Welcome to Cold War Gamer, a blog I am using to record my Cold War wargaming projects. These range from fictitious Cold War hot projects to historical conflicts that took place around the globe throughout the Cold War era, all modelled and gamed in 20mm. The blog includes links to various resources useful to the Cold War Gamer.

My current projects include: Central Front; British & Soviet. South African Border War; Angolans and South Africans. Soviet Afghan War; Soviets and Afghans
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts

Sunday, 23 September 2018

Review Book - Red Armour an Examination of the Soviet Mobile Force Concept, R Simpkin, 1984





So this was the summer reading, all part of a project called Deep Battle that I have yet to really start writing about or indeed executing but have been researching since about 2015. Over a wet week in Wales I have been ploughing my way through the 12 essays in this book by Brigadier Richard Simpkin who wrote a series of books on military manoeuvre warfare theory in the mid to late 80s and participated in the wide ranging discussion that went on at that time within NATO with regard to managing the Soviet threat.  Of the essays I am interested in I have now read most of them 2-3 times.  The ideas are complex and Simpkin is rarely an easy read.  Working at it in order to understand what he is saying can be very rewarding. 

Red Armour, an examination of the Soviet Mobile Force concepts does pretty much what it says on the tin in that it provides, in its 12 essays, a thought provoking and revealing analysis of Soviet Operational doctrine.  Unlike the Race to the Swift which looks at a variety of maneuver warfare concepts and extrapolates these into the future. This collection of his work focuses on Soviet operational concepts as they had evolved by the height of the Cold War in 1982-83.

The Three parts of the book cover, resources procedures and concepts and each part contains four essays which  discuss at varying levels of detail the following topics:

Part 1 Resources
  • Manpower
  • Philosophy
  • Technology
  • Ground
Part 2 Procedures
  • Control and Support
  • Movement and Deployment
  • Obstacle Crossing
  • Parameters of Tank Force operations
Part 3 Concepts
  • The deep battle
  • The tank force concept
  • Soviet mobile operations
  • The NATO centre
For me the nuggets are in part 2 and 3 which focuses on the procedures and the concepts and illustrates the Soviet thinking by contrasting it to NATOs more positional approaches.


In Part 2 I found the particular essays on; Control and Support, Movement and Deployment and Obstacle Crossing the most useful as they really start to drive at the how at the operational level. examples of points of interest include the Soviet use of Primary routes at high traffic densities whilst holding secondary routes in reserve and clear of significant traffic to enable the flexibility to restructure the order of march accelerating assets and units as needed, this together with the the ability to line switch elements between axis of advance provides the conditions for achieving surprise.  Whilst Simpkin challenges the Soviets ability to achieve the levels of flexibility the approaches could deliver and highlights the tactical risks this exposes them to, I am not clear that he considers these objections in the light of Soviet control approaches which include dedicated movement control organisations deployed along routes at relatively high densities in comparison to Western Armies.

In Part 3 his summary of the deep battle discussion he provides one of the most succinct descriptions of both the theory and the terms that I have come across and his articulation of Soviet Mobile Operations in contrast to the more positional and ground focused doctrines of NATO really start to drive home the key differences between the two.  This starts to highlight what the Soviets focus on in terms of objectives - the enemy rather than the ground, and whilst I have read this in many books the way he contrasts this with the ground focused objectives of NATO doctrines really drives the point home.



His treatment of the principal periods of the Cold War and how the Soviets shifted from the use of Nuclear weapons to provide the conditions for maneuver to the need to exploit strategic surprise in the later period to a similar effect is thought provoking and credibly illustrates the potential impacts that could be achieved even in the absence of Nuclear weapons.  He reasonably challenges the effectiveness of interchangeability of resources in a non nuclear phase although he does not explore the increased scale of indirect fire assets or their increasing effectiveness as the book was written in 1983 and pre dates a number of these changes.

