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| Strike Force 1978 |
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We check maps and then I lead on. My stick was thrown together the last minute
and we have no MAG just 4 riflemen. I brief my men that we won’t make crash RV’s
that they just make their way west to the Penalonga Road and head south to the
Support Cdo vehicles. We stealthily carry on skirting kraals, a few dogs bark
afar, we have some moonlight and I’ve always been good at navigating. We stop
and listen a few times. After a long walk in we reach our OP gomo. My stick
shows no fear but I am concerned for their welfare as I believed that we would
likely bump into these 200 gooks. We climb partway up the gomo and stop well
above the kraals below. I call a stop as we lost our moonlight and it is pitch
black, I can’t even see my hand in front of my face. We will move again when it
gets light enough to see where we are stepping and I post 50% standto due to
proximity of gooks which I am always mindful of with other 2 powernapping using
no sleeping bags. A note for all you modern military folk reading this we did
not have body armor, elbow pads, knee pads or fancy night vision toys. We did
the business mano a mano in the bush, using our 5 senses and often a sixth one
and often with some help from Kcar! Recce troop had a couple of starlight scopes
but zealously guarded them, I had the nerve to ask for one once. Finally we get
a bit of daylight enough to see and we stealthily move to our OP position before
kraal inhabitants wake up. We find a good spot with cover and visibility of a
lot of huts, a bit below the top. Our gomo is large and runs oblong east and
west with features behind it, we are in the middle. We are in undetected and
lots of time till the sweep starts. I don’t want to find out the hard way we
have 200 gooks eating breakfast nearby so I will do a 180 perimeter patrol
behind us also to get the lay of the land. I remind my stick if I get into shit
with the gooks they follow crash RV plan, safety of my men is important to me. I
stealthily do this patrol, the top of the gomo is flat, a couple of shallow
caves, no sign of spoor or odors and behind to the north is a wooded valley that
could easily hide a thousand terrorists. Our OP side is thickly wooded with
boulders everywhere. I rejoin the stick, its safe enough to brew tea and have
breakfast. That was a nerve wracking insertion but where the hell are all the
gooks?
The Support Cdo large sweepline starts from the south of this huge TTL of many
huts. They start so far away I can’t even see them and am no help with their
runners. Finally they get closer, no sign of the terrorists. The sweep guys move
off afar to the west near the road and brew up. We monitor the area for after
activity. About midday we hear movement about 70 yards to the west of us. A
large force is moving through woods breaking branches etc making a racket. I
reckon it is the gook heavy weapon group moving away from Supports sweep troops
and coming toward us. I reckon they are manhandling their heavy weapons and ammo
crates etc through these thick woods on the slope thus all the branch breaking/
boulder moving noise. I radio in I have movement but no visual. The unseen force
is moving very slowly but getting closer sounds like a hundred people. I give
regular updates on the radio. Fireforce callout rules were that we must have
enemy visual and they must be stationary. Exceptions were made for savvy Selous
Scout units. Fireforce is advised of a scene brewing and is standing by and
being a large group I’m certain COMOPS are informed and Hawker Hunters are
getting checked and standing by. I have my stick in good cover lined up facing
the unseen force, we have about 15 yards visibility. I give the orders on my
command to fire 2 magazines into the gook position, I’ll toss a grenade then we
will pull back about 50 yards to avoid flanking attacks. We will take new
position to monitor for fireforce. It seems weird I’ll be calling in my old 3
Cdo unit, I wonder how voices I’ll recognize over the radio. Not much nearby for
heli stop deployment LZs, Kcar will have to figure something out. There is a lot
of loud branch breaking and boulders dislodged, quite a loud ruckus as the
unseen enemy force gets closer and closer. Tension is very high and we are ready
to fire. Finally after this long time the unseen enemy emerges from the trees
and it is a very large troop foraging of baboons! Stand down Fireforce. Good
thing for Fireforce callout rules. We monitor the area another couple days which
were uneventful for Support Cdo. I get to be butt of jokes for wanting to call
Fireforce onto baboons!
Postscript: On the second or third day the Grey Scouts did find the large ZANLA
force to the north of Support Cdo deployment area. Instead of calling in
Fireforce immediately while there was plenty of daylight left they decided to
take the gooks on themselves. Time was spent planning troop movements whatever,
not sure of details. Anyway a Grey Scout soldier on horseback took a direct hit
from a RPG thus losing his leg. Grey Scouts realize they are in the shit but it
was too late in the day to effectively deploy fireforce thus the gooks dispersed
and got away that night.
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