Battle of Cuito Cuanavale

Battle of Cuito Cuanavale
Part of the Angolan Civil War
and the South African Border War
Battle of Cuito Cuanavale is located in Angola
Mavinga
Mavinga
Jamba
Jamba
Menongue
Menongue
Cuito Cuanavale
Cuito Cuanavale
Rundu
Rundu
Luanda
Luanda
Battle of Cuito Cuanavale (Angola)
DateIntermittently between 14 August 1987[3] – 23 March 1988[1]
(7 months, 1 week and 2 days)
Location
15°09′50″S 19°10′23″E / 15.16389°S 19.17306°E / -15.16389; 19.17306
Cuito Cuanavale, Angola
Result
  • South Africa and UNITA defeat a major FAPLA offensive towards Mavinga, inflicting heavy casualties on FAPLA and preserving UNITA's control of southern Angola.
  • Remaining FAPLA units repel several South African and UNITA attacks near the Tumpo River.
  • Withdrawal over several months of most South African and UNITA troops from Cuito Cuanavale under Operation Displace[5]
  • Round One of Tripartite Accord talks commences[1]
Belligerents

National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA)

South Africa South Africa

Angola People's Republic of Angola

Cuba Cuba

South West African People's Organisation

African National Congress

Military advisors:
Commanders and leaders
Arlindo Pena Ben-Ben
Abreu Kamorteiro
Demosthenes Amos Chilingutila
South Africa Magnus Malan
South Africa Andreas Liebenberg
South Africa Deon Ferreira
South Africa Piet Muller		 António França
Soviet Union Petr Gusev[4][6]
Cuba Ulises Rosales del Toro
Cuba Arnaldo Ochoa
Cuba Leopoldo Cintra Frías
Strength
UNITA:
28,000 militants[7]
37,000 irregulars[7]
24+ T-55 tanks[7]
South Africa:
700 combat troops[1]
(later up to 3,000)[8]
13 Olifant tanks[5]
120 Ratel infantry fighting vehicles[5]
1 battery of Valkiri[5]
2 batteries of G5 howitzers[5]
1 troop of G6 howitzers[5]
12 multirole fighter aircraft[5]
4 bomber aircraft[5]

FAPLA:
6,000 combat troops[1]
(later up to 18,000)[7]
150 T-55/62 tanks[1]
~97 BRDM-2 scout cars[1][8]
80+ armoured personnel carriers[7]
~43 BM-21 Grad[1][8]
96 multirole fighter aircraft[5]
8 bomber aircraft[5]
Cuba:
300 advisory personnel[1]
3,000 combat troops (February, 1988)[1][9]
32 T-55/62 tanks[10]

Auxiliary forces
  • Soviet Union:
    1,000 advisory personnel[3]
  • East Germany:
    2,000 advisory personnel[3]
  • PLAN:
    7,000 guerrillas[1]
  • MK:
    900 guerrillas[1]
Casualties and losses
UNITA:
3,000 dead[7][11]
 South Africa:
38 dead[note 1]
90 wounded[13]
5 tanks lost[3]
5 Ratels lost[3]
6 other armoured vehicles lost[5]
2 aircraft shot down
1 aircraft crashed[5]		 FAPLA:
4,768 dead[8]
10,000+ wounded[7]
94 tanks lost[3]
65 APCs lost[8]
12 aircraft shot down[7]
 Cuba:
42 soldiers dead[9]
7 pilots dead[4]
3 pilots POW[4]
70 wounded (UNITA claim)[7]
6 tanks lost[1]
6 aircraft shot down[4]
MK:
100 dead[2]
 Soviet Union:
3-4 dead[14][7]
31 wounded (UNITA claim)[7]
Part of a series on the
History of Angola
Precolonial history to 1575
Colonization 1575–1641
Dutch occupation 1641–1648
Colonial history 1648–1951
Portuguese province 1951–1961
War of Independence 1961–1974
Sovereign socialist state 1975–1992
Civil War 1975–2002
Post-war Angola’s
See also
Years in Angola

The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale was fought intermittently between 14 August 1987 and 23 March 1988, south and east of the town of Cuito Cuanavale, Angola, by the People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA) and Cuba against South Africa and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) during the Angolan Civil War and South African Border War. The battle was the largest engagement of the Angolan conflict and the biggest conventional battle on the African continent since World War II.[15] UNITA and its South African allies defeated a major FAPLA offensive towards Mavinga, preserving the former's control of southern Angola. They proceeded to launch a failed counteroffensive on FAPLA defensive positions around the Tumpo River east of Cuito Cuanavale.