From the Wargames perspective what this all enables is the development of the framework of operational concepts that you need to develop in order to set tactical scenarios in the operational context.  In replicating historical battles in other periods this context is provided by the historical events, in gaming the Cold War, you need an operational and strategic picture to set the action against in order to create realistic scenarios, this is particularly true when dealing with the Soviet Union.  

The driver for this is the subject of Red Armour the Soviet Unions thinking at the operational level. Understanding their focus on the operational rather than the tactical is critical to understanding how they would deal with different situations and the forces that would be brought to bear. In short why NATOs tactical and equipment superiority would be nullified by one of the more sophisticated approaches to maneuver warfare available.  Translating that to table-top games is a challenge all of its own.

I snapped up my copy of Red Armour for £40 about a year ago and at that price I think its a worthwhile addition to the collection if you have an interest in developing table top scenarios in the wider operational context, if you are looking for the detail of what the Soviets did rather than the thinking behind it that can be accessed more cheaply and effectively elsewhere. Current prices on Amazon are running at £200 plus and at that price I would be inclined to leave it on the shelf.





AFM Volume 2, Part 2, A Treatise on Soviet Operational Art, 1991








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Monday, 2 April 2018

Review - Book, AFM Volume 2, Part 2, A Treatise on Soviet Operational Art



This was a truly great find by Andy Miles who kindly posted it onto the Red Storm Rising facebook page.  It's not quite the British equivalent to the FM 100 series, it was written in 1991 from the perspective of understanding Soviet Operational Art as the British along with most Western Nations had given this particular subject a stiff ignoring for most of the Cold War. As the author puts it, the Western Nations experience of operations during WW2 was at a different order of Magnitude to the Soviet and points out that whilst the Western allies deployed some 3 Army Groups comprising 91 Divisions on a front of 400 km, in 1944 the Red Army had 10 fronts with 57 Armies and over 560 Divisions and Corps deployed on a frontage of 3200 km.

AFM Volume 2 was produced in 3 parts and whilst this review focuses on Part 2, I will look to pick up on parts 1 and 3 at a later date, for completeness the parts are:
So what's different between this and the FM 100 series, its based on a similar variety of sources including the Vorisilov Lectures, which it contextualises against a late 80s Force structure and is fundamentally focused on the conduct of operations at Army and Front level, and the general Force Composition and task orginisation required to deliver that. I think it does this well focusing on the Soviet Approaches to Offensive and Defensive Operations, it also provides a variety of commentary on effectiveness and some interesting discussion around both drivers for change and the future, which is where it differentiates itself from the FM 100 series.

Equipment and Organisation is considered at a high level and with only sufficient detail to facilitate the main discussion and demonstrate the mapping between doctrine technology and force structures, which frankly the Soviets were masters of.



 It  broadly follows the structure of the Vorisilov Lectures material and includes a deal of informed comment, the main chapters cover:
  • Equipment and Organisation
  • Operational Planning, Context and Concepts
  • Strategic and Operational Marches
  • Offensive Operations
  • Operations in the Enemys Depth
  • Defensive Operations
  • Combat Support
  • Air Operations
  • Amphibious Operations
  • Logistics
  • Command Control and Communications
Annexes include High level org charts and Broad equipment TOEs for Divisions, Armies and Fronts both within and outside of the Western Group of Forces

This is a book that you can either read or dip into, having said that the approach to dipping into it is likly to be go read the whole section on offensive opps and related elements on combat support. The Upside over reading the Vorisilov Lecture material is that the hard work of placing it in the context of the late 80s has been done and this work draws on wider material as well.



The author CJ Dick of the Soviet Studies Research Centre understands his subject well and attempts to explain the Soviet concepts as they stand rather than trying to equate Soviet military thought to  western ideas, an approach taken in a number of the US manuals which generates some very confusing discussions on echelonment and reserves amoungst others. These subjects are covered with far more clarity in this volume.

