Download or read book Gunship Over Angola written by Steve Joubert and published by Jonathan Ball Publishers. This book was released on 2019-04-15 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Growing up in suburban Pretoria, Steve Joubert dreamed of a career as a pilot. After undergoing SAAF pilot training, a freak injury put an end to his hopes of flying fighter jets. Instead he learned to fly the versatile Alouette helicopter. He had barely qualified as a chopper pilot when he was sent to the Border, where he flew missions over Namibia and southern Angola to supply air cover to troops on the ground. As a gunship pilot, Steve saw some of the worst scenes of war, often arriving first on the scene after a contact or landmine attack. He also recalls the lighter moments of military life, as well as the thrill of flying. A born maverick, his lack of respect for authority often got him into trouble with his superiors. His experiences affected him deeply, and led him eventually to question his role in the war effort. As the Border War escalated, his disillusionment grew. This gripping memoir is a powerful plea for healing and understanding.
Download or read book Gunship Ace written by Al J. Venter and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2012-01-19 with total page 563 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Spotlights the career of a fascinating modern warrior, while also shedding light on some of the conflicts that have raged throughout the world” (Tucson Citizen). A former South African Air Force pilot who saw action throughout the region from the 1970s on, Neall Ellis is the best-known mercenary combat aviator alive. Apart from flying Alouette helicopter gunships in Angola, he fought in the Balkan war for the Islamic forces, tried to resuscitate Mobutu’s ailing air force during his final days ruling the Congo, flew Mi-8s for Executive Outcomes, and piloted an Mi-8 fondly dubbed “Bokkie” for Colonel Tim Spicer in Sierra Leone. Finally, with a pair of aging Mi-24 Hinds, Ellis ran the Air Wing out of Aberdeen Barracks in the war against Sankoh’s vicious RUF rebels. As a “civilian contractor,” Ellis has also flown helicopter support missions in Afghanistan, where, he reckons, he had more close shaves than in his entire previous four decades. From single-handedly turning the enemy back from the gates of Freetown to helping rescue eleven British soldiers who’d been taken hostage, Ellis’s many missions earned him a price on his head, with reports of a million-dollar dead-or-alive reward. This book describes the full career of this storied aerial warrior, from the bush and jungles of Africa to the forests of the Balkans and the merciless mountains of Afghanistan. Along the way the reader encounters a multiethnic array of enemies ranging from ideological to cold-blooded to pure evil, as well as examples of incredible heroism for hire.
Download or read book The Chopper Boys written by Al J. Venter and published by . This book was released on 2016-03-19 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A retrospective view of the role played by helicopters in some of Africa's conflicts in the past, with six new chapters on more recent developments on the world's most volatile continent.
Download or read book Chopper Down written by Carl Alberts and published by . This book was released on 2015-09-19 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After twenty years of armed conflict in Angola and political instability in coup-ridden Sierra Leone going back to 1991, private corporate financial interests became the catalyst that spawned the creation of possibly the most successful private military corporation to date: Executive Outcomes (EO). With its initial task of securing Angolan government control in the Soyo oil-producing region, prompted by private oil interests, EO subsequently became involved in the war against UNITA throughout the country. With little more that 100 of its own combat personnel on the ground in both the wars in Angola and Sierra Leone, the outstanding success that EO achieved was in no small part due to the force-multiplying effect and support given by its helicopter and jet pilots of the Air Wing. This is the true story of the frustrations, personal sacrifices and too often the extreme risks that the aircrews took while flying in support of the ground offensives. Most of this was achieved with outdated equipment and aircraft that were seldom airworthy. Living under harsh conditions with the ever-present threat of enemy attack, as well as great risk from their ill-disciplined allies, the contribution these aircrews made to the overall success of the war effort was extensive. Although EO costs were but a small fraction of the replacement United Nations forces, which were generally unsuccessful, international pressure to leave prematurely, led to renewed regional conflict with great loss of life. The author describes the realities of 'postwar syndrome', his subsequent failed business venture in Liberia and his involvement in the conflict in the Ivory Coast that brought about his arrest in South Africa for mercenary-related activities.
