OT: Rhodesian War Resources

[HorseSoldier]

Conventional wisdom holds that counterinsurgency forces need to maintain a 10:1 force ratio. The Rhodesians maintained something like a 1:1 ratio and won every fight for fifteen years.

There may be something to the conventional wisdom, since up at the big picture/strategic level the Rhodesians got trounced. (And I say that as a huge fan of Bushwar history and a great admirer of the Rhodesian security forces.) Their opponents were brutal and incompetent, but when it was all said and done the Rhodesian Security Forces were unable to hold back the tide and the guerrillas were able to do serious damage to the economy.

Perhaps worse than that, the guerrillas were eventually able to strike at the real center of gravity for Rhodesia -- the rural white populace -- and despite serious government disincentives to leaving the country, White Flight became a major problem.

There are a number of good Rhodesian memoirs and books describing the experience of being a farmer or rancher during the war and experiencing guerrilla attacks. Getting shot at is never fun, but I can't imagine the stress and toll it takes when you're rolling out of bed in the middle of the night to fire back at guys lobbing RPG rounds at your house while your wife and kids jam FAL mags for you and knowing that if you don't make it through to dawn you're all dead. Probably not bad stuff to read up on if you're GM'ing T2K and want to get into the mindset of rural Polish farmers or similar.

More generally, I think of the Bush War probably being how a lot of war looks as governments post-2000 start trying to put things back together, fighting against warlords or groups like New America with a technology/logistics edge, but not a huge one. If I ever get around to writing up ideas I've had about the MilGov/New America frontier in the Wyoming/Montana sort of area it will draw a lot on Rhodesian sources.

[Webstral]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

BTW, I think the 2nd Amendment is obsolete -- it describes primarily a concept of a militia that has been obsolete since the National Guard was formed in the early 1900s. It needs to be either discarded or amended into something that more accurately describes personal firearms ownership as it exists today.

That is perfectly respectable. If the Second Amendment is amended to read something different, I will abide by its terms.


Webstral

[kato13]

Getting a little political guys. This is an issue I Know for a fact people on this board are passionate about and would rather avoid any conflicts.

[Webstral]

The Rhodesians missed the point that insurgencies are political problems, not battlefield problems. The Army can buy time and leverage. If that time and leverage are used wisely, the insurgency can be brought to a close. If the time and leverage are not used wisely, then we end up with the Zimbabwes and Vietnams of the world. Also, we end up with the USAs of the world.


Webstral

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by Webstral

The Rhodesians missed the point that insurgencies are political problems, not battlefield problems. The Army can buy time and leverage. If that time and leverage are used wisely, the insurgency can be brought to a close. If the time and leverage are not used wisely, then we end up with the Zimbabwes and Vietnams of the world. Also, we end up with the USAs of the world.

Web,

One counter-factual might be what would have happened if Rhodesia had adopted liberal democracy and majority rule upon independence in 1965, and had not suffered decades of political and economic isolation and warfare.

Tony

[HorseSoldier]

Or if various "concerned" western nations had supported Rhodesia-Zimbabwe after the election of Abel Muzorewa as Prime Minister and let the country gradually sort itself out.

Though to be fair, just about any scenario besides nuking Salisbury and every other major population center in the country and then lacing the countryside with anthrax would have been better for everyone, black and white, than Mugabe's regime.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Panther Al

Nah, its the zombies, Don't you know a bofors loaded with 3p is just the thing for dealing with the zombie hordes?

Nah, Zombies rate the KS-30 130mm AA gun with flaming fougasse for in close.

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

What's wrong with having a 40mm Bofors in the back shed? You never know when you might need it to go, oh, I don't know, rabbit hunting....

tsk, tsk, tsk...you use a Carl Gustav for rabbits.....Bofors are for duck hunting!

[Webstral]

Originally Posted by helbent4

Web,

One counter-factual might be what would have happened if Rhodesia had adopted liberal democracy and majority rule upon independence in 1965, and had not suffered decades of political and economic isolation and warfare.