I particularly like the categorisation of the Cold War period into a number of Eras based on the prevailing doctrine and the discussion around its impact on force structures and organisation. These are articulated as:
  • The Nuclear Era. Doctrine and force structures dominated by the concept of Combat under nuclear conditions
  • The Era of a Conventional Phase. This period was dominated by the impact of two ideas.  The first was driven by the NATO's adoption of flexible response, which would lead to a Conventional Phase at the start of any war and if surprise could be achieved and Soviet Operational art delivered offered the potential of a conventional victory. The other was the vulnerability of tank heavy formations in conventional war demonstrated during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. 
  • The Era of Conventional War. The result of the INF treaty and the failure by both the Warsaw Pact and NATO to upgrade their nuclear capabilities, lead to a belief in the increasing likelihood of an extended conventional phase or the possibility of a wholly conventional war
This is then neatly mapped to the evolution of the organisations and structures that occured over this period.  The rate of change that was feasible for an organisation the size of the Soviet Army also receives some attention. All of this starts to provide a degree of clarity to the variation in content of key sources on the organisations and structures employed within the WGF at different points in time.

Looking at the diagrams and discussion it seems clear that this work fundamentally underpins The Genforce Mobile Force Handbooks written in 1997 as OPFOR guides which provide excellent commentary on what was essentially Soviet organisation and practice but which because they are OPFOR guides I have always had concerns over how they were adapted and how representative they were of what was rather than what was aspired to.



Some of the organisational structures proposed in both this and AFM volume 2 part 3, Soviet Tactics are quite different from what is discussed elsewhere and I have yet to digest what that means and how or whether to reflect it into my current projects. 

As well as this post I have updated the Post on free resources on Soviet Organisation and Doctrine.  All up an excellent find, resource and for free well worth a read. I have a physical copy of the Vorisilov Lectures Operational Art and would love to find a physical copy of this to add to the collection but so far have looked without success. An excellent perspective on Soviet Operational Art

References:

Red Banner The Soviet Military System in Peace and War, C Donnelley, (1988) @ amazon
AFM Volume 2, Part 2, A Treatise on Soviet Operational Art
AFM Volume 2, Part 3, Soviet Tactics
Voroshilov Academy Lectures
Review-Web Resources, The Essentials of Cold War Soviet Doctrine and Organisation for Free
Genforce Handbook, Mobile Force Part 1, Operational Art and Tactical Doctrine, 1997
Genforce Handbook, Mobile Force Part 2, Tables of Organisation and Equipment, 1997







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Friday, 10 March 2017

Review - Book, Todays Army Air Corps, Paul Beaver, 1987




The first thing to point out about what I think is a very handy little reference is that the title is a complete misnomer.  Written in 1987 the Today in the title very much refers to the Army Air Corps of yesterday and you will certainly struggle to find even a mention of the AH 64 which was a distant aspiration at the time of writing.  What the book does do well is provide a compact overview of the British Army Air Corps This includes:
  • A Short History of Army Flying
  • Structure and Command Arrangements
  • Regiments Squadrons and the AAC Center
  • Aircraft
  • Weapons Roles and Equipment
  • Future Programme
  • Training and Tactics


