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| Strike Force 1978 |
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Rhodesian hierarchy thought it would be good publicity if Rhodesian African
soldiers were getting high kill rates too. So the RAR were brought into
Fireforce duties. This bumped an RLI Commando out of Fireforce rotation so they
were deployed into Strike Force. Strikeforce would be deployed into a hot area
using OP’s and patrols and supposedly clean it up. The Rhodesian Air Force
stated they preferred RLI on Fireforce. An aggressive RLI Fireforce sweep would
cover an area in 5 minutes that would take RAR 2 hours. Both units would kill
all enemies in target area but RAR moved man by man, cover into cover and
choppers would get tired orbiting and orbiting…The RAR were great soldiers
though. RLI moral sagged while on Strikeforce as it didn’t get much in kills or
captures. Its been said an RLI commando living in nice quarters not getting
Fireforce callouts and kills are grumpy where a commando living in mud under
tarps between trucks getting kills regularly are happy. Support Cdo was stuck
with Strikeforce for 2 bushtrips and hated it. Their usual tactics were to
deploy a half dozen OP’s (observation posts) into target area. OP’s would watch
area for terrorists, feeding parties, communist bloc uniforms on the laundry
line etc. Then in the morning trucks would drop off several sticks or the sticks
would have walked in previous night. These sticks would sweep the target Tribal
Trust Land (TTL) talking with locals to see what they could stir up. There would
be backup from Fireforce and /or Mortar Troop vehicles. The OP’s would note who
was running and to where. Sometimes there weren’t enough OP’s with binoculars
and radios to keep track of all the runners. Some African males would run into
huts change their clothes etc these would be arrested. Sweeplines would make
their presence felt and often end up by the local store with guys buying cokes
etc. OP’s would monitor the area after the RLI sweepline passed because
sometimes real gooks would emerge from the bushes. They would be checking if any
local tribes people were sellouts and brutalize or kill them. This happened once
while I was doing OP duty and I had to call back the sweep sticks from afar but
the gook disappeared into the bushes at the bottom of my OP gomo. Sweeping
sticks didn’t find him, I hoped he would come up to join me for tea so I could
give him a 7.62 lump of sugar, no luck. A zeroed sniper rifle with scope would
have been handy a few occasions. Strikeforce only produced a few fleeting
contacts, handful of arrests and a dismal kill rate. Of several Strikeforce
deployments I submit the following scene for posterity.
The city of Umtali got attacked again from a nearby hill with innocent civilian
casualties and property damage. This time by a 80 man ZANLA heavy weapon unit
with Soviet made recoilless rifles, mortars and 12.7 machine guns. This ZANLA
group then headed west into Rhodesia. We heard that the Territorial Army
trackers said it was like following a herd of elephants. 2 days later they lost
spoor?? Police Special Branch said these gooks joined up with a resident gang of
a 120 gooks in the TTL east of the Penalonga Road for a big socializing time.
Support Cdo Strikeforce was tasked to deploy and get them. I was a new stick
leader for this operation also the Cdo MA3. A map used for the briefing showed a
spot ‘X’ that SB were quite certain these 200 gooks would be. Also on the map
were the spots for a few Support OP’s; one being right on the ‘X’ spot marking
the gooks! A troop commander’s stick had that hazard OP task and I was sure glad
it wasn’t me, I would be with the sweepline. We had 3 Cdo on call as Fireforce
at Grand Reef and some Grey Scouts were patrolling the area north of ours. We
would have 2 Mortar Troop vehicles and two 106 recoilless rifles on vehicles
from Antitank troop also for support. A heavy weapons unit verses a heavy
weapons unit. Support Cdo mortars have already dueled with Frelimo mortars each
aiming at each other’s tubes sound using SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess).
Dueling recoilless rifles could be interesting.
At night vehicles take us all up the Penalonga Road to the dropoff point. We all
do a long walk in to the holding area before the start point of the sweep. The
OP sticks will carry on walking to their respective OP’s. The stick commander
for the hazard OP had been wounded in the legs twice before and his legs are
really hurting him. The other officers would sometimes tease him about his much
scarred ‘sexy’ legs in camp. It is decided that MY stick will do the hazard OP.
SHIT! I have 3 choices: A- give him painkillers and say “carry on”, or B- find a
payphone call the union office and say this is really a Recce Troop job but we
do C- be good soldiers and follow orders. There is that rule MA3 always gets the
hazard job! I’ve done many OP’s before but never onto such a hotspot. Well
American LRRP’s in Vietnam and our own SAS and Selous Scouts regularly did this
work so could we. It’s part of a soldiers job to recon and find the enemy. In my
mindset its not IF but WHEN we find these terrorists and concern for safety of
my men under my command.
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