Download or read book War Dog Fighting Other People s Wars The Modern Mercenary in Combat written by Al J. Venter and published by Lancer Publishers. This book was released on 2006 with total page 674 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Battle For Angola written by Al J. Venter and published by Helion and Company. This book was released on 2017-04-03 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the publication of Al Venter’s successful Portugal’s Guerrilla Wars in Africa - shortlisted by the New York Military Affairs Symposium’s 'Arthur Goodzeit Book Award for 2013' - his Battle for Angola delves still further into the troubled history of this former Portuguese African colony. This is a completely fresh work running to almost 600 pages including 32 pages of color photos, with the main thrust on events before and after the civil war that followed Lisbon’s over-hasty departure back to the metrópole. There are also several sections that detail the role of South African mercenaries in defeating the rebel leader Dr Jonas Savimbi (considered by some as the most accomplished guerrilla leader to emerge in Africa in the past century). There are many chapters that deal with Pretoria’s reaction to the deteriorating political and military situation in Angola, the role of the Soviets and mercenaries in the political transition, as well as the civil war that followed. With the assistance of several notable military authorities he elaborates in considerable detail on South Africa’s 23-year Border War, from the first guerrilla incursions to the last. In this regard he received solid help from the former the head of 4 Reconnaissance Regiment, Colonel Douw Steyn, who details several cross-border Recce strikes, including the sinking by frogmen of two Soviet ships and a Cuban freighter in an Angolan deepwater port. Throughout, the author was helped by a variety of notable authorities, including the French historian Dr René Pélissier and the American academic and former naval aviator Dr John (Jack) Cann. With their assistance, he covers several ancillary uprisings and invasions, including the Herero revolt of the early 20th century; the equally troubled Ovambo insurrection, as well as the invasion of Angola by the Imperial German Army in the First World War. Former deputy head of the South African Army Major General Roland de Vries played a seminal role. It was he - dubbed ‘South Africa’s Rommel’ by his fellow commanders - who successfully nurtured the concept of ‘mobile warfare’ where, in a succession of armored onslaughts ‘thin-skinned’ Ratel Infantry Fighting Vehicles tackled Soviet main battle tanks and thrashed them. There is a major section on South African Airborne – the ‘Parabats’ –by Brigadier-General McGill Alexander, one of the architects of that kind of warfare under Third World conditions. Finally, the role of Cuban Revolutionary Army receives the attention it deserves: officially there were almost 50,000 Cuban troops deployed in the Angolan war, though subsequent disclosures in Havana suggest that the final total was much higher.
Download or read book Barrel of a Gun written by Al J. Venter and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2010-10-19 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A colorful, wide-ranging memoir of danger and adventure in wars around the world. Anybody who says that the pen is mightier than the sword hasn’t spent time in Somalia . . . So begins this memoir of a career spent examining warfare—on the ground and as the bullets are flying. While many are intrigued by these violent conflicts, Al Venter feels compelled to see them in person, preferably at the center of the action. Born in South Africa, Venter has found no shortage of horrific battles on his own continent, from Rhodesia to Biafra and Angola to Somalia. He has ridden with the legendary mercenary group Executive Outcomes; jumped into combat with South Africa’s crack Parachute Regiment, the Parabats; and traipsed through jungles with both guerrillas and national troops. During Sierra Leone’s civil war, he flew in the government’s lone Mi-24 helicopter gunship as it blasted apart rebel villages and convoys, complaining that the Soviet-made craft leaked when it rained. In the Mideast, he went into Lebanon with the Israeli army as it encountered resistance from multiple militant groups, including the newly formed Hezbollah. Curious about the other side of the hill, he joined up with General Aoun’s Christian militias while that conflict was at its height. Touching down in Croatia during the Balkan wars, and in Congo during their perpetual one, as well as the Uganda of Idi Amin, Venter never lost his lust for action, even as he sometimes had to put down his camera or notebook to pick up an AK-47. In his journeys, Venter associated with an array of similarly daring soldiers and journalists, from “Mad Mike” Hoare to Danny Pearl, as well as elite soldiers from around the world, many of whom, he sadly relates, never emerged from the war zones they entered. A renowned journalist and documentarian who has worked with the BBC, PBS, Jane’s, and other outlets, Al Venter here offers the reader his own personal experiences with combat.