This book is an excellent snap shot of the Army Air Corps at the backend of the Cold War. The Historical section is too short to do anything but provide pointers to conflicts in which the Army Air Corps had previously played a role.  The real value to the Cold War Gamer lies in less than half the book, primarily in the sections on:
  • Structure and Command Arrangements. This section is a little thin but provides an overview of how the Army Air Corps supports the rest of the Army with both Aviation Advice, staff support and planning functions as well as the broad structure of the units and a view of the organisations that support is provided to essentially BAOR, UKMF, Special Forces and Northern Ireland.
  • Regiments Squadrons and The AAC center. This section is the first of the two absolute nuggets in this book this covers each regiment and independent squadron and in a terse paragraph summarizes location role, equipment holdings and the HQ they report to, which is immensely useful for context and scenario planning if you want to refer to the real units.
  • Training and Tactics. The second nuget is the training and tactics section which is sadly all too short and in a few pages talks through HELARM tactics with Gazelle and Lynx as they would operate in Germany.  This looks at both the Anti Armour and Recce/Air Op roles. It would have been nice to see something on Forward Air Refueling and cross FLOT (Forward Line of Own Troops) operations but the data supplied is enough to give you a basic understanding of how the Aviation assets would be used.  Its easy to forget that other missing items such as JAAT (Joint Air Attack Teams) post date this title, within the British armed forces.
The rest of the books information is useful but can be obtained easily else where, including online sources. For an out of print obscure little book it contains some very useful information. It can be picked up on Amazon, last I looked for .01p, at that price it pays for itself if you can use it to make the gaming table more stable by sticking it under one of the table legs. A thin tome but a worthwhile addition to the Cold War library if you have an interest in British aviation capability at the back end of the Cold War.

Today's Army Air Corps @ Amazon













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Friday, 17 June 2016

Review Book - Abel Archer, Modern Rapid Fire Rules



Well it's been a while since I posted. A busy period for family and work - however I was asked a question about the rules I use, and it's a fairly frequent question so I thought I would knock out a quick post on the subject.  I got hooked on Modern gaming after joining the Guild forum in around 2008.  I was familiar with RF through WW2 gaming and when the Guild held a big game in 2010 I soon volunteered. The first game was held in Ireland and used Rapid Fire adaptations produced by Piers Brand. In the subsequent two Cold War big games they were adapted in a number of areas by John Dowman and Rob Rowell.


Tim's picked these up and done an excellent job of enhancing what were a fairly loose collection of ideas and turning them into a coherent set of rule additions making them a lot more attractive and digestible.  They are designed to be used in conjunction with Richard Marsh and Colin Rumford's Rapid Fire Rules which can be purchased in paper or electronic format from the Rapid Fire Website.



The focus for the rule set is the early 80's the period of the first game and Tims area of interest. They contain vehicle stats for the period Orbats and Scenario ideas to get you started.  The Orbats covered are:

NATO
  • British Battle Group
  • Danish Battle Group
  • Dutch Battle Group
  • US Armoured Cavalry Sqn
  • US Battle Group
  • NATO Divisional and Corp Assets
Warsaw Pact
  • MRR Advance Guard and Main Body
  • TR Advance Guard and Main Body
  • Divisional Assets.
The rules adapt easily enough for the late 1980's period and can be used for Ultra Modern and near future with a little thought.



They include a range of rule mechanisms adopting the original set to the modern period and accommodating the evolution of fire power, observation systems, gunnery systems, armour and aircraft. They sit firmly in the world of Rapid Fire which was always a simple abstracted game system, but one that played fast.



What I have always loved about Rapid Fire is the way the units are abstracted allowing battle groups to be reasonably represented by 10-15 models, this allows you to game in 20mm on a table top at battle group level with ease and with thought to extend into the operational level.

I suppose a number of things that I like best about Cold War gaming are enabled by these rules:
  • 20mm is a great scale for armour modeling with vehicles and figures sufficiently large to look great when done.
  • The models and figures can easily be adapted and enhanced
  • The extensive ranges of plastic models and resin kits mean most of the armies can be pulled together, and they look great.  
  • The Orbat abstractions enable a reasonable game to be played out at battle group level on a 6 foot by 4 foot table without it all looking too daft.
  • The rules are simple and straight forward to learn and enable games to be completed relatively quickly.
  • With a bit of thought and a lot of really useful plastic boxes you can store it all in a reasonably big cupboard.
  • You can with the aid of a small hall some friends and a pile of scenery pull it all up to the operational level which is really where the action was going to happen in the Cold War and where the odds evened up between the Warsaw Pact and NATO armies.


