Modern African Wars (3): South-West Africa

Osprey Men at Arms #242

by Helmoed-Romer Heitman, Paul Hannon (Illustrator)

From the days of its occupation by South African forces under the Mandate System, to its first election in 1989, South-West Africa was a hotbed of revolutionary activity. The establishment of SWAPO (South-West African People's Organization) in 1960, sparked decades of guerilla warfare, mostly aimed at the South African military. This book examines modern African wars between 1964 and 1989, and includes detailed descriptions of the South African Defence Force, Angolan Forces, SWAPO, and the major units involved in the counter-insurgency campaigns. The text is enhanced by colour plates, maps, and numerous photographs.

Genres: Africa, Military History, 20th Century

48 pages, Paperback

First published November 28, 1991

Reviews

[Filipe Amaral · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the third volume of the Modern African Wars series we have a new author: Helmoed-Römer Heitman. He is a South African defence analyst that has lectured about the subject many times and also helped in the development of South Africa's White Paper on Defence. His style clearly shows his military background and he did a great job in explaining the military operations. On the military forces involved, however, not so much. His writing is too focused on South African Defense Forces, and he mostly neglects the Communist forces. Although he does mention the Cuban presence, he neglects the Cubans in the "Opposing Forces" sections. Only mentioning that the Cubans used MiG-21 planes and that some Soviets pilots also took part in the fighting. The Cubans sent over 50,000 men to Angola and sizeble Cuban formations took part in the conflict, mainly as helicopter pilots, tankers and artillery units. Not a single picture of Cuban forces is present in this book, even though they would not be hard to obtain.

The plates are expertly drawn, but are the most unbalanced set of plates in the series, with only three plates showing combatants not from South Africa, with many redundant and overlapping plates. There is very little difference between the four SADF soldiers depicted in plate section A, and plates A1 and A3 could easily be replaced by other more diverse representations, with plates A2 and A4 explaining the minimum differences in their texts. Plates B3, C3, E3, G3 (and maybe G1 and G2) could be easily omitted in favor of more relevant ones. Plate F3 also should not be in this book, as there is no difference in the Dog Handler's uniform and equipment from the other SADF and SWA personnel already covered with such an overlapping insistence. The only section of plates not covering the South Africans is plate section H. It is like the South Africans were the only fighting force in the conflict! Instead of wasting one whole plate just to show a medic with THE EXACT SAME UNIFORM AS EVERYBODY ELSE - as stated by the text itself - just to show a lousy piece of cloth that is not even a badge (and that could be easily depicted as an inset), the author should have shown at least one, ONE, Cuban.

The non-South African plates are H1 UNITA Captain, H2 SWAPO 'Detachment' (which is carrying an RPG-2, not an RPG-7) and H3 FAPLA Colonel. The South Africans were fighting in support of UNITA, but the plates give a perspective that the South Africans were fighting the war alone. UNITA had many different units inside its organization, and their only representation is a barely equipped Captain, that looks less equiped in 1988 than the UNITA officer in 1974 from plate G3 of the second volume; even though UNITA was lavishly equipped by South Africa in 1988, while barely holding it together in 1974. There is no representation whatsoever of the FNLA, even though they operated together with a SADF battery in the Battle of Quifangondo (1975).

The FAPLA Colonel is the only representation of the major combatant of the Communist war effort, and he is depicted with the JMMC brassard of the cease-fire. With sizeable armored engagements, it would be obvious to the author the necessity of including FAPLA and Cuban tankers in this book; the variety of Cuban uniforms and their visual appeal in contrast to SADF's plain uniforms should be an obvious hint towards the plates. As the text mentions, with the SADF killing several Soviet advisors in external operations, at leat one should be depicted in the plates. As the author decided to include a SADF pilot, a Cuban pilot should also be included instead of the Ops. Medic for all the reasons I stated above. Another unit neglected was the SADF frogmen that sunk Cuban and Soviet ships; they would make an excellent plate, and French SOF analyst Éric Denécé said that Soviet frogmen were sent to Angola in order to counter SADF divers.

Probably to gloss over this starking imbalance, the author chose to use the three plates from the H section as the book cover; not only this is away from Osprey practice, it made for an ugly cover. Visual stimulus is one of the strong points of Osprey books, and a not-so-appealing cover is a shot in the foot. The plates should also have more unit badges as insets, especially the Recce Commandos, 32 Bn and Paratroopers' badges.

This book has a good text, very technical approach, good maps but is let down by unbalanced pictures, with the plates showing soldiers with the same featureless uniforms over and over again, while neglecting all the other forces involved in the conflict. For the text, 5 stars, for the plates, 3 stars. Not a solid one, but a good 4 stars.