Posted on 08/06/2003 9:12:04 AM PDT by Oorang
Oh yes, and it's not at all limited to the locale or tribal cultures around Liberia.
During the Rhodesian counterinsurgency of the late 1970s, a pal of mine located there to pursue his occupation as a highway paver, a critical occupation when a large part of that fight was the mining of public roads to harass and terrorize the civilian forces and destroy the occasional military vehicle as well. One tale he related from that period is certainly germaine.
It seems two border-crossing terrorists had successfully pulled off their infiltration from Zambia, bringing along with them a Soviet TM-46 antitank mine. While inserting the fuse and arming the device, they noted that the slaked TNT filler inside was a crumbly dull yellow clumped powder, and decided to enhance the magic of the device by doubling its charge by surrounding the mine in the hole they'd dug for it with mealie meal, approximately the corn meal staple of the African diet in those parts. Trouble was, the ground was wet, making the meal swell up in a mound that betrayed the location of their little surprise. No problem.
They began tamping it down, stomping it back down flat, until in the best traditions of roadrunner foe Wiley Coyote, one of them jumped down directly atop the detonator, originally designed to go only beneath the weight of a heavy armoured vehicle, but which had been field modified to fire from the lesser weight of a civilian halfton farm pickup or passenger car. In any event, the combined weight and enthusiusm was enough.
The guy's stunnned partner was captured still alive and explained the African logic behind the event to the bemused troopies who took charge of him. Kids, don't try this at home with your antitank land mines....
Oh yes, and it's not at all limited to the locale or tribal cultures around Liberia.
During the Rhodesian counterinsurgency of the late 1970s, a pal of mine located there to pursue his occupation as a highway paver, a critical occupation when a large part of that fight was the mining of public roads to harass and terrorize the civilian forces and destroy the occasional military vehicle as well. One tale he related from that period is certainly germaine.
It seems two border-crossing terrorists had successfully pulled off their infiltration from Zambia, bringing along with them a Soviet TM-46 antitank mine. While inserting the fuse and arming the device, they noted that the slaked TNT filler inside was a crumbly dull yellow clumped powder, and decided to enhance the magic of the device by doubling its charge by surrounding the mine in the hole they'd dug for it with mealie meal, approximately the corn meal staple of the African diet in those parts. Trouble was, the ground was wet, making the meal swell up in a mound that betrayed the location of their little surprise. No problem.
They began tamping it down, stomping it back down flat, until in the best traditions of roadrunner foe Wiley Coyote, one of them jumped down directly atop the detonator, originally designed to go only beneath the weight of a heavy armoured vehicle, but which had been field modified to fire from the lesser weight of a civilian halfton farm pickup or passenger car. In any event, the combined weight and enthusiusm was enough.
The guy's stunnned partner was captured still alive and explained the African logic behind the event to the bemused troopies who took charge of him. Kids, don't try this at home with your antitank land mines....
Another point that reporters always miss is that African warfare is very different than Western warfare. In the West, we fight with the single purpose of destroying an enemy's ability to resist. In African warfare, combat is not traditionally conducted in a direct encounter with enemy forces. Traditional African warfare was geared towards capturing slaves, not killing people (which explains the failure of the musket to catch on in western Africa, even though Arab and European slavers were always ready to exchange guns for human cargo). Rather, in its modern incarnation, it is a hodge-podge of guerilla tactics, tribal vendettas and psychological bluff. Combat deaths are low, as most killing is done against defenseless civilians from rival tribes, as enslaving them is no longer an option.
Believe me: add in the assortment of Kalishnikovs, leftover WWII burp guns, RPGs and PK light machineguns, and they are indeed quite dangerous, and unstable. And neither are their traditional weapons to be overlooked, either, as they'll happily use them on unarmed or wounded victims.
Kewl Story Archy ......Thanks and Stay Safe !
Sun Tzu's Newswire Press Release - 9753
Monday, August 18, 1997, 6:45 pm U.S. Eastern Time
Out of Africa: Butt Naked Battalion
---- by Sun Tzu's Newswire Staff
An Associated Press story by Tina Susman contributed to this piece
In Monrovia, Liberia, Joshua Milton Blahyi was General Butt Naked
during Liberia's civil war that claimed up to 200,000 lives before
the warring factions signed a peace accord.