All up a great contribution from Tim to the Cold War gaming community, Tim's Abel Archer rule adaptations are free, available for download and come in PDF format.


Other Book Reviews:

The Race to the Swift





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Friday, 28 August 2015

Review - Magazine Wargames Illustrated 335 September 2015

In my youth I was always a great fan of Wargames Illustrated enjoying the pictures as much as the articles.  Having supplied some pictures for a Cold War article in this months issue which takes as its theme the concept of  "What If" games they kindly sent me a copy.  



This months issue builds to an extent on Issue 324s Cold War theme but with a slightly different take hopefully this will be but part of an increased level of coverage of the post war modern period generally and more specificaly the Cold War.  Cold War as a period has been slowly gaining in popularity in both 15mm and 20mm with an expanding range of figures and models from a range of manufacturers and a widening range of rules suitable for gaming the period including such titles as Force on Force, Fist Full of Tows (2 or 3),  Battlegroup and Cold War Commander amongst others, these provide focus across the scales from the more traditional Modern gaming scale of 6mm to 15mm, 20mm and 28mm.


The imminent entry of Flames of War into the 15mm Cold War Gameing arena with it's Team Yankee rule set and a developing line of miniatures is inevitably driving an increased amount of interest in the period and with new sets of rules in the pipeline from TFL, Iron Fist publications and Third Generation Warfare  the heat is seriously being turned up on the Cold War.  The Flames of War gang have already published a range of images on their impending offerings covered on the Breakthrough Assault Blog and the release rate from other 15mm manufacturers seems to be cranking up to meet the inevitable demand.



This months WI issue contains three articles focused on Cold War Conflict two fitting in with the "What If" theme and one on the design of the Third Generation Warfare rule set by Nick Ayres that underpined the Leicester Phat Cats Salute demonstration and is accompanied by some pics of that game.



The other two articles are focused on the magazines What If theme one looks at Soviet Regimental Cold War Tactics the other is an excellent look at Opperation Mikado the proposed SAS raid onto the Argentinian Mainland in the flaklands war.

The Cold War article penned by Jeremy Richardson has a focus on the Advanced Guard, and scenario development from that as well as covering the sequencing of assault river crossings and Air Assault.  It talks through the Joy of 3mm gaming and takes a look at Cold War Commanders mechanisms for simulating the friction of war (one of the great features in that set of rules). It  closes around a look at model availability from 3mm - 20mm and approaches to dealing with the larger scales all up an eminiently readible and useful article with some great eye candy.



The second article is written by Roger Gerrish with contributions on the modelling front by Phil Lewis.  The article covers in a degree of detail the historical background to the proposed SAS raid on mainland Argentina during the Falklands war, the historical content being quite fascinating of itself.  It then looks at scenario development and forces for both sides for a series of Force on Force games looking at differnt aspects of the plan and rounds out with a look at terrain and creating the Pink Panthers or Green Hornets of the SAS all up a very enjoyable read.



The ideas from this article will readily translate to a few central front games I am contemplating as I have recently been looking at strategic Desant operations including Spetznaz deployments and airfield siezures in Northern Germany to which many of the ideas presented by Roger readily map. I might need to swap the Herc for an AN 24 and the Green Hornet landrovers for some Lu-947 weapon carriers, however the concepts presented for terrain and scenario generation would work well in creating a series of skirmish games around the initial airfield seizure befor I air land the air mechanised VDV regiment and conduct some subsequent operations, which is more the scale I like to play at.

All up an excellent edition building on the October 2014 Cold War issue reviewed by Richard C over at Cold War Hot Hot Hot. The WI Issues with Modern Themes are:




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Wednesday, 1 July 2015

Review - Book, The Race to The Swift, R Simpkin 1985




The Race to the Swift by Brigadier R Simpkin recieved rave reviews across a range of professional military journals in America and Britain, for good reason, its an excellent treatise on manouvre warfare, focusing more on the operational rather than the tactical it articulated how to do manoeuvre warfare as tought by its three major exponents the Germans, Russians and Israelis.  

