less than that of the Ratel (300 km against the 800 km of the Ratel). This made logistics more complicated. During Sceptic, the Elands sometimes ran out of fuel when the Ratels still had more than enough, with the result that the Noddy cars had to be towed.
But even the Ratels gave problems. The accumulation of leaves clogged the air intakes and caused the vehicles to overheat and even to catch fire. More than one 20-mm gun was bent by the vehicle smashing through bushes and trees.
As during Operation Reindeer, the radios gave trouble. Units and sub-units found it difficult to talk to each other; communication with tactical headquarters at Eenhana was problematic; and the SAAF aircraft and the army on the ground could not converse easily.
The artillery dated from the Second World War, and the gunners had trouble calibrating their old guns for accurate fire. Their Magirus Deutz gun tractors overheated, and the old towing equipment sometimes broke down due to metal fatigue.
Operation Sceptic finally proved that the 7,62-mm R1 rifle was not suitable for mechanised operations. It was an excellent weapon, with formidable stopping power, and was very well liked by the troops, but the R1 was too large to be used comfortably from within a Ratel. During his time at the front, General Viljoen carried a 5,56-mm R4, an adaptation of the Israeli Galil rifle, with a folding stock, which would become – and at the time of writing still is – the standard South African Army rifle.
By and large, Sceptic was a valuable learning experience for the SADF and provided several lessons, large and small, which would be applied on forthcoming operations.
One question remains to be answered. Did Sceptic succeed in its objective? The SADF lost 17 soldiers, as well as one Impala light jet bomber and an Alouette III helicopter. The number of PLAN bodies counted were 380. Several hundred tonnes of arms and ammunition were destroyed, and some 150 tonnes, including vehicles and light artillery, were taken back to SWA.[46] SADF Military Intelligence estimated that about 75% of PLAN’s transport capacity had been taken or destroyed.[47] The statistics were impressive.
All the sources are unanimous that SWAPO had suffered a substantial reverse: several of its bases were destroyed, its forces were scattered, many fighters were killed and much materiel was destroyed. The South Africans also captured several secret documents, which revealed SWAPO’s future plans.
But, despite Operation Sceptic’s seemingly conventional nature, it should not be evaluated according to conventional warfare standards. The Border War was essentially a counterinsurgency and guerrilla war, even if the battlefield had been moved from Ovamboland to Cunene province. And in a guerrilla war, reverses like this one are, in the long run, not all that important. After the South Africans had left, PLAN would reoccupy the bases or establish new ones. Their arms and equipment would be replenished – the Kremlin would see to that.
Therefore, although the planned infiltration offensive that gave rise to Operation Sceptic in the first place was disrupted, the effect was temporary. That offensive went ahead, albeit in reduced form. According to Willem Steenkamp, July saw 65 PLAN fighters killed in Ovamboland, 102 in August and 170 in September,[48] suggesting that Sceptic did not really reduce PLAN’s capacity to infiltrate into South West Africa. Indeed, when viewing the statistics, 1980 saw an absolute peak of 1 175 incidents (contacts, ambushes, mines detonated, incidents of intimidation and sabotage). But a total of 1 147 PLAN fighters were also killed (see tables in Chapter 9). Could PLAN take the punishment and still continue as an effective force? The next few years would tell.
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