Download or read book Tank Battles of the Cold War 1948 1991 written by Anthony Tucker-Jones and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2021-06-30 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As Anthony Tucker-Jones shows in this highly illustrated, wide-ranging history, for most of the Cold War the tank retained its pre-eminence on the battlefield. The Arab-Israeli wars witnessed some of the biggest tank battles of all time, and tanks played key roles in conflicts in Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan as well as in the Iran-Iraq War and the wars fought between India and Pakistan. But then in the mid-1960s anti-tank weapons became ever deadlier and the Mechanised Infantry Fighting Vehicle (MIFV), which was designed to support infantry and fight tanks, emerged and the heyday of the tank was over. Chapters cover each major phase in the evolution of the tank and of tank warfare during the period, from the battles fought in the late 1940s and 1950s with Second World War armoured vehicles like the T-34 and the Sherman, through to the designs common in the 1960s and 1970s like the T-55, Centurion, Challenger and M60 Patton, to the confrontation between the M1 Abrams and the T-72 during the Gulf War in 1991. Technical and design developments are important elements throughout the story, but so are dramatic changes in tactics and armaments which mean the tank has an increasingly uncertain role in modern warfare.
Download or read book Angolan War of Liberation written by Al J. Venter and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2018-10-30 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When a large group of rebels invaded Angola from a recently independent Congo in 1961, it heralded the opening shots in another African war of independence. Between 1961 and 1974, Portugal faced the extremely ambitious task of conducting three simultaneous counterinsurgency campaigns to preserve its hegemony of Angola, Portuguese Guinea and Mozambique. While other European states were falling over themselves in granting independence to their African possessions, Portugal chose to stay and fight despite the odds against success.That it did so successfully for thirteen years in a distant multi-fronted war remains a remarkable achievement, particularly for a nation of such modest resources. For example, in Angola the Portuguese had a tiny air force of possibly a dozen transport planes, a squadron or two of F-86s and perhaps twenty helicopters: and that in a remote African country twice the size of Texas. Portugal proved that such a war can be won. In Angola victory was complete.However, the political leadership proved weak and irresolute, and this encouraged communist elements within the military to stage a coup in April 1974 and lead a capitulation to the insurgent movements, squandering the hard-won military and social gains and abandoning Portugals African citizens to generations of civil war and destitution.
Download or read book Corporate Warriors written by P. W. Singer and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-16 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some have claimed that "War is too important to be left to the generals," but P. W. Singer asks "What about the business executives?" Breaking out of the guns-for-hire mold of traditional mercenaries, corporations now sell skills and services that until recently only state militaries possessed. Their products range from trained commando teams to strategic advice from generals. This new "Privatized Military Industry" encompasses hundreds of companies, thousands of employees, and billions of dollars in revenue. Whether as proxies or suppliers, such firms have participated in wars in Africa, Asia, the Balkans, and Latin America. More recently, they have become a key element in U.S. military operations. Private corporations working for profit now sway the course of national and international conflict, but the consequences have been little explored. In this book, Singer provides the first account of the military services industry and its broader implications. Corporate Warriors includes a description of how the business works, as well as portraits of each of the basic types of companies: military providers that offer troops for tactical operations; military consultants that supply expert advice and training; and military support companies that sell logistics, intelligence, and engineering. In an updated edition of P. W. Singer's classic account of the military services industry and its broader implications, the author describes the continuing importance of that industry in the Iraq War. This conflict has amply borne out Singer's argument that the privatization of warfare allows startling new capabilities and efficiencies in the ways that war is carried out. At the same time, however, Singer finds that the introduction of the profit motive onto the battlefield raises troubling questions—for democracy, for ethics, for management, for human rights, and for national security.
