ARmy Rumour SErvice

Originally Posted by Cutaway

Do they have other types ?

Admittedly no - it's a sliding scale of lunacy as regards the membership. What happened to that mouthy f*ckwit Malema?

Originally Posted by Schaden

Oshivello was the base camp at the Oshivello gate - which formed the southern border of the operational area - it was used as a training area for troops moving into the operational area for their 12-14 month tour and basically was there to evaluate COIN training and the usual vehicle, patrol and ambush drills as well as doing a LOT of live firing.

It also allowed people to aclimatise to the heat and the lack of water. There is no way anyone was ever told that they had to "forget" what they had be taught - the man is talking complete crap on that point - the other thing was these guys had been trained for 12 months having gone through basics, 2nd phase, 3rd phase etc and had been together for a year. Hardly raw recruits.

I know it varied from one arm and unit to another, but didn't the NS generally do a pair of 6-7 months tours on the border after 9 months (ish) of basic and phase training rather than a single tour of 12 months?

Originally Posted by Schaden

The other thing he fails to mention that the vast majority of the actual fighting during the border war was actually carried out by a handful of units - in most cases the SA Infantry Battalions using conscripts were used for routine patrolling while specialist units were used to do the actual fighting.

These were the Para's or Parabats based on the British Army Para's (But with better gear..hehe) Koevoet or Crowbar which operated in Namibia by the police using turned ex Swapo members - in armoured Caspirs, 32 Bttn using regular white officers and Nco's and mercenary black Angolan troops - these guys did the bulk of the fighting and won the most medals for valour in the war and then the big stick - my old unit - 61 Mech which was basically a Mechanised Arty Heavy Regiment with Armour to do over the border operations up to about 300 km into Angola.

SANDF is a joke and some of the historical Regiments like Cape Town Highlanders and the Natal carbineers with histories going back to WW1 are the last of the the old SADF who marched 3,000 km into Angola.

As a btn sized force, I think Regiment Groot Karoo did more days over the kaplyn than any other CF unit. Although, it's true they didn't go 3,000 km to Luanda. But there again, nor did CTH or NC. The CTH were part of the initial CF force that went in to secure the rear areas fot the retreating Task Forces. If memory serves me well, they went about as far as Vila Rocades during Savannah and that was it. RGK, on the otherhand were part of Packer in '88 and less memorably at Cuvelai during Askari.