"Russians in Africa..." Topic

Toying with the idea of a "what if" scenario for Rhodesian Bush War. Having a platoon of Russians helping the ZANLA terrorist fight against a few squads of RLI and RAR…I know the Russians provided arms and training to the ZANLA but why not man power?…It was offered by both Cuba and Russia but the gesture was declined…

The Russians had built up quite a arsenal in Mozambique,for such a invasion,but Rhodesian faorces kept making cross border raids ,destroying weapons stockpiles. Rhodesia also had 8 T-55's ,they got from South Africa,which were captured enroute at sea by the SADF navy. Larry bond also wrote a novel about the same thing except w/ Angola and SouthAfrica and Mozambique. link

Hello, Stepman3!

The Soviet government just do not welcomed to the Soviet troops were fighting (fought, and not taught) abroad (particularly in Africa). For example, during the Egyptian-Libyan war Soviet advisers in Libya was strictly forbidden to make launches anti-aircraft missiles (with the missiles have imposed precisely Soviet specialists). Most of the dead Soviet advisers were killed in Africa more or less at random, and the fighting they engaged only in extreme cases.
Here are the Cubans – yes, it is involved in the fighting (Ethiopia, Angola, and may hypotetically in Mozambique if Rhodesia/South African Republic attacked this country), and officially.

I agree with UsmanK

Use Cubans for the grunts but have some Soviet "observers" handy to give orders or become objectives

Nice what if idea. I put on a game last weekend with the Rhodesian forces doing an external op to take out a terrorist training camp. To even things out a bit I gave the ZANLA side a 4 man Russian team. As you say, it's just what if, but I also wouldn't be surprised if a fair few Russians were killed in those ops, it's not like they would have admitted it in those days.

foxweasel…what rules did you use? What figures? I have a pretty good start on my RAR, RLI and Greys Scouts. My ZANLA are done. All from Eureka. Looking for a few good civilians now that fit in size wise…

If an invasion by South Africa was happening, possible permission to take part in a defense may have been granted.
Otherwise the soviets were very, very, averse to be seen as doing the fighting in an african setting. It really would have defeated a lot of their propaganda to be seen as fighting another races' war for them when they claimed it all as colonial and racist to begin with.

Something else to take into account is which country backed and trained who.

Soviets supplied and trained Angola.
Soviets supplied and sent others to train ZIPRA, especially East Germans and others.

Chinese supplied and trained ZANLA, including getting advisors from North Korea.

While ex-commonwealth would have gotten british and even commonwealth help and training, to get Britsh troops involved would have been near impossible given the troop attitude of the time.

A brush up between North Korans or Chinese in a ZANLA camp would be pretty interesting.

Cubans in Angola from '76 or so onwards.

in one of the books, if i remenber well, "Selous Scouts- Top Secret War"..Russian advisors are mentioned..and there is a pict of a smiling Selous Scout Operator sporting a captured Russian (Russian not Cuban) high ranking officer uniform…maybe it could be a clue at least for a game

In general, the situation with Soviet advisors was like this:
Soviet military specialists (12 people) who were to teach fighters ZIPRA, began arriving in July 1977 In addition, together with them, and were Cuban military (but they already had the task of protecting the training camp). But there is one feature. Training camp was not in Mozambique and in Angola (Luena district). ZIPRA fighters was thrown back on the aircraft. At the Mozambique specialists train only local army.
Before that ZIPRA fighters were trained in the Soviet Union (Simferopol district).
From action Rhodesian armed forces killed six Soviet military specialists (1 in Angola (February 1979), during the aerial bombardment, and 5 in Mozambique (26 July 1979) – but it was a Mozambican military advisers, and they were ambushed on the road quite far from any military camps).

Stepman, the figures are all 20mm Under Fire Miniatures, I think they have the best variety of figures and the scale just seems better for the period. I use my own rules, but they're far from completion.