User:Katangais/sandbox/Cuito2
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The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale was a series of engagements between the Cuban-backed People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA), and the South African Defence Force (SADF), as well as guerrillas of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) near the important town of Cuito Cuanavale during the Angolan Civil War. FAPLA was initially deployed to eliminate the UNITA positions at Jamba and Mavinga, where the rebels had established their primary operating bases.[1] 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. They were joined by a number of Cuban armoured and motorised units, who had become more directly committed to the fighting for the first time during Havana's lengthy intervention in the civil war. Soviet weapons deliveries to FAPLA were also accelerated, including over a hundred T-62 tanks and strike aircraft seconded from the Warsaw Pact's strategic reserve.[8]
Battle of Cuito Cuanavale | |||||||
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Part of the Angolan Civil War and the South African Border War | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
UNITA (FALA) South Africa (SADF) |
MPLA (FAPLA) Military advisers: | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Jannie Geldenhuys[11] Andreas Liebenberg[12] Jan van Loggerenberg[12] Deon Ferreira[13] Roland de Vries[14] Arlindo Pena Ben-Ben[15] António Dembo[16] Demosthenes Amos Chilingutila[16] |
António Franca[17] João de Matos[18] Ulises Rosales del Toro[19] Arnaldo Ochoa[20] Leopoldo Cintra Frías[21] Petr Gusev[22] | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
South Africa: 700 combat troops[23] (later up to 3,000)[24] 13 Olifant tanks[25] 120 Ratel-90 armoured cars[26] 2 batteries of Valkiri[27][28] 2 batteries of G5 howitzers[27][28] 3 G6 howitzers[28] 12 multirole fighter aircraft[29] 4 bomber aircraft[29] UNITA: 28,000 militants[30] 37,000 irregulars[30] 24+ T-55 tanks[30] |
FAPLA: | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
3,000+ UNITA: 3,000 dead[30][39] South Africa: 42 dead[40] 90 wounded[30] 5 tanks lost (2 recovered)[41][42] 5 Ratels lost[41] 6 other armoured vehicles lost[43] 2 aircraft shot down[43] 1 aircraft crashed[43] |
10,000+ 4,768 dead[41][33] 10,000+ wounded[44] 94 tanks lost[43][41] 65 APCs lost[33] 280 logistical vehicles lost[45] 12 aircraft shot down[30] Cuba: 42 army dead[46] 7 pilots dead[47] 3 pilots POW[47] 70 wounded (UNITA claim)[30] 6 tanks lost[48] 6 aircraft shot down[47] Soviet Union: 4 dead (UNITA claim)[30] 31 wounded (UNITA claim)[30] |
South Africa, which shared a common border with Angola through South-West Africa, was then determined to prevent FAPLA from gaining control of Jamba and allowing insurgents of the South-West African People's Organisation to operate in the region. Saludando Octubre prompted the South African military to underpin the defence of Jamba and launch Operation Moduler with the objective of stopping FAPLA's offensive.[49] The Angolan government and its Soviet advisory personnel had failed to make contingency plans for South African intervention, despite advance warnings from Umkhonto we Sizwe of an imminent SADF counterattack.[32]
The campaign which followed culminated in the largest battle on African soil since World War II, surpassed in size and scope only by the Second Battle of El Alamein, and the largest conventional military clashes between two sub-Saharan armies in modern African history.[50][51] Next to the Ogaden War, Cuito Cuanavale provided an almost unique example of a sophisticated classical engagement waged on the continent with European—particularly Soviet—tactics.[52] Both sides claimed victory; Angolan accounts claim that the direct participation of well-trained Cuban combat troops, combined with the support of 1,000 Soviet advisors, turned the tide of the battle in favour of FAPLA.[53][54] They observed that South Africa's counterattack brought its expeditionary forces further from their bases and depots in South-West Africa, and comfortably within striking range of Cuban and Angolan aircraft.[55] Nevertheless, despite FAPLA's air superiority over the operational area, its ground forces were badly mauled by Operation Moduler.[17] The SADF later followed up with the less successful Operation Hooper and Operation Packer but failed to exploit this advantage, being halted at a tributary of the Okavango River by minefields.[56]
Today, the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale is credited 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.[53]