Following a number of failed attempts to take the settlements in 1986, eight FAPLA brigades mustered for a final offensive—Operação Saludando Octubre—in August 1987 with extensive auxiliary support from one of Angola's closest military allies, the Soviet Union.[16] The FAPLA offensive took the form of a two-pronged, multi-divisional movement southwards towards Mavinga, a major UNITA stronghold and logistics centre.[16] Once Mavinga was in its hands, FAPLA intended to expel the remaining insurgents from Moxico Province and pave the way for a final assault on the UNITA headquarters at Jamba.[16] The Soviet Union supplied FAPLA with over a billion dollars' worth of new military hardware for the purpose of this offensive, and between 4 and 9 Soviet advisers were attached to each FAPLA unit on the brigade level.[17]

South Africa, which shared a common border with Angola through the contested territory of South West Africa (Namibia), was then determined to prevent FAPLA from gaining control of Mavinga and allowing insurgents of the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) to operate in the region.[18] Saludando Octubre prompted the South African Defence Force (SADF) to underpin the defence of Mavinga and launch Operation Moduler with the objective of stopping FAPLA's advance. After weeks of preliminary skirmishes, the two armies met at the Lomba River on 6 September.[19] Throughout September and October, the SADF repulsed several FAPLA attempts to cross the Lomba and destroyed most of the latter's vital bridging equipment.[16] Repeated counterattacks by the SADF's 61 Mechanised Battalion Group resulted in the annihilation of FAPLA's 47 Brigade and the loss of its remaining bridgeheads, sending the remainder of the FAPLA units reeling back towards Cuito Cuanavale.[20][21]

During the second phase of the campaign, the SADF and UNITA made several unsuccessful attempts to encircle and destroy the surviving FAPLA forces before they could establish new defensive positions east of Cuito Cuanavale, an initiative known as Operation Hooper.[22] However, FAPLA succeeded in concentrating its forces within a cramped perimeter between the Cuito, Tumpo, and Dala rivers known as the "Tumpo Triangle".[16] Here they were protected by the terrain and by extensive minefields. They were also reinforced by a number of Cuban armoured and motorised units, who had become more directly committed to the fighting for the first time since the beginning of Cuba's military intervention in Angola in 1975.[23] Over two months the SADF and UNITA launched six unsuccessful assaults on the Tumpo Triangle under the auspices of Operation Packer. Protected by multiple minefields, the defending FAPLA and Cuban troops held their lines in the Tumpo Triangle.[24] The SADF and UNITA disengaged in March 1988, after laying a series of minefields southeast of Cuito Cuanavale to dissuade a renewed FAPLA offensive.[24]

Both sides claimed victory.[25][26] The Cuban and FAPLA defenders had interpreted the SADF's Tumpo Triangle campaign as part of a larger effort to seize the town of Cuito Cuanavale itself and presented their stand there as a successful defensive action.[24] The SADF claimed that it had achieved its basic objectives of halting the FAPLA offensive during the Lomba River campaign without needing to occupy Cuito Cuanavale, which would have entailed unacceptable losses to its expeditionary force.[27][28][19]

