The South African Border War - Operation Sceptic (Smokeshell)
The start of the 80's would see a new escalation in the war in Angola.
Operation Sceptic or Smokeshell was initiated in mid 1980 to eliminate the SWAPO command post of Chifufua.
This required driving approximately 250 km through the Southern Angolan bush to reach the group of 13 active complexes.
Paratroopers and aerial bombardment was timed in such a manner to coincide with the arriving mechanized armor.
Not everything went according to plan, but SWAPO suffered heavy losses in men and material as was becoming the norm.
SADF losses were mainly from antiaircraft guns being used in a ground role with 3-4 Ratel fighting vehicles being hit in quick succession.
Once again things on the ground proved to be far more complex than initially envisaged and a lot of intelligence was gained regarding alterations to SWAPO's tactics and their increasingly tighter integration with the Angolan conventional army and their Soviet advisers.
This growing threat would continue to escalate and result in even larger mechanized preemptive strikes in the months to follow. The largest of these being Operation Protea.
Previous posts in this series can be found at the bottom of these chapters:
The South African Border War - 1976, The end of a chapter and the beginning of a new phase.
Another interesting article, thanks @gavvet. I would be interesting to know why the guys called it "Sceptic" or "Smokeshell"?
Interesting enough, by dad was actually assigned to anti air defence on the 55mm canons in the years just before 1980. I was born 1981 so I'm glad my dad was out of the war zone before things got more intense. ;)
simple code names
So they basically used the first name that jumped to mind. I thought the names would have described something within the context of the situation, like a sceptic person in the South African ranks or maybe on the other side. I guess people make up all sort of stories. ;)
Nah, I'm pretty sure the codenames are selected as randomly as possible (or at least randomly from a preset list) because they want to avoid using (even by subconscious chance) a codename the enemy can use to predict what they're really up to.
otherwise you would not born yet ahahaha lol.. am joking.. glad your dad is got safe from that war.
I hope this generation and those to come will learn from the sacrifices that were made to get independence and the present political status quo. More needs to be done by all to move Africa forward, we can not afford to be left behind by the rest of the World.
I've been studying the origins of Cecil Rhode's 'Rhodesia' and how he went on to basically take the massive wealth of Africa and used it to form a highly secret 'network' (secret society) who intended to covertly dominate the world's governments for the purposes of 'making sure English men rule the world'.. He has a lot to answer for - thanks for your posts filling me in on more modern African history that I am not aware of.
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@gavvet - Sir, the power struggle between US & RUS drives the whole world into a battle zone, not only today but also in 1980s they did it... Peace did not made without a sacrifice... Battle between neighbors always ended with a millions of sad stories.... How many soldiers sacrificed their lives and how many innocents died for nothing.... After all we all are humans & the battle is happened between brothers.... :( Your article tells that story very well Sir.... Therefore, I wish to ReSteem your post.
+W+ [UpVoted & ReSteemed]
War demands the sacrifice of the people. It gives only suffering in return.
Very informative again. Paratroopers always behind enemy lines, doing a Great job, but indeed losses are always on both sides.
That is the bad thing of war ..... always losses
No one won or lost. We all won and we all lost.
Simple as some people may not like, Rhodesia was handed over and Zimbabwe is now a pariah country... South Africa democratically voted for change and hence power was handed over to the majority.
All this is good but South Africa is slowly sliding down a slippery slope of hidden racism and corruption.
What I´m trying to say that the current South African government is like all African governments... Corrupt, lost and inept.
It would be like Rhodesia in SA too, thankfully Mandela was very smart man.
As for Rhodesia, this country had probably best military units in humankind history. Rhodesian SAS and Selous scouts. Scouts especially were very effective, because of locals with bush knowledge (both white and black people), ZANLA and ZIPRA hunted their members (especially black members as "traitors") even after they got whole country.
I wish it was slowly...
Hope, is what's needed. We do have a self enriching leader, who will with the power of our people fall. We have great, good people in SA who will bring back the Pride of our nation... strength in unity will get us back.
Nice article I hope you don't mind me asking, I just wrote a post about South Africa would you give it a read. If your interested in what I wrote and think you could elaborate on it I would like to know you thoughts. Here's the link to the article - https://steemit.com/south-africa/@nc-mgtow/wealth-of-south-africa-is-32-of-the-total-value-of-the-usa Thanks for your time.
Thank you gavvet. It's always interesting to read about the wars in southern Africa.
Operation Smokeshell was the first time that SADF deployed the Bike Squad operationally as forward scouts and tracking units to lead the armoured convoy through the bush. As we were fast and mobile on adapted Honda XR500s we could review the terrain and lead the convoy as well as eyeball the enemy positions at speed and get out of trouble fast.
We (Bike Squad) took no losses at all in Operation Smokeshell.
I distinctly remember sitting on a hill overlooking Luanda with the B25 radio bolted to the bike antenna high in the trees tuned to the BBC while Pik Botha SA foreign affairs minister ensured the world that we were not in Angola… as the bombs fell on the city.