Soviet Success in Subsaharan Africa

Some of the pics are rather interesting:

Pic 2: PW and Pik Botha in London. Thatcher despised them, at a personal level (apparantly). Pik look like he is stil having a hangover (which could be), longing for a cig (chain smoker). He came home one evening, drunk, and beat up his wife so she fell down the stairs an ended up in a wheelchair (!), I have heard

PW was trying to be "colonial charming"

Other pic: PW at the monument: looking bored and very sarcastic. Malan is trying to look like a soldier, Constand Viljoen is a soldier and poor Marais is just sagging.

Now Malan was the minister of defence after PW. Constand was the boy-general who engineered the only parachute jump-very succeessful, btw.

Marais was one of the old-style commandant of a boer commando but at that time heading CSIR and Armscor.

Ivan
 
What is the book called Ivan?

When do you expect ot to be out?

And have I asked you before, but where in SA do you live?
 

NothingNow

Banned
I'd agree with previous posters, I don't see it likely that the Eastern Bloc (either wing) could be much more active or effective in SSA than they were, outside of substantial other changes.

If there isn't a coup in Afghanistan, that could free up Soviet men and equipment for African operations. A few RPGs here, some T-72s there, and suddenly, the whole situation is quite radically different. If anything, it'd force NATO to up their game in the region, and quite possibly start supporting SA openly. Which is not a good thing for their reputation in the region, or world wide. Hell, if they really want to ruin the opposition's day, a few dozen T-10s with Cuban and Cuban trained crews could make things rather difficult for the SADF, and well, It's not like they'd be any real sacrifice for the Soviet Army anyway. The bloody things are a shoddy nuisance, but at this point disposable, and well, still somewhat serviceable. It's not like South Africa's going to get any Chieftains at this point in time, given the lack of political will on the part of the US and the UK.

Of course, if the Soviets were to suddenly abandon Castro, things would be different, and abandoning Africa as well could, while possibly stabilizing the region to a degree, also make it harder for the USSR in general given DeBeers and other Western Mineral extraction firms being more readily able to operate in the region. And that drives the price the Russians can get on the global market down as well, given that a continent of Banana Republics isn't exactly the sort of place where someone says no to the nice man in the Suit backed by the Rio Tinto Group or ALCOA. People who say no to Rio Tinto or ALCOA in those sorts of situations tend to end up dead. Now the question is if the economic benefits of dropping the Zealots and Warlords outweighs the disadvantages of not having that chaos.
 
The Buccaneers and F1's fitted for nuclear release? Doubtful. If so, they would have been fitted for the Uk/French bombs, not SA.

However, when SA bought the Canberra's, the pilots attended classes in Germany on how to fly them (fair enough). Somehow, the SAAF pilots also attended the classes in nuclear release. I think it was a mistake, somehow, somewhere.

The SA bombs were clunky at best. They had some 20+kg of uranium. wasteful in the extreme.

Insofar as Uranium tends to "gather" where there is gold (comparable mass), SA has plenty of uranium. actually, supplied US, UK and France from 1950 and onwards.

Refining uranium is not dramtically different from refining gold, which SA has been doing for 100 years or more.

I have visited the government smelter once (gold is typically refined to some 90+ % at the mine. then it goes to the government smelter where it goes to 99%. The last piece a bit tricky).

It is scary at best. Security is heavy (yes, they might check you right there on the way out!), you wear their clothes inside, not your own. If work has to be carried out (even installing IT equipment in the offices), a safety course has to be completed.

The work area has high pressure showers all over, as they use some nasty chemicals.

They told me that the least precious metal they refine is gold (!).

OK, Enough on that.

If you want smaller size, plutonium has to be used. That is, however, a royal pain to work with; hence SA tok the "eassy" way. use what is there = uranium.

The deloivery systems were: Buccaneer (I don't think F1's were adapted to that in an SA context).

SA Cruise missile (yes, we had one of those as well)

RSA-3/4: Intercontinental rocket

The future was the G5/6, but that would have been plutonium based.

There were talks with Israel on "borrowing" a few shell-adaptable devices, but the programme got cancelled before it came to fruition.

