in 1968, a series of symposia was held to thrash out the problem. It was decided – against intense resistance, it must be added – to move away from the Second World War set-piece approach to mobile warfare. This was followed by a report of an Officers’ Council, which recommended that tactical surprise, commando attacks, strongpoints, infiltration attacks, raids and mobile defence techniques had to form the future nucleus of the army’s new operational doctrine of mobile warfare.[38]
These new ideas were, in large measure, based on fresh thinking by a group of younger officers at the Military College in Voortrekkerhoogte, such as Colonel (as he was then) Constand Viljoen, who became commander of the college in 1966. He and others began to see that the old approach would not work, at any rate not in Africa. The problem was that the distances were too great, the spaces too vast and the pool of manpower too small. The old approach would require large armies, which South Africa simply did not have. So the idea grew – as he told an interviewer – that “our whole tactical doctrine is wrong. Then we started with the idea of mobile warfare.” This was “based on not to hold ground but to create the design of battle in such a way that you would lure the enemy into [a] killing ground and then [utilise] the superiority of firepower and movement, you would kill him completely. . . . Never think about a battle that could compare with El Alamein, it’s completely impossible. In Africa you don’t operate that way.”[39]
In other words, instead of the holding and occupation of territory being the fundamental points of departure, factors like rapid movement (mobility), getting into the enemy’s rear areas, surprise and misleading the enemy would become instruments to make it impossible or difficult for the enemy to fight in the first place. All these new ideas were tested in exercises, with Land Rovers playing the role of tanks and infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs).[40]
Kruys also highlights the influence of the writings of Frank Kitson, the British general who came up with the idea of combat groups and combat teams, battalion/regimental-size and company/squadron-size composite, ad hoc units drawn from different corps to provide a balanced force in the field – in other words, armour, infantry, artillery, etc., mixed in a single combat group.[41] This fitted in with the South African tradition of mounted infantry warfare.
By 1975, the SADF reported that the army had “finalised its doctrine for the landward battle”[42] – just in time for Operation Savannah a few months later. The SADF learnt several lessons from Savannah, which Kruys summarises as follows:
• The fog that descended from the political level and obscured the view of the field commanders should be evaded. The aim of future operations would be precisely formulated. Incremental and extended involvement was out; operations would start with sufficient forces and would be of limited endurance.
• It was evident that the SADF was under-equipped for the type of mobile warfare that was being experimented with.
• A heavy armoured car, a proper infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) and modern long-range artillery were needed.
• The concept of combat groups and combat teams drawn from different corps was sound and had to be developed further.
• It was felt that the brigade would become the basic operational combat level for the SADF.[43]
Having a new doctrine is fine, but it has to be implemented to make any difference. For this purpose, at the end of 1973, 1 SA Infantry Battalion (1 SAI) was moved from Oudtshoorn to Bloemfontein to become the test-bed for the new mechanised approach and to be near the armour units with which the mechanised infantry would have to work. The unit, with Commandant Joep Joubert in command, started off with the 30 Saracen armoured personnel carriers the army had at the time. Three years later, amid much excitement, the first Ratel IFVs arrived. The mobile doctrine was developed by then majors Roland de Vries, Tony Savides and Reg Otto (later Lieutenant General and Chief of the Army in the 1990s).[44] De Vries later became one of the army’s foremost experts on mobile mixed-arms operations.
The SADF’s doctrinal development was furthered by sending several middle-ranking officers on courses with the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), which had amassed considerable experience with mobile mechanised warfare during the wars of 1948/1949, 1967 and 1973, and would expand this in 1982. In 1977, 22 South African officers attended courses at the IDF’s combat school, and others followed in subsequent years. Officers who attended mechanised warfare courses in Israel included men who became commanders of elite conventional units like 61 Mechanised Battalion Group (61 Mech), men such as commandants (both later colonels) Gert van Zyl and Ep van Lill.[45] The SADF’s tank doctrine was, in addition, much influenced by that of the Israelis.[46]
The SADF took over the Israeli operational planning cycle, as perfected during the Six Day War of 1967 and the October War of 1973. This boils down to simultaneous planning on an integrated basis with free liaison between different staffs. In other words, armour, infantry, artillery, logistics, air force – all involved – would come together and thrash out one or alternative operational plans, which would then be submitted to the senior commanders.[47] This debating procedure was more democratic than rigid decision-making at the top.
The downward devolution of decision-making played an important role for the SADF. As Roland de Vries writes:
The South African combat leaders were afforded a great measure of initiative down to combat group and combat team [more or less battalion and company/squadron] level. This stimulated independent thought and conduct to a great extent down to ground level. The FAPLA enemy did not have this powerful and flexible attribute. The poor devils had to ask permission for everything and were not allowed to think for themselves.[48]
He points out, though, that things were different for SWAPO and UNITA guerrillas.[49] However, this devolution of power was in sharp contrast to the rigid control in FAPLA and the Cuban army, and helps explain the operational success the SADF repeatedly achieved in its conventional operations inside Angola.
Operation Savannah was indeed the first practical test for the SADF’s new doctrine. On an operational and tactical level, it worked very well, although Savannah was a strategic disaster. After the operation, the Commission of Investigation into the Future Planning of the South African Defence Force was set up, with Jannie Geldenhuys as chairman, for what would, in effect, be a defence review for the 1980s. In the wake of Savannah, the committee report emphasised, among other things, the influence of the “space factor”. “Area is the only relatively stable factor as far as the RSA’s environmental analysis is concerned,” the committee wrote, although it noted that “the space between the RSA and its enemies has narrowed alarmingly”. For the SADF’s operational doctrine, this meant that “[t]he RSA is a vast country with extended borders and a long coastline. This means that the SADF has to operate in an area and not along a front. This requires special attention to logistics, strategic and tactical mobility, the need for blanket cover, decentralisation of execution and a night-fighting ability.”[50]
One prerequisite, as the army realised, was to couple mobility with devastating firepower. As Roland de Vries, at the time second in command of the Army Battle School at Lohatlha, and a junior officer wrote in 1987: “After conducting outflanking manoeuvres or penetrations, the force which has taken the offensive, can attack vital installations behind enemy lines, wreaking havoc. If the enemy’s warfare doctrines favour positional rather than mobile warfare, defeat should be imminent and swift.” In support of the concept of mobility, they offered a quotation from the British historian Thomas Pakenham about the Anglo-Boer War: “There was one iron law of strategy imprinted on the mind of the Boers like a law of the wild: the answer to superior numbers is superior mobility.” With this mobility the objective should be “to out-manoeuvre, rather than engage and become involved in a full-scale confrontation with the enemy”.[51]
De Vries, in fact, was one of the foremost SADF thinkers in developing a new
