South African Emigration in the event of Civil War

[Father Maryland]

Machetes and shovels? Really? Not even basic guns?

Where would they obtain said guns? The Apartheid government ensured that their were virtually no firearms legally in the hands of Black South Africans. Hell they sought to pretty strictly limit things like bladed weapons objects (Enforcing very strict laws in regards to public possession and carrying as so much as knives). In the short term the best that can be hoped for would be for Black militant groups managing to overrun some of the Apartheid Era South African Armed forces bases and capture their armories. If it was a few years earlier their would be nations that would conceivably try to arm Black South African militant groups (The Soviets, Cubans, East Germany and the like). But those countries all either no longer exist, are in the process of disbanding, or in the case of Cuba continuing to exist but cut off from Soviet subsidies meaning they are completely and totally broke and unable to engage in any sort of foreign adventurism. North Korea is too broke and undergoing it's own problems to subsidize anyone. Maybe some of the other African states would try and arm them but few of them are that well armed. And unless the militant groups can seize control of a functional port everything will have to be smuggled overland. And the Black Militant groups if it does end up evolving into an all out civil war are unlikely to have the hard currency to purchase arms on the international black market. Maybe if they manage to capture some of the mines and have some way to export the product of those mines they might have the ability to buy arms. The South African airforce would ensure that anyone trying to bring in arms by air dies quickly.

The balance of arms in South Africa at the time is overwhelmingly in favor of the White populace with the Armed Forces being of pretty decent quality and largely White (and at the time possesses a total of six tactical strength nuclear gravity bombs with the aircraft to deploy said weapons anywhere in South Africa). In terms of organizational comparisons the Apartheid Era National Party Government and Apartheid era armed services have any of the existing anti Apartheid militant groups beat by a wide mile. The ANC's militant wing was very very poorly armed and organized (to the point where they managed to kill something like less then a hundred people in a armed campaign lasting over half a century.) On the other hand the White South African government/military has no friends left abroad in 1991 and the best they can hope for is the Israeli's maybe covertly selling them arms.

Any civil war would be a incredibly violent affair with enormous casualties on both sides. If it lasts past a certain point there is a not inconsequential chance that it ends up involving the desperate Apartheid government using at least one of those nuclear weapons.

Thank god the transfer of power ended up being peaceful and the bloody hell of civil war never occurred.

 

[Seandineen]

Where would they obtain said guns? The Apartheid government ensured that their were virtually no firearms legally in the hands of Black South Africans. Hell they sought to pretty strictly limit things like bladed weapons objects (Enforcing very strict laws in regards to public possession and carrying as so much as knives). In the short term the best that can be hoped for would be for Black militant groups managing to overrun some of the Apartheid Era South African Armed forces bases and capture their armories. If it was a few years earlier their would be nations that would conceivably try to arm Black South African militant groups (The Soviets, Cubans, East Germany and the like). But those countries all either no longer exist, are in the process of disbanding, or in the case of Cuba continuing to exist but cut off from Soviet subsidies meaning they are completely and totally broke and unable to engage in any sort of foreign adventurism. North Korea is too broke and undergoing it's own problems to subsidize anyone. Maybe some of the other African states would try and arm them but few of them are that well armed. And unless the militant groups can seize control of a functional port everything will have to be smuggled overland. And the Black Militant groups if it does end up evolving into an all out civil war are unlikely to have the hard currency to purchase arms on the international black market. Maybe if they manage to capture some of the mines and have some way to export the product of those mines they might have the ability to buy arms. The South African airforce would ensure that anyone trying to bring in arms by air dies quickly.

The balance of arms in South Africa at the time is overwhelmingly in favor of the White populace with the Armed Forces being of pretty decent quality and largely White (and at the time possesses a total of six tactical strength nuclear gravity bombs with the aircraft to deploy said weapons anywhere in South Africa). In terms of organizational comparisons the Apartheid Era National Party Government and Apartheid era armed services have any of the existing anti Apartheid militant groups beat by a wide mile. The ANC's militant wing was very very poorly armed and organized (to the point where they managed to kill something like less then a hundred people in a armed campaign lasting over half a century.) On the other hand the White South African government/military has no friends left abroad in 1991 and the best they can hope for is the Israeli's maybe covertly selling them arms.

Any civil war would be a incredibly violent affair with enormous casualties on both sides. If it lasts past a certain point there is a not inconsequential chance that it ends up involving the desperate Apartheid government using at least one of those nuclear weapons.

Thank god the transfer of power ended up being peaceful and the bloody hell of civil war never occurred.

You make some excellent points. However their were weapons in the hands of the government and police of the homelands. The mixed raced colored population was heavily armed.

 

[Father Maryland]

You make some excellent points. However their were weapons in the hands of the government and police of the homelands. The mixed raced colored population was heavily armed.

True the Bantustans had their own armed forces for the most part. But most of them were of relatively low quality from what I understand (Since loyalty to the Bantustans in general was pretty low and few considered them legitimate.) They were also almost entirely light infantry forces for internal security and lacked any combat aircraft, artillery, anti tank/anti aircraft weaponry, and armor. And they had little logistics ability. According to wikipedia by and large the heaviest weapons they had was a handful of heavy machine guns, light and medium mortars, and a few recoilless rifles. Some of them had airforces but it doesn't look like they had any armed aircraft. South African Airforce Cheetahs are going to eat those cargo planes for lunch.

The South African Airforce will rule the sky. Maybe Angola would send some MANPADs or something.

And would the mixed race South Africans by and large side with the black guerilla's or the White Apartheid government? Or would they form their own faction (Sort of like how the internal Hatian Independence war was between the White faction, the "Mulatto" faction, and the black faction. )

 

[Seandineen]

It’s tricky. They were treated better than indigenous Africans during aparthied, had the right to vote first for whites in the parliament then had their own separate 80 person chamber, during the tricameral parliament between 1983-1994. There was a significant presence in the anc and the pan African Congress.