In essence, it had the feel of being one of these,"let's do it because we can, and then the outside world will respect us".

Ivan
 
Marius: Johannesburg, out towards Eastgate.

The book could be out within some 3 months. It is one of these joint venture marketing efforts, where I put in some money and the publisher put in some as well. It is a new way of doing it, also as the thrust will be eBooks. I don't know if it is the right way of doing it, but it will ensure that the book gets out there pretty fast.

As soon as it is released, I will surely drop a note here.

Ivan
 
here. damn

and for good measure, the synopsi on book #2
 

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Marius: Johannesburg, out towards Eastgate.

The book could be out within some 3 months. It is one of these joint venture marketing efforts, where I put in some money and the publisher put in some as well. It is a new way of doing it, also as the thrust will be eBooks. I don't know if it is the right way of doing it, but it will ensure that the book gets out there pretty fast.

As soon as it is released, I will surely drop a note here.

Ivan

I think I asked you before, didn't you say you live in Kensington?

My girlfriend lives in Kensington so I have been spending some time there :)

Been becoming something of a regular in Der Kneipe on Queen Street. :p
 
One reason for the numerous failures of early African Communist revolutions is that Che Guevara came along with his foco guerrilla war strategy.

Devised from his experiences in fighting in the successful Cuban revolution, it basically called for a small band of armed rebel fighters operating in the country side to incite the people to rise up in the cities. I mean, if it worked in Cuba, then why not in Africa?

Big mistake. Che Guevara met setback after setback in his attempts to aid de-colonization efforts in Africa. Eventually he would return back to Latin America a defeated revolutionary, only to go to Bolivia and attempt the same failed foco strategy. As before it failed and he would later be executed by the Bolivian army.

The last thing the USSR needed was unruly African allies who, in Ethiopia's case, would resort to mass killings and ultra-nationalism, thus smearing the USSR's already tarnished name even more. Plus, why exactly would they need African allies. Economically as trade partners they are useless and as ideological partners they are incapable of spreading revolution to neighboring pro-west African nations.


No doubt the "Socialist" African regimes collapsed after the demise of the USSR in 1991. That shows just how reliant they were on foreign support. They did not/would not affect the USSR's chances at winning the Cold War at all.
 

Clipper747

Banned
I'm curious why the SAN never used their subs to target Cuban supply vessels as they neared Angola.

If the SAAF had Exocets they would've been a nightmare to the Cuban ships.
 
Clipper: this is a wild guess, ok.

I think that the sinking of ships would have been regrded as a major escalation.

Compare it to say, road deaths. Christmas road deaths can be compared to 2 747's going down, but the outcry is a bit different.
 

NothingNow

Banned
I'm curious why the SAN never used their subs to target Cuban supply vessels as they neared Angola.

If the SAAF had Exocets they would've been a nightmare to the Cuban ships.

It would have invited retaliation in kind upon SADF vessels by the Cuban Foxtrots, and maybe if this keeps up the Cubans might get a shiny new 877 Kilo-class or two to make up for it. Maybe even a couple Juliett-class on loan with a full load of SS-N-12s to hunt the SAN. After all, if Cuban-flagged vessels are a legitimate target, so are Naval Base Simons Town, Naval Base Durban, and Naval Station Port Elizabeth, seing as there's probably a war on.
 
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Clipper747

Banned
The idea to strike Cuban ships with Exocets would've been a gamble but one which might've scared the Cubans. Striking them would've sent a message to Havana that the SA meant business.

Of course this assumes that SA even obtains the missiles. The likely path would've been via Israel.
 

NothingNow

Banned
The idea to strike Cuban ships with Exocets would've been a gamble but one which might've scared the Cubans. Striking them would've sent a message to Havana that the SA meant business.

Of course this assumes that SA even obtains the missiles. The likely path would've been via Israel.
It's also an act of war, one that would receive instant condemnation by the UN, and would open the door to Cuban (and Soviet) Retaliation. The Cuban military is huge on Machismo, and loosing a couple ships wouldn't be unexpected, much less shocking.
However, for the SADF destroying One or two freighters isn't worth loosing two or three times that tonnage just in military vessels.
 
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