Cuito Cuanavale (BBC 4) - 18min

[Tango Sierra]

As Chester Crocker later wrote:


"In early October the Soviet-Fapla offensive was smashed at the Lomba River near Mavinga. It turned into a headlong retreat over the 120 miles back to the primary launching point at Cuito Cuanavale. In some of the bloodiest battles of the entire civil war, a combined force of some 8,000 Unita fighters and 4,000 SADF troops destroyed one Fapla brigade and mauled several others out of a total Fapla force of some 18,000 engaged in the three-pronged offensive. Estimates of Fapla losses ranged upward of 4,000 killed and wounded. This offensive had been a Soviet conception from start to finish. Senior Soviet officers played a central role in its execution. Over a thousand Soviet advisers were assigned to Angola in 1987 to help with Moscow's largest logistical effort to date in Angola: roughly $1.5 billion in military hardware was delivered that year. Huge quantities of Soviet equipment were destroyed or fell into Unita and SADF hands when Fapla broke into a disorganized retreat... The 1987 military campaign represented a stunning humiliation for the Soviet Union, its arms and its strategy. It would take Fapla a year, or maybe two, to recover and regroup. Moreover the Angolan military disaster threatened to go from bad to worse. As of mid-November, the Unita/SADF force had destroyed the Cuito Cuanavale airfield and pinned down thousands of Fapla's best remaining units clinging onto the town's defensive perimeters." (2)


The results of the campaign up to April 1988 were 4,785 killed on the Cuban/Faplan side, with 94 tanks and hundreds of combat vehicles destroyed, against 31 South Africans killed in action, 3 tanks destroyed (SADF tanks entered the war after the Lomba River campaign) and 11 SADF armoured cars and troop carriers lost. A total of 9 Migs were destroyed and only 1 SAAF Mirage shot down.
After 13 years in Angola the Cubans had still not achieved their aim of destroying Unita and marching into Namibia as "liberators". They had badly underestimated the South Africans and discovered to their cost that they were facing highly-trained, battle-hardened troops. If they had taken the trouble to examine South Africa's military history, they might perhaps have paused for thought at the fact that the forefathers of these troops, the Boers, had held the full might of the British Empire at bay during the Boer War, when 450,000 British troops took three years to subdue a force of little more than 20,000 Boers.

http://www.rhodesia.nl/cuito.htm

[nkosi]

Waiting for the GS participants who were actually there to contribute.

F......ng politicians. Laughing and so proud of themselves and what they lied about whilst people on the ground are dying. They are so out of touch with reality and the common mans' misery that it is hard to comprehend.

Politicians are useless, lying psychopaths that should be hung. Stuff them all.

[Tango Sierra]

I too would like to learn from those that were there. The attitude of the Cubans seemed to me to be deliberately confrontational and juvenile (e.g. Risquet with his cigars). What is clear, is that the FAPLA and their Allies got absolutely snotted at Cuito Cuanavale. What I am told is that they detested the G5s which had a devastating effect on the battlefield. The fact that they could never find them in reconnaissance flights due to effective camouflage and changing positions at night, also frustrated them to the extreme.

Several Soviet veterans of Afghanistan met their match at Cuito.

[Wanderin' Zero]

The G5s were a big part of it. Shoot 'n scoot was part of it.

The South Africans achieved the required political outcome. That's a key measure of success.

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[Peter Wells]

To understand the magnitude of the snot-klap one should read 'The War for Africa' by Bryceland (?). Some awesome info!

[Paul]

It has been stated (with some geo-political strategic justification) that Cuito (actually the Battle of the Lomba River Valley) cost Russia Afghanistan, and ultimately led to the fall of the Soviet Union.

[Tango Sierra]

It has been stated (with some geo-political strategic justification) that Cuito (actually the Battle of the Lomba River Valley) cost Russia Afghanistan, and ultimately led to the fall of the Soviet Union.

Really great socialist strategy. "Hey we're losing, let's double-down..." Next minute...

[Katlagter]

It has been stated (with some geo-political strategic justification) that Cuito (actually the Battle of the Lomba River Valley) cost Russia Afghanistan, and ultimately led to the fall of the Soviet Union.

That's an interesting take on it Paul. Would you care to expand a bit, or give a reference? It may just be something I can use in corporate workshops, i.e unintended consequences, black swan event, etc

[Paul]

Really great socialist strategy. "Hey we're losing, let's double-down..." Next minute...

The Sovs had to withdraw assets from the Afghan conflict to reinforce their positions at Cuito after the initial mauling they received. The argument goes that this weakened their position in the Afghan theatre... remember the whole 'fighting on two fronts' thingy?

[Paul]

That's an interesting take on it Paul. Would you care to expand a bit, or give a reference? It may just be something I can use in corporate workshops, i.e unintended consequences, black swan event, etc

It was an argument that was presented by the then Chair of the SA Special Forces League, Stuart Sterzel, at a presentation at the War Museum to the SA Mil History Society on the Battles of the Lomba River Valley. A literature scan should reveal it.