His previous explorations of military theory include Red Armour and Deep Battle, the brainchild of Marshal Tukachevski these are both on the wish list and both out of print and commanding high prices this book pulls together a lot of his thinking on Manouver warfare and is generally more accesibly priced having been through a number of reprints.

Part 1 looks at the development of both Blitzkrieg by the Germans and Deep battle by the Soviets with the chapter on the Deep Battle presenting an illuminating view of Soviet Operational theory and its evolution in the post nuclear aeromechanised world.  It also alludes to the limiting factors of the Soviet Army to deliver against the genius of the vision. Read in the context of a world that has seen the exposition of some of these visions in elements of the operations of the second Gulf War it underlines the writers gift for understanding where the world was going 15 years before it got there.

Part 2 really gets into the detail and theory of manouver warfare and the concepts that underpin it, central to all this are a number of key elements of the Soviet Deep Battle theory.  The author does this through examination of the physics and mathematics of war and explains the detail of how the deep battle would be fought gettng under the skin of the impact of heliborne assault and the fundamental differences between airmobile and parachute delivered forces together with an exposition of why the Soviets identified the need for and delivered a highly mechanised airborne force which fundamentally set about to address the key mathmatical limitations of airborne warfare so often borne out in History.



He looks at the impact of manoeuvre theory and the effect that it had on force levels that explains the Soviets love affair with deep operations and the encounter battle, theorising on the effectiveness of different types of forces in different roles and the effectiveness of lighter more manouverable elements if their force can be brought to bear via flanking manouvers and envelopment, the concepts that underpined Soviet mobile groups and the later development and evolution of the Operational Manouvre Group.  He provides good explanations of complex Soviet military concepts such as simultainaity and the interchangeabiity of firestrikes with physical strikes brought about by the increasing destructiveness of modern indirect fire technologies such as precision guidance and ICMs and the impact of this and developments in communications on future operations.

The Book contains a large number of complex ideas and is not a free ride for the reader with a number of the the concepts requiering a deal of thought by the reader to set them in the context of a particular force or even develop a decent understanding of what is being discused.  Their are many books that explain the broad tennants of the Soviet way of doing battle to many describe an overly simplistic view of the tactical with no real appreciation for what goes on at the operational level, which is frankly where the Soviets excel.  This book focuses exactly on that spot and, in my mind at  least, articulates a significant number of ideas that I would love to play out on the table top. How to do that in 20mm in an opperational context is something that could keep me ammused for years.



The purpose of the book is to look at the evolution of future force structures and capability, however in doing this it provides an excellent discusion of both manouver warfare and the Soviet doctrines and force compositions that would be used to deliver there version of it which was probably the best developed theory of manouver warfare when the book was written in 1985 at the backend of the Cold War.  This is definately a book thats worth reading and Brigadier Simpkins conversational style conveys some very dry topics in a very consumable way, but the reader still has to work hard to extract the full value and meaning from some complex theoretical military concepts, frankly I think this is one of the must haves and  a brilliant book, but perhaps not to everyones taste.

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Saturday, 6 June 2015

Review - Book, Soviet/Russian Armour and Artillery Design practice, 1945 to present




This is frankly an outstanding reference work if you are interested in post war soviet military vehicles and artillery systems, sadly this is reflected in its price and availability.  Written by two of the worlds leading experts and drawing on a wide range of sources that became available at the end of the Cold War as the Russians sought to export their technology and needed to more widely publish its capabilities to the world.

