Operations Modular, Hooper and Packer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Modular

In August 1987, four brigades of the Soviet-led FAPLA forces (the 47th, 59th, 16th and 21st brigades), departed from the Angolan city of Cuito Cuanavale with the aim of capturing the UNITA stronghold at Mavinga, which was the gateway to Jonas Savimbi's capital of Jamba.

The presence of an armoured formation in the form of FAPLA's 47th Brigade was a threat that the relatively lightly armed UNITA could not counter, so it requested assistance from the SADF. South African responded by sending a mechanized force, led by a veteran unit of Operation Askari - 61 Mechanized Battalion. This force left the South-West African town of Rundu, crossed the border and headed north-west to intercept the 47th Brigade.

The South African force, under the command of Colonel Deon Ferreira, was tasked with carrying out three operations:

Operation Modular - The aim of which was to halt and reverse the FAPLA advance on the UNITA strongholds of Mavinga and Jamba.
Operation Hooper - The aim of which was to inflict maximum casualties on the retreating FAPLA forces after they had been halted.
Operation Packer - The aim of which was to force the FAPLA forces to retreat to the west of the Cuito River.

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• Angola
• Operation Modular
• Packer
• Hooper
• FAR
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[fuckmugabe5]

the smell of Swapo terrs shtting in their pants was a terrible smell.We could smell their shit km's away,they knew we were comming to get them.Kaffirbasher is right,the smell of a black swapo mans shit is orrible.

[KalahariSurf]

The SADF and SWATF would only do ops in Angola they didn't want to colonise the place merely take out the threat of a SWAPO build-up and then withdraw.

Why did Cuba not invade both SWA and SA as Castro said they would? Cuba sent troops to Angola to destroy UNITA why did they withdraw before that was done? Does that sound like a military victory to you?

[tomaluta]

@azanianlion vini, vidi and he die ..hilary cliton

[azanianlion]

@tomaluta He has already died and went to heaven

[Bander1]

However the weakness by the SADF is that it was built for a mobile, fast paced short battles. The SADF would withdraw rather than take casualties.

So it does not fight attritional battles.

[Bander1]

How did the SADF win...the SADF & UNITA had superior coordination, ground itelligence, leadership, and training vs. the Cubans & FAPLA.

The FAPLA and Cubans had more men, tanks and artillery and even planes. But they were poorly used and coordinated.

However the FAPLA and Cubans were able to retreat in order since the SADF and UNITA did not have the numbers to completely destroy their enemies.

[Sabratha1985]

I hate to bust the numbers (as it WAS a SADF victory) but it was not 3500 vs 52000. You are forgetting about some ~ 30 000 UNITA fighters that were on the SADF side.

[mirageF1AZ]

@soyhemorroide dont get me wrong I am a White south-African and I know allot on this conflict ( I am a history teacher ) Anyways I will upload a SAAF video wich explains the statistics in more detail soon. But yes it is amazing that they could fly so many sorties, drop bombs and not getting our assess kicked.

[soyhemorroide]

@mirageF1AZ not to have air superiority, it's amazing the number of missions and bombs dropped, that information is not in the network it gives me a different dimension of air operations, it was really dangerous the mig-23 and missil R-23

[tomaluta]

magnus malan die.. we remember kwazulu massacre..apartheis is die with him....

[mirageF1AZ]

@soyhemorroide just because we didnt have air superiority doesnt mean we didnt provide cover for our soldiers on the ground. the statistics of the last 6 months of the South-west africa / agola conflict for SAAF reads as follow : 683 sorties were flown in support of our soldiers . we did 144 air raids in 191 days, with a total of 3068 bombs delivered, over 100 SAM misiles were fired with 1 fatality.do the math 180 days(6 months) devided by 683 sorties = 3.79 sorties a day for SA on da ground

[soyhemorroide]

@mirageF1AZ  tal vez sea yo un tonto, pero negarse a dar cobertura aerea a tus propios soldados que estan siendo bombardeados inpunemente por un temor injustificado a un puñado de mig-23ML con misiles R-24 y R-60 es criminal, reviso las notas historicas y practicamente la aviacion cubana actuo como artilleria volante y los F1 no hacian nada por derribarlos o por lo menos mantener una superioridad aerea relativa