Tony

This is my point, though. The long-term solution to Rhodesia's problem was political (and economic). When Maoist insurgents offer better solutions to your problems than the state does (as ZANU did in northeastern Rhodesia in the early 1970's), the status quo is bankrupt for the civilians in question. The Rhodesian military bought the ruling class more time, but the ruling class failed to address the key issues of concern to many of the black Africans.

In all fairness, the Rhodesians were in a tough spot. Improved medical care had reduced infant mortality such that the black population of Rhodesia exploded in the decades leading up to UDI (Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965). Fertility rates did not drop at nearly the same pace as infant mortality. Education, which is harder to implement than basic improvements to health care, also lagged way behind population growth. In effect, Rhodesia was forced to cope with a very rapid growth in population without a corresponding growth in the availability of land or education. Thus, very large segments of the black Rhodesian population were in a tough spot.

One of the reasons the Rhodesian government gave for dragging its feet on universal suffrage was the low literacy rate among the black Rhodesians. What was the point, they asked, of trying to create a modern democracy with people who couldn't read? The new voters would be easy prey for, well, the likes of Robert Mugabe. The course of history has given some credibility to the Rhodesian position.

The fact remains, though, that the Maoist ZANU infiltrators exploited a window the Rhodesians left open. Whether the Rhodesians, with the resources available to them in the 1960's, could have closed it sufficiently to prevent the spread of Communism among the locals is an open question.

Webstral

[HorseSoldier]

I think they could have made it a tougher proposition for the opposition, but I'm not sure they could have really implemented sufficient reforms to really check the pie in the sky utopianism the communists were selling. A lot of the problem, politically, seems to have been that a big chunk of the black population resented even the government initiatives that directly benefitted them because they often meant doing what whites told them to do in defiance of traditional cultural practices. Or at least this was a cultural trope that ZANU was able to exploit.

As an example, veterinary programs that improved the health (and quality) of livestock owned by villagers (and as an off shoot reduce disease and infant mortality among humans as well, improved nutrition for the populace, etc) were unpopular because of Not-Invented-Here sort of issues. ZANU had a very easy time co-opting members of the populace to destroy or sabotage the infrastructure associated with them, even though this directly harmed the saboteurs and/or their relations. I think this even occurred in cases where the government had invested the time to win over the traditional local/tribal leadership on the programs because as noted, there was a large population of young, unemployed and uneducated black males who found communist propaganda more appealing than what the status quo was able to offer them (both in terms of their relationship with the white government and their ability to garner status and success within the framework of their traditional culture).

One thing that might have made a very big impact once the war started would have been large scale expansion of the Rhodesian African Rifles earlier in the war. As the manpower crunch hit late in the war my understanding is that a lot of people were looking at the idea of the Rhodesian military being primarily made up of RAR units with black soldiers and white officers (and a mix of black and white NCOs) since the heavy use of the white reservists in the Rhodesia Regiment was slaughtering the economy. This would have provided another outlet for disadvantaged young males in the tribal lands to make a living and gain status, but I think there were perhaps legitimate concerns about political reliability as well as less legitimate ideas limiting this until things got desperate enough on the military front to force it.

[Legbreaker]

It all comes back to effective education. The uneducated are idiots, willing to cut their own throats if somebody they think knows more than them tells them it's a good thing.
The more educated a society is, the less likely it is to rip itself apart.

[HorseSoldier]

I'd think there's kind of a tripod for social stability involving education, economic prosperity, and personal identification/investment in the status quo. You can probably pull one leg right off the tripod and have things still work out, but start pulling two or all the legs off and it's going to end in trouble.

In the US and western Europe in the 60s and 70s you had a lot of people who did not feel any personal affiliation to the status quo, but that by itself was not sufficient to generate revolutionary sentiments on a widespread enough basis to lead to serious problems. Conversely, in post-WW1 Germany you had economic implosion and people who felt alienated or hostile to the government imposed on them the winners of the war (and/or their government that had lost them the war) -- about the only thing left was a well educated population, who then elected Hitler.

[Dog 6]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

What's wrong with having a 40mm Bofors in the back shed? You never know when you might need it to go, oh, I don't know, rabbit hunting....

mmmm I'll take a GDF-005 35mm.