 

[Coley]

I wonder if the whites emigrate in large numbers, at least the Anglo, what impact that has on Britains politics.

 

[Father Maryland]

Anyone have a good ORBAT for the South African armed forces late in Apartheid in the late 80s early 90s?

 

[Raferty]

Anyone have a good ORBAT for the South African armed forces late in Apartheid in the late 80s early 90s?

That is difficult because the formations that existed on paper didn't correspond to the operational deployment in Angola, for example. Almost all forces deployed were scrabbled together at the company and batallion level for a specific task or task force level command. These units tended to be professionals, while reserve units were mostly kept in fortified locations.

In the event of a civil war, the Commandos (estimated 130K total) would have fought for whatever Afrikaner force existed in the event of a race war, but in the event of a NP gvt being opposed by a more radical right wing Afrikaner movement, its unclear. The conscript system was falling apart already by the early 90s as service evasion was widespread. That said, there were a lot of combat veterans who could be mobilized. The SADF largely was deployed in the townships by the early 90s trying to either stop the fighting between Inkatha and the ANC in KZN, or elsewhere, as an anti-riot force.

The traditional leaders in SA had their own reserve forces, as did the Bantustans, but these forces did not tend to be all that reliable and would not be able to be deployed outside of home territory.

 

[Justinian]

Anyone have a good ORBAT for the South African armed forces late in Apartheid in the late 80s early 90s?

I've also been looking for something like this, it's pretty hard to find

 

[HistoricalArthropod]

And would the mixed race South Africans by and large side with the black guerilla's or the White Apartheid government? Or would they form their own faction (Sort of like how the internal Hatian Independence war was between the White faction, the "Mulatto" faction, and the black faction. )

If coloreds do overwhelmingly side with blacks, how much does that help them?

 

[N7Buck]

White supremacists, mostly.

Anglos and Boers would be a refugee minority group if they were in Poland, and would be discriminated for being non-Polish, similar to Ukrainians and other ethnic minorities in Poland. The actual likely reason Anglos and Boers wouldn't want to got to Poland, would be economic, religious, linguistic and cultural.

Any civil war would be incredibly brutal but it wouldn't be entirely one sided based on population numbers. A platoon of armed and trained soldiers facing a couple hundred militia men equipped with machetes and shovels is probably going to win over the militia.

This is excellent analysis of the military conflict, but misses out a core aspect. How many Anglo and Boer civilians would die to those machetes and shovels? It would be such a high number that it would push them out of the country.

 

[Father Maryland]

Anglos and Boers would be a refugee minority group if they were in Poland, and would be discriminated for being non-Polish, similar to Ukrainians and other ethnic minorities in Poland. The actual likely reason Anglos and Boers wouldn't want to got to Poland, would be economic, religious, linguistic and cultural.

This is excellent analysis of the military conflict, but misses out a core aspect. How many Anglo and Boer civilians would die to those machetes and shovels? It would be such a high number that it would push them out of the country.

Oh yes plenty of Anglo and Afrikaaner civilians will die. But it was a pretty heavily militarized populace with every single white man capable of service doing service first in the regular armed forces and then in the reserves and Commandos. The White populace was also somewhat separated from the black one and once a war starts up I would expect their to be some extensive ethnic cleansing with all white cities and towns having much of their non white civilian populaces expelled and fortified. Same deal with the various farms (though I think some degree of fortification was already common for many farm steads.

You'll basically have the white populace divided among those who try and flee abroad and those who live in the fortified and militarized cities, towns, and farms.

 

[Drizzt]

Oh yes plenty of Anglo and Afrikaaner civilians will die. But it was a pretty heavily militarized populace with every single white man capable of service doing service first in the regular armed forces and then in the reserves and Commandos. The White populace was also somewhat separated from the black one and once a war starts up I would expect their to be some extensive ethnic cleansing with all white cities and towns having much of their non white civilian populaces expelled and fortified. Same deal with the various farms (though I think some degree of fortification was already common for many farm steads.

You'll basically have the white populace divided among those who try and flee abroad and those who live in the fortified and militarized cities, towns, and farms.

Still living through a Civil War is no fun even if chances are good that "your side" will win in the end. It also tends to not improve your countries economic situation.
So IMHO even though the Whites are well suited to win militarily since, despite outnumbered 10-1 in manpower, as they control all the tanks, heavy artillery, etc. But at some point it will become clear that your average White South African who's got at least their equivalent of a High School Diploma and speaks passable English, will have a much much better Quality of Life in Australia than in war torn South Africa.

 

[Seandineen]

That is difficult because the formations that existed on paper didn't correspond to the operational deployment in Angola, for example. Almost all forces deployed were scrabbled together at the company and batallion level for a specific task or task force level command. These units tended to be professionals, while reserve units were mostly kept in fortified locations.

In the event of a civil war, the Commandos (estimated 130K total) would have fought for whatever Afrikaner force existed in the event of a race war, but in the event of a NP gvt being opposed by a more radical right wing Afrikaner movement, its unclear. The conscript system was falling apart already by the early 90s as service evasion was widespread. That said, there were a lot of combat veterans who could be mobilized. The SADF largely was deployed in the townships by the early 90s trying to either stop the fighting between Inkatha and the ANC in KZN, or elsewhere, as an anti-riot force.

The traditional leaders in SA had their own reserve forces, as did the Bantustans, but these forces did not tend to be all that reliable and would not be able to be deployed outside of home territory.

The Tswana have pals in Lesotho and Botswana. They had the strongest of all the Bantustan miltary forces.