The book covers;
  • Evolution of Soviet/Russian Tanks
  • Anti Armour Developments
  • Armoured Infantry Fighting Vehicles
  • Armoured Airborne Vehicles
  • Self Propelled Artillery
  • Towed Artillery

The principal component of the book is the evolution of Soviet/Russian Tanks which covers its subject in significant detail looking at both the major production models and the main prototypes it includes their evolution through the various marks and provides good coverage of the enhancements introduced. Through it all runs the broad thread of the design strategy and vision.  The focus is very much on post war tanks and includes:
  • post war production of the T-34/85
  • early post war medium tank production T-54/55/62
  • Soviet Post War Heavy Tank Design
  • Soviet Post War Light Tanks
  • Second Generation Tank Development T-64/72/80


The sections on Anti Armour developments, Armoured Infantry Vehicles and Airborne vehicles traces a similar story through these sets of vehicles. Whilst the level of detail presented is extremly useful the breadth of Armoured vehicle types covered inevitably mean this is less than that provided within the tank story.


The section on artillery is both comprehensive and provides good coverage and technical detail on all the systems covered again tracing the evolution of the design concepts through the systems that were developed, the focus is delivered against system type looking at SPGs, Gun Mortars, MRLs, free flight rockets and ballistic missiles. Of note its not just about the delivery system.  The Soviets designed for end to end engagement concepts in artillery; target acquisition, delivery and supply so the book includes a range of specilist logistic and support vehicles as well as command and observation post vehicles.  The one noteable ommision under the artillery title to my mind is Air Defence systems although this may be more a reflection of the organisation of the the Soviet Armed forces, sadly this misses the oppourtunity to explore an area where the Soviets may well have outperformed the west.


At the end the authors provide an overview of the design philosophy which really highlights the technology push component of the Soviet approach and enables one to contrast this with the more requirements lead approaches of the western world. In Summary a superb book, that can be read cover to cover or dipped into as required, it contains a wealth of data that I have not come across elsewhere particularly in relation to the performance of armour. The sting in the tale is the price, at £130 on Amazon its not a cheap.  If you can afford it, its worth buying if you see it for less than £50 don't even think about it, just buy it, great book.

Soviet/Russian Armour and Artillery Design practice, 1945 to present @ Amazon

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Thursday, 28 May 2015

Review Book - Modern African Wars (3) South West Africa




On the essential reading list for the SA Border War is the Osprey Modern African Wars (3) by Helmoed Romer Heitman a writer eminently qualified to pen the title.  The title contains a set of useful uniform colour plates covering a fairly wide range of SADF uniforms but with more limited coverage  of SWAPO/PLAN, UNITA and FAPLA uniform detail, additionally it contains a wealth of useful information that make it an ideal primer on the SA Border War this includes:
  • A broad timeline of the conflict which covers the main political and military events from the occupation of German South West Africa by South African forces in 1915 through to the end of the conflict. This names all the major South African external opperations together with commentary on the evolution of SWAPOs tactical doctrine and operational statistics for each year. 
  • A Review of the Organisational Structure andd equipment of the various different elements of the SADF including:
    • 32 Bn
    • 61 Mech Bn Group
    • 1 Para Bn
    • Marienes
    • SAAF
    • SWATF
    • SWASpes
    • Modular Bns
    • Kovete
    • SWA Protection Unit
  • A Short Overview on the principal Angolan Forces covering at a high level UNITA and FAPLA
  • A Short overview of SWAPO/PLAN,
  • A Review of the Major external operations adding brief descriptive detail to that provided in the timeline
  • A  description of the Colour plates which includes a look at both Unit and Rank insignia


This book provides in a very consumable fashion enough of an overview of the conflict to get you started on the period with limited effort. As might be expected this has a South African perspective and coverage of the SADF forms the bulk of the content. Despite this it is a good primer for use before engageing in further internet research or reading some of the more weighty tomes that cover the political and military history at a greater level of detail.  

The book was recently reprinted, prior to that copies were reaching prices of £60 - £90 now its back in easy reach with a second hand copy on Amazon currently commanding a sum of £4.50 at this price it really is a steal, particularly if you are new to the period and the conflict and want to get your teeth into it in a hurry.

Modern African Wars (3) South West Africa @ Amazon

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