardless of whether such derogatory terms were in common use in theatre by the troops of the day.

[tequila]

Also, despite the Fire Force's high kill rates, wasn't the rate of infiltration towards the end of the war far exceeding this rate? Didn't this lead to the effective abandonment of most of the countryside to the insurgents by 1978, and indeed this was simply recognition that the insurgents had already broken down Rhodesian government authority in those areas?

If any of this is inaccurate, please let me know.

[Steve Blair]

There are also parallels to the 9th ID's operations in lower III Corps and IV Corps under Julian Ewell in '68 and '69. Ewell shifted his division to a heavy use of H&I fires, night helicopter operations (to include snipers and .50 caliber MGs on the birds), and sweeps (both riverine and land-based) that relied on heavy firepower. It was also widely rumored (and confirmed on a couple of occasions as I recall) that he rated his subordinate commanders (battalion and up) based on their body count reports. As a result, the 9th ID's kill ratios climbed, but the number of recovered weapons (considered a better indicator of enemy casualties by many) dropped drastically. Ewell ended up defining his operations based on what he called the exchange ratio (friendly losses versus reported hostile KIA numbers) and goes into this in some detail in Sharpening the Combat Edge. Some reports referred to the division HQ as "bloodthirsty" and obsessed with body counts.

[Ken White]

OTOH, the Brigade I was with in '66 had two brags. They had not been in their Base Camp in over 300 days and they had a higher weapon count than body count. Different strokes...

Unfortunately, body counts can get get corrupted in the name of propaganda. Oops. I mean PsyOps, Information Warfare, Influence Operations or something...

When I went back in '68, I was visiting a nearby unit's TOC and noticed a Body Count of 800 some of and a Weapon Count in the low hundreds. I asked some skeptical questions and got what amounted to a shoulder shrug. The idea really got corrupted by us in Viet Nam and thus it is a no-no for us today. However, Ewell was right -- so was JMA -- in that the ratio is the important thing. Today, the troops keep score, even if units do not.

[Steve Blair]

However, Ewell was right -- so was JMA -- in that the ratio is the important thing. Today, the troops keep score, even if units do not.

True enough, but you also need to consider which ratio you're looking at.

[JMA]

Also, despite the Fire Force's high kill rates, wasn't the rate of infiltration towards the end of the war far exceeding this rate? Didn't this lead to the effective abandonment of most of the countryside to the insurgents by 1978, and indeed this was simply recognition that the insurgents had already broken down Rhodesian government authority in those areas?

If any of this is inaccurate, please let me know.

OK, this is not something that can be dealt with in a sound bite. (Wikipedia does not always tell the whole story

Rhodesia never had the troops to hold all the ground. There had been a debate for years over why the military should concentrate on the vital ground and strategic communication routes and carry out raids into areas of no tactical importance through a combination of Selous Scouts and RLI fire force actions. So yes there were some areas which they could have termed "liberated areas" but we could go in there whenever we wanted and had the troops to do so. So they got relaxed and then we went in and killed a few hundred then moved on.

From the government authority point of view no rural police station was ever closed down. Schools were closed as teachers were killed or intimidated. Cattle dipping ceased, clinics closed and it all went back to nature.

Later in 1979 there was a push by ZANLA certainly to get as many insurgents into the country as possible for pre-election activities. But at the same time Bishop Muzorewa's militia was starting to have an effect in the rural areas which had no real strategic value. There were about 10,000 of them out there and there were numerous contacts between them and ZANLA.

Then of course you may be aware that the southern edge of Rhodesia and the adjacent portion of Mozambique were being taken care of by South African troops. Took the local farmers a while to realise why these Puma helos were flying around in their areas.

Interesting little war where they did a lot of the right (political) things too late to make the required difference.

[tequila]

Later in 1979 there was a push by ZANLA certainly to get as many insurgents into the country as possible for pre-election activities. But at the same time Bishop Muzorewa's militia was starting to have an effect in the rural areas which had no real strategic value. There were about 10,000 of them out there and there were numerous contacts between them and ZANLA.

So by 1978, were the insurgent zones of control expanding or fading? Sure, perhaps they could not or did not contest RLI or Fire Force incursions, but since the RLI did not bother to contest control of the population, what did it matter?

[William F. Owen]

While I don't want to divert this thread into a political discussion, it is worth pointing out that, in at least two ways, the high Rhodesian kills rates achieved against ZANLA and ZIPRA were politically problematic.

First of all, the military success achieved against black nationalist guerillas appears to have blinded many in the the Rhodesian government to what had been perfectly obvious since 1965: that, in the end, the Rhodesian experiment with white minority rule was doomed to eventual failure.

While UDI was strategically pointless, it must be remembered that the white Rhodesian government enjoyed so much support from the UK population as to make military action against Rhodesia, impossible. Thus the Government policy that followed was for a negotiated transition to majority rule.

From a military standpoint what the Rhodesian Army's successes did was force ZANLA and ZIPRA to recognise they could only win via massive conventional military action. Lancaster House was convened to prevent the war escalating to a state that would have forced external intervention - certainly from the UK and external raids by the Rhodesians had crippled the economies of all the states harbouring and supporting ZANLA/ZIPRA.

Now the viability and even the reality of a ZANLA/ZIPRA conventional invasion is very debatable, but the Rhodesian Army ensured the the cost of a guerilla campaign was unacceptably high, and progress unacceptably slow - thus talks were the only option. What military action ensured was a negotiated peace and not a forced one - which is what the armed insurgency sought.