Today, the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale is credited by some with ushering in the first round of trilateral negotiations, mediated by the United States, which secured the withdrawal of Cuban and South African troops from Angola and Namibia by 1991.[29]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n George, Edward (2005). The Cuban intervention in Angola: 1965–1991. London: Frank Cass. pp. 195–212. ISBN 0415350158.
  2. ^ a b Thomas, Scott (1995). The Diplomacy of Liberation: The Foreign Relations of the ANC Since 1960. London: Tauris Academic Studies. pp. 200–202. ISBN 978-1850439936.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Mitchell, Thomas G. (2013). Israel/Palestine and the Politics of a Two-State Solution. Jefferson: McFarland & Company Inc. pp. 94–99. ISBN 978-0-7864-7597-1.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Polack, Peter (13 December 2013). The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War (illustrated ed.). Casemate Publishers. pp. 66–83. ISBN 9781612001951. Retrieved 25 February 2015.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Scholtz, Leopold (2013). The SADF in the Border War 1966–1989. Cape Town: Tafelberg. pp. 235–427. ISBN 978-0-624-05410-8.
  6. ^ Gleijeses, Piero (2013). Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the Struggle for Southern Africa, 1976–1991. United States: The University of North Carolina Press. pp. 393–417, 425. ISBN 978-1-4696-0968-3.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Weigert, Stephen L. (25 October 2011). Angola: A Modern Military History, 1961–2002. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 85–153. ISBN 978-0-230-33783-1.
  8. ^ a b c d e Holt, C. (2005). At Thy Call We Did Not Falter. Zebra Press. pp. 1–18. ISBN 978-1-77007-117-9.
  9. ^ a b Stapleton, Timothy J. (2013). A Military History of Africa. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. pp. 258–267. ISBN 978-031-339-570-3.
  10. ^ Tokarev, Andrei; Shubin, Gennady, eds. (2011). Bush War: The Road to Cuito Cuanavale: Soviet Soldiers' Accounts of the Angolan War. Auckland Park: Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd. pp. 128–131. ISBN 978-1-4314-0185-7.
  11. ^ Marcum (1990), p. 135. "UNITA and the SADF pursued retreating MPLA forces to the advanced air base and provincial capital of Cuito Cuanavale. There they laid siege to what became known as the Stalingrad of Angola, from December 1987 to March 1988. Caught in a conventional action for which it was ill-prepared, UNITA suffered some 3,000 battle dead from among the ranks of its best units."
  12. ^ Clodfelter, Micheal (2002). Warfare and Armed Conflicts- A Statistical Reference to Casualty and Other Figures, 1500–2000 2nEd. Jefferson: McFarland & Company. p. 566. ISBN 978-0-7864-1204-4.
  13. ^ Polack, Peter (13 December 2013). The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan. Casemate Publishers. pp. 168–170. ISBN 978-1612001951. The SAAF casualties for the Battle from September 1987 to May 1988, were four killed and one severy wounded with SADF casualties being seventy-five including five accidental deaths for a total of 79 South African dead. There was a increase to eighty-one with the death of two unnamed soldiers in G5 explosions reported by Dick Lord. There are additional unnamed casualties reported by Helmoed-Römer Heitman book, which added together make it eighty-six deaths.
  14. ^ "Clash of Armour II". Key Publishing. 3 September 2021. Archived from the original on 21 July 2022. Retrieved 22 September 2022.
  15. ^ Mills & Williams (2006)
  16. ^ a b c d e Stapleton, Timothy (2010). A Military History of South Africa: From the Dutch-Khoi Wars to the End of Apartheid. Santa Barbara: Praeger Security International. pp. 169–185. ISBN 978-0313365898.
  17. ^ Vanneman (1990), p. 76.
  18. ^ Kanet, Roger (1987). The Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and the Third World. Cambridge University Press. pp. 44–46. ISBN 978-0-521-34459-3.
  19. ^ a b George (2005), p. 214.
  20. ^ Scholtz (2013), p. 253
  21. ^ Cite error: The named reference Walker 2004, p. 177 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  22. ^ Scholtz, Leopold (2010). "The South African Strategic and Operational Objectives in Angola, 1987–88". South African Journal of Military Studies. 38 (1): 81–97. Archived from the original on 27 January 2017.
  23. ^ Gleijeses (2007)
  24. ^ a b c Baines, Gary (2014). South Africa's 'Border War': Contested Narratives and Conflicting Memories. London: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 105–108. ISBN 978-1472509710.
  25. ^ "Replaying Cuito Cuanavale". History Today. Retrieved 4 August 2014.
  26. ^ Professors Heribert Adam and Kogila Moodley. "2". The Opening of the Apartheid Mind. University of California Press.
  27. ^ Scholtz (2013), p. 279
  28. ^ Scholtz (2013), pp. 316–319, 338–339
  29. ^ Brittain, Victoria (1998). Death of Dignity: Angola's Civil War. London: Pluto Press. pp. 32–38. ISBN 978-0-7453-1247-7.


Cite error: There are <ref group=note> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=note}} template (see the help page).