Blahyi was hired by warlord Roosevelt Johnson. His group of drugged
and drunken teenagers entered battle in drag wearing wigs, flowered
dresses, and carrying purses.
General Butt Naked, as Blahyi has been named in press dispatches out
of Monrovia, wore only his shoes as he led his Butt Naked Battalion
into battle.
Blahyi claimed a pact with the devil at age 11 consummated a satanic
ritual. He said he was required to perform human sacrifices and go
into battle naked to ensure his safety on the battlefield.
Many of Blahyi's sacrifices were small children, some taken underwater
as they played and others simply butchered.
In 1996 Blahyi claims that God told him that he was a slave to Satan
and from that Blahyi asserts that his conversion to an evangelical
religion began.
Blahyi is now an evangelical preacher in Monrovia.
Sources: AP, Aug. 4, 1997, Tina Susman, Sun Tzu Organization files
Well, there is a comparison to be made, but it's better compared under the heading of morale enhancement rather than a comparison of varying equipment.
The flag the Marines planted at Iwo Jima offered no practical shelter or protection from Japanese fire, but it was certainly a welcome sight, and the raising of it was more than just a symbolic act that deservedly endures today. That the totems and images Africans prefer tend to be more individual and personalized than the national flag WWII American Marines preferred may simply reflect a difference in cultural or tribal preference. The motivation as a morale enhancer is similar, however.
What is frightening in this article is that there are so many people who believe this kind of stuff. Not just in Africa but in many places. Look at all the people that believed Clinton. Rational, independent thought is a good thing. Unfortunately it is all too rare.
You happen to catch the name of the Nigerian general heading the advance team sent by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to assess the situation in Monrovia? I swear, a fiction writer couldn't come up with details as bizarre as those to be found in the Liberian mess.
The Liberian LURDs have more and better support weaponry; the San Franciscans more and better vehicles. The capabilities of the leadership of either group is questionable.
Akin to the Scottish practice of flashing the enemy before a battle?
Possibly, though I believe Shaka's Zulus resorted to something similar while in ranks.
But I also recall an event from the U.S. Civil War/ War for Northern Dominance of undersupplied troops wearing dresses, skirts and fancy women's hats taken from the shops of a small town they had raided. Probably no wigs, however, and I doubt they were under any misapprehensions about their stylish outfits causing bullets to swerve.
-archy-/-
Either a Sudarev-designed PPS-43 or possibly the earlier PPS-42 version. As for its provenance, most any sort of weapon is liable to turn up most anywhere in Africa; the place is a collector's dream and an armourers and logistician's nightmare.
But the things also turned up in Rhodesia during the 1970s, and I believe were also used and possibly produced by the North Koreans for their airborne forces before being replaced with Kalishnikovs, making the surplus Sudarevs available as military aid to *National Liberation* movements- or paying customers with the right cash.
True, but the Marines on Iwo didn't delude themselves into the belief that raising a flag would offer anything other than a morale effect- which it did, amongst other things.
Believing that wearing a dress and a feather boa will deflect a bullet, and seeing that it doesn't, and continuing to act as if it does, is a simple inability to grasp the logic of cause and effect.
We tend to do things because they work. We discard them if they don't, and try something else until we find something that does work.
I guess I am seeing this more as an issue of practical soldiering, rather than than a study in belief systems.
Hey, I hope they keep on believing this stuff. We may have to fight them someday.
My 'in your face' tone was meant for the author, not yourself or any other poster on this forum, and was an expression of frustration with newsies. I try to keep my disagreements with others on a civil plane, and focused on the idea and not the poster. No offense was intended.
(1) M-16s require much more maintenance than a Kalashnikov or its Soviet-era ilk. Your average African militiaman is simply too poorly educated, untrained and unfamiliar with mechanical devices to really maintain anything complicated.
(2) The primary weapons dealers in Africa are either Chinese, Ukranian or Serbian. Their wares are almost exclusively former Soviet weapons, or their modern counterparts.
(3) Africa is awash in Kalashnikov ammo. It makes military and business sense to keep your men supplied with stuff that can easily be repleneshed locally.
As a combat vet, this is why I thought Apocalypse Now despite all it's sureality, was one of the most realistic war movies ever made. It captured the unbelievable, upside down insanity of war.
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