The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Modern / General
Publisher: Helion and Company
Published: 2016-10-13T00:00:00+00:00

According to orders, the captured positions were now turned over to UNITA. However, when fresh FAPLA troops launched a fierce counterattack a day or two later, UNITA folded and withdrew, as the frontline SADF officers knew they would. The positions the South Africans had fought so hard for were once again in enemy hands. Which meant that the 13 January attack was all in vain. Major-General Willie Meyer, GOC SWA, lamely explained to the troops that it was sometimes desirably to let the enemy retake a position so that it could be destroyed in a later attack. Not suprisingly, the men were not greatly impressed with him or his message.

Ominously, signs were now picked up of Cuban troops among the defenders. Indeed, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro had felt that the South African advance forced him to respond. We will look at his strategy later; suffice it for the time being to say that he wanted to elevate the defence of Cuito Cuanavale to a grand heroic battle between good and evil. A tank tactical group, equivalent to a squadron, was sent post-haste to the front to stiffen the defenders’ spines.

It took until 14 February before the attempt could be repeated, this time under the command of Colonel Pat McLoughlin, who took over from Paul Fouché (Fouché was sent home to mobilise a Citizen Force brigade). The attack started quite well, the enemy suffering considerable losses. But then the Cubans made their presence felt by organising an ambush just inside the treeline at the edge of a shona, an open clearing in the bush. To the South Africans’ surprise, the Cuban tanks carried out a furious counterattack there. But although these, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel “Ciro” Gómez Betancourt, were described as very aggressive and death-defying by their South African counterparts, they were not handled well and attacked all bunched up (no doubt due to their tactical inexperience). All but one tank, that of the brave commander, were knocked out. At the same time, a Ratel-20 was shot out with four dead. Although this was another SADF tactical victory, the Cuban counterattack won time and prevented the South Africans from breaking through to the river. A desultory FAPLA counterattack was launched during the night to retake the lost positions, but was rather easily repulsed.

With this, the easternmost Angolan defence line crumbled, and they had to fall back to the second one.

The fighting since the beginning of the year proved to be disastrous for the enemy in terms of men and equipment lost. Together FAPLA and the Cubans had 532 men killed and 27 tanks destroyed or captured, compared to the 4 deaths on the South African side and 1 Ratel destroyed. The South Africans could show something for this, because the outer FAPLA defence line was pierced, and the Angolans retained only a toe-hold on the eastern banks of the Cuito.

But this was the nadir of the South African advance. They still had not succeeded in driving the Angolans completely over

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.