[Rex Brynen]

Now the viability and even the reality of a ZANLA/ZIPRA conventional invasion is very debatable, but the Rhodesian Army ensured the the cost of a guerilla campaign was unacceptably high, and progress unacceptably slow - thus talks were the only option. What military action ensured was a negotiated peace and not a forced one - which is what the armed insurgency sought.

Wilf, I'll have to disagree somewhat on your take here--both in terms of what Smith originally hoped to achieve through UDI, and whether ZAPU and ZANU saw a negotiated transition to power as somehow second-best to a forced one.

Much of ZANLA's political mobilization and force-in-waiting strategy through the 1970s was precisely predicated on the view that either through military exhaustion or external pressure, the Rhodesian government would eventually either collapse or be forced to step down, at which point a combination of ZANU preparations and its larger Shona political base would allow it to triumph over ZAPU. There was no reason to see negotiations as a the second best way of doing this—on the contrary, by the late 1970s Mugabe and Tongogara were generally convinced by the argument (especially made to them by Samora Machel) that a military victory risked bring South Africa into the war in an even larger way, and that a negotiated route to power (legitimated by African and international support) was the safer bet.

This, of course, is exactly what happened.

Note that I'm not saying that ZANLA didn't attempt to inflict the maximum possible casualties on Rhodesian forces (and even civilians). I am saying that they believed, correctly, that their military power gave them political advantages too, and that the Lancaster House route was a perfectly acceptable way of securing victory.

In my view, Smith would have got a better deal in the late 1960s and early 1970s (pre-Altena Farm) than by the late 1970s. However, with Rhodesia having the upper hand militarily in the initial years after UDI, there was little incentive to negotiate--resulting in a worse outcome later. That's why I argue that Rhodesian military success on the battlefield came at a cost in terms of political and diplomatic common sense.

[JMA]

From a military standpoint what the Rhodesian Army's successes did was force ZANLA and ZIPRA to recognise they could only win via massive conventional military action. Lancaster House was convened to prevent the war escalating to a state that would have forced external intervention - certainly from the UK and external raids by the Rhodesians had crippled the economies of all the states harbouring and supporting ZANLA/ZIPRA.

Now the viability and even the reality of a ZANLA/ZIPRA conventional invasion is very debatable, but the Rhodesian Army ensured the the cost of a guerilla campaign was unacceptably high, and progress unacceptably slow - thus talks were the only option. What military action ensured was a negotiated peace and not a forced one - which is what the armed insurgency sought.

There were plans to take out all the strategic bridges in Zambia and Mozambique that would have been used in a conventional invasion.

Op Manacle was the name of the Op for the Mozambican bridges and was first in line. But on the 15th November 1979 during the Lancaster House Talks there was a switch and the go ahead was given to take out the Zambian bridges which effectively put ZIPRA out of the war.

As the rush was on to prepare for the Mozambique part of the op the word came through from London that the cease fire had been signed and all external ops were terminated.

The thinking has been since then that the switch was orchestrated by Carrington who had 'influence' over Bishop Muzorewa to take ZAPU out of the equation and open the road for Mugabe. "Ours not to reason why..."

[JMA]

While I don't want to divert this thread into a political discussion, ...

Then don't Rex.

[JMA]

Aren't you contradicting yourself here? Are you implying US and UK soldiers in Afghanistan aren't trying their best within the political and tactical constraints they are operating under?

You don't seem to understand the fundamental difference. Perhaps you can let me in on your active service background?

Even the South African troops who served in Angola were unable to connect the dots as to exactly how their efforts there were protecting their families and their homes in South Africa itself.

As far as the Brits are concerned there are not many left who believe their military efforts in Afghanistan actually translate into safer streets in the UK.

So let me try again then, do you see the motivational difference between a soldier fighting a war for the very survival of his country, his way of life and his family and friends and that of a squaddie who squeezes a 6 month tour of Afghanistan into an otherwise busy schedule of other military stuff?

[baboon6]

You don't seem to understand the fundamental difference. Perhaps you can let me in on your active service background?

Even the South African troops who served in Angola were unable to connect the dots as to exactly how their efforts there were protecting their families and their homes in South Africa itself.

As far as the Brits are concerned there are not many left who believe their military efforts in Afghanistan actually translate into safer streets in the UK.

So let me try again then, do you see the motivational difference between a soldier fighting a war for the very survival of his country, his way of life and his family and friends and that of a squaddie who squeezes a 6 month tour of Afghanistan into an otherwise busy schedule of other military stuff?

I do understand the difference but how do you measure how hard someone is trying? Are they trying 10% less hard? 20%? When soldiers are actually at war (as opposed to back home) aren't political considerations less important? The governments clearly aren't putting all the effort in but I don't how you can claim that for the people on the ground. I've never claimed any active service.

[JMA]

I do understand the difference but how do you measure how hard someone is trying? Are they trying 10% less hard? 20%? When soldiers are actually at war (as opposed to back home) aren't political considerations less important? The governments clearly aren't putting all the effort in but I don't how you can claim that for the people on the ground. I've never claimed any active service.

Maybe someone else can give a better explanation than I?

I will say that there are many times in these little wars where your resolve is tested. After a hard day where friends were CASEVAC'd and you are standing-to at last light (when the flies have gone and before the mosquitoes arrive) when to get to think things through.

Please take my word that you will know how hard people are trying when you are out there in front and never have to look behind to see where you men are. You know, you just know the difference between the 'committed" and the "this is not worth dying for" crowd.