Download or read book AF Press Clips written by and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book AF Press Clips written by United States Department of State. Bureau of African Affairs and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 636 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Portugal s Guerrilla Wars in Africa written by Al Venter and published by Helion and Company. This book was released on 2013-12-19 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nominated for the NYMAS Arthur Goodzeit Book Award 2013 Portugal's three wars in Africa in Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea (Guiné-Bissau today) lasted almost 13 years - longer than the United States Army fought in Vietnam. Yet they are among the most underreported conflicts of the modern era. Commonly referred to as Lisbon's Overseas War (Guerra do Ultramar) or in the former colonies, the War of Liberation (Guerra de Libertação), these struggles played a seminal role in ending white rule in Southern Africa. Though hardly on the scale of hostilities being fought in South East Asia, the casualty count by the time a military coup d'état took place in Lisbon in April 1974 was significant. It was certainly enough to cause Portugal to call a halt to violence and pull all its troops back to the Metropolis. Ultimately, Lisbon was to move out of Africa altogether, when hundreds of thousands of Portuguese nationals returned to Europe, the majority having left everything they owned behind. Independence for all th Indeed, on a recent visit to Central Mozambique in 2013, a youthful member of the American Peace Corps told this author that despite have former colonies, including the Atlantic islands, followed soon afterwards. Lisbon ruled its African territories for more than five centuries, not always undisputed by its black and mestizo subjects, but effectively enough to create a lasting Lusitanian tradition. That imprint is indelible and remains engraved in language, social mores and cultural traditions that sometimes have more in common with Europe than with Africa. Today, most of the newspapers in Luanda, Maputo - formerly Lourenco Marques - and Bissau are in Portuguese, as is the language taught in their schools and used by their respective representatives in international bodies to which they all subscribe. ing been embroiled in conflict with the Portuguese for many years in the 1960s and 1970s, he found the local people with whom he came into contact inordinately fond of their erstwhile 'colonial overlords'. As a foreign correspondent, Al Venter covered all three wars over more than a decade, spending lengthy periods in the territories while going on operations with the Portuguese army, marines and air force. In the process, he wrote several books on these conflicts, including a report on the conflict in Portuguese Guinea for the Munger Africana Library of the California Institute of Technology. Portugal's Guerrilla Wars in Africa represents an amalgam of these efforts. At the same time, this book is not an official history, but rather a journalist's perspective of military events as viewed by somebody who has made a career of reporting on overseas wars, Africa's especially. Venter's camera was always at hand; most of the images used between these covers are his. His approach is both intrusive and personal and he would like to believe that he has managed to record for posterity a tiny but vital segment of African history.
Download or read book Frontiersmen written by Anthony Clayton and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-01-04 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 1950, there has been almost continuous military unrest in Africa. This study offers an overview of warfare in this period, examining a military tradition that ranges from the highly sophisticated electronic, air and armour fighting between South Africa and Angola-Cuban forces, to the spears and machetes of the Rwandan genocide. The author explores two themes: first, that warfare in North Africa has principally been a matter of identity and secondly, that warfare south of the Sahara is comparable with that of pre-colonial Africa - conflicts of frontiersmen trying to extend their control over land and resources. Exploring liberation campaigns, civil wars, ethnic conflicts and wars between nations, this study provides an authoritative military history of Africa over half a century.
Download or read book Information Comment written by and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Far Away War written by Ian Liebenberg and published by AFRICAN SUN MeDIA. This book was released on 2016-01-31 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: South Africa's armed forces invaded Angola in 1975, setting off a war that had consequences for the whole region that are still felt today. A Far-Away War contributes to a wider understanding of this war in Angola and Namibia. The book does not only look at the war from an "e;old"e; South African (Defence Force) perspective, but also gives a voice to participants "e;on the other side"e; - emphasising the role of the Cubans and Russians. This focus is supplemented by the inclusion of many never-before-published photographs from Cuban and Russian archives, and a comprehensive bibliography.
Download or read book The Paras written by John P. Cann and published by . This book was released on 2017-02-22 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Portuguese paratroopers or “paras” began as a stepchild of the army and found a home in the Portuguese Air Force in 1955. Initially, the post-World War Two Portuguese Army seemed to have had mixed emotions about the need for elite, special-purpose forces that operated in small units with the attendant flexibility and elevated lethality. Shock troops have been traditionally controversial, and even the vaunted military theorist Baron Karl von Clausewitz saw little point in them. The history of the paras in the Portuguese Army is illustrative of this ambivalent view. Nevertheless, in a “war of the weak” in which insurgents avoid government strengths and exploit its vulnerabilities using agility, deception, and imagination, such small, crack government units are particularly well suited to counterinsurgency operations. This appreciation emerged with the threat of a new kind of war in Portuguese Africa, an insurgency, and the new and visionary Air Force well understood the potential of paras when combined with the mobility of the helicopter. The Air Force saw an urgent need for troops who could fight an unconventional war, who could not only defeat an enemy but separate him from the population in which he sought concealment and support and on which he depended for funding, recruits, and intelligence. These were specialised warfighters who in one minute were physically destroying an insidious enemy and in the next administering aid and support and protecting a vulnerable population. These were just the troops that Portugal would require for military success in its approaching battle fought between 1961 and 1974 to retain its African possessions, and this vision would be realized on the African battlefield with devastating consequences. This book tells the paras’ story as researched from Portuguese sources. It details how they were formed and trained and how they developed their imaginative, effective, and feared tactics and applied them in operations to protect the population from insurgent predations and destroy a vicious enemy.
