In November 1979 Zimbabwe Rhodesia faced overwhelming odds in a life or death struggle against two communist sponsored guerrilla armies. After a knock out blow in October 1978 against ZIPRA conventional army plans to invade Rhodesia with soviet and Cuban backing in November 1978 with three raids against ZIPRA training bases inside Zambia (Operation Gatling), by September 1979 ZIPRA once again posed a real and present danger as its conventional army capacity was restored . The Lancaster House talks had commenced and Nkomo realised that if a ceasefire was called 80% of his forces were outside Zimbabwe Rhodesia whereas 85% of Mugabe ZANLA forces had flooded into the country infiltrating around 60- 70% of the country. ZIPRA had suffered further setbacks earlier in the year after the Air Force and SAS had severely damaged ZIPRA massive arms cache at their main base near Lusaka and repeated bombings of their Mulungushi camp. Intel arrived that ZIPRA had mobilised its conventional forces of around 25,000 to push across the Zambezi with motorised infantry battalions under the umbrella of their Cuban piloted MiG fighters. A sudden increase of air transport between Angola and within Zambia with armoured carriers and artillery was detected. Soviet supplied battle tanks and ground to air missile hardware was being deployed. An invasion by ZIPRA was about to occur. Reacting to this real and present threat, COMOPS scrapped plans for continued attacks against ZANLA and focused its full attention against ZIPRA. Operation Dice (which turned out to be the last major operation of the war) was hurriedly planned and activated using the whole SAS Regiment, RLI and Selous Scouts and the Air Force. The initial plan was to disrupt the troop movements southward of ZIPRA to prevent them crossing the border en masse. The only way to achieve this was to cut the road and rail bridges in Southern Zambia to prevent ZIPRA bringing the heavy armour and troop carriers South. The SAS entered Zambia and started blowing up bridges and mining roads. Contacts with both ZIPRA and Zambian Army units occurred daily. The Air Force strikes against ZIPRA camps wrought havoc especially against the large CGT-2 terror training camp. Within a few days Zambian links to Malawi, Tanzania, Mozambique and Zimbabwe Rhodesia were severed. Political uproar against these attacks was intense and before the full conclusion to Operation Dice it was called off as a cease fire arrangement neared finalisation. What was the cost of the Operation to blunt the invasion of Zimbabwe Rhodesia by ZIPRA? COMOPS believed it was imperative to stop ZIPRA. While Operation Dice was underway, ZANLA continued to pour thousands of terrorists into the country - between 12,000 and 15,000 ZANLA entered the country during the Lancaster House talks to boost the tens of thousands they already had inside Zimbabwe Rhodesia. Did this make Mugabes eventual win inevitable or was that ordained in any event? Retribution novel - go to retributionbook
Posted on: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 07:59:16 +0000
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