Lessons learned...

By the end of April 1968 Operation Cauldron was all but over. 51 terrorists had been killed and 38 captured. The operation was officially closed on 31 May 1968.

Cauldron saw the RLI well and truly blooded in battle and also some significant changes in operational tactics. A major terrorist incursion into Matabeleland the previous year had been successfully wrapped up by 1RAR with 2 Commando 1RLI under command for operations. Denoted Operation Nickel, the experience gained had led to the beginning of an overhaul of tactics. Until then Rhodesian Army Counter-Insurgency (COIN) operations and tactics had been based largely upon the experiences of officers and senior non-commissioned officers who had served in the Malayan COIN campaign in the 1950s. After Op Nickel, however, follow-up and contact drills were overhauled. The RAR adopted a broad arrowhead formation for their full-strength platoon structure. This was suited to much of the bush to be found in west and south of Rhodesia. The RLI, with its very small and under-strength troop structure, opted for a formation of two sections forward with the troop commander and his radio operator central and slightly to the rear and within visual distance for command and control purposes. A third section behind the command element was the reserve under the Troop Sergeant, but such were the manpower shortages in the RLI that there was seldom the luxury of a reserve section. What this did mean was that a small, highly mobile and flexible sub-unit capable of fighting in half-section groups became the core of tactics at Troop level. Adapted further to suit the carrying capacity of the Alouette III helicopter this was the basis of the 4-man stick and the beginning of the evolution of Fire Force tactics employed with such devastating effect in later years.

Operation Cauldron also saw the development and innovative employment of limited air support assets applied over a wide operational area. RLI sub-units deployed with helicopters in support and based in the field for extended periods, often in remote areas, forged close friendships with the pilots and technicians supporting them. This extended to the crews of fixed-wing aircraft deployed at forward airfields. Living and working together led naturally to a greater appreciation of the capabilities and limitations of each force and hence the discussions and experiments leading towards highly effective ground and air mobile operations based on helicopter and fixed-wing close air support. Highly effective and innovative integration of ground and air forces from section level upwards was a benchmark in Operation Cauldron and was to continue to the end of the war in Rhodesia.