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TurretHead
Post subject: Re: Rhodesia 1991Posted: September 21st, 2010, 5:48 am
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klagldsf wrote:
You know, a thought did occur to me suddenly, since I'm (perhaps unsurprisingly) reminded of South Africa - they were low on strike craft so whatever they had was previous (and upgraded endlessly) but also concentrated on long-range, precision strike artillery (enter Gerard Bull). That seems to be the idea of your gunboat but I'm sure the Rhodesians would've developed it even further.
I don’t know about the SAN being low on Strike Craft. They were building them through the 1980s and I don’t think they underwent any kind of upgrade program. It was frigates and submarines they had a problem with.


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klagldsf
Post subject: Re: Rhodesia 1991Posted: September 21st, 2010, 3:35 pm
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Oh, when I said strike craft I meant fighter aircraft like the Mirage/Cheetah. Yeah I probably should've clarified that.


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TurretHead
Post subject: Re: Rhodesia 1991Posted: September 21st, 2010, 11:15 pm
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klagldsf wrote:
Oh, when I said strike craft I meant fighter aircraft like the Mirage/Cheetah. Yeah I probably should've clarified that.
LOL, OK. In South Africa "strike craft" means a missile armed "fast attack craft" which is what I assume FAC stands for.

But the acquisition of the GC45 155mm artillery for the South African Army was very much an army issue after the 75 war in Angola. The SAAF unlike the RhAF was never in shortage of air worthy ground attack aircraft thanks to their domestic aircraft industry and large foreign supplies up until the mid 1970s. The last delivery was of 48 brand new Miragae F1s in 75-76. From then Atlas started to rebuild Mirage IIIs to Cheetah standard. The reason the South Africans started their own new strike fighter project (Cava) was their concern for qualitative issues as the Soviets were introducing MiG-23s and MiG-29s into the region and of course long term airworthiness. For close air support South Africa was also building the Impala attack aircraft.

In my AU the gunship version of the strike craft (FAC) is very much to support coastal raiding activities by the RhN. The target zone being the Tanzanian coast (including Dar and Zanzibar) to disrupt terrorist activities. The need for a gunship is to provide sustained artillery support to suppress enemy foot soldiers in these operations. Attack aircraft are great at destroying targets but they can’t provide the sustained fires needed to keep the bad guys heads down so the good guys can get in and out.


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TheMannX
Post subject: Re: Rhodesia 1991Posted: September 22nd, 2010, 3:05 am
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TurretHead wrote:
Thanks. But please note that what I’ve written in this thread to date is a very small snap shot of what I’ve done for this scenario. There is a lot more and when I have more time and am less sick I hope to present it all in various Shipbucket formats. But I will try and address each of your points and provide a bit more background as well.
Excellent. I was half fearing that you would consider my comments and not like them, which I was trying to avoid. I frequent a few AH sites and Southern Africa is one of my specialities, owing to my father, who was born in Salisbury and spent the first eighteen years of his life living on a large farm near Bulawayo. ;)
TurretHead wrote:
RENAMO was established by the Rhodesian CIO in the late 70s after Rhodesian forces realized how unpopular the FRELIMO regime was in Mozambique. After the fall of Zimbabw-Rhodesia under the Lancaster House agreement support of RENAMO was transferred with Rhodesian expats to South Africa. In my scenario RENAMO (then called MNR) was established during the ‘go it alone’ period by Rhodesia after South Africa closed its borders in a failed – and misguided – attempt to enforce détente on Rhodesia. In this period 1978-80 the counter insurgency battle in Rhodesia is totally different to that in the real world due to the success of sensor fuzed minefield CORSAN surrounding Rhodesia’s borders. So Rhodesia is putting a lot more effort into external operations and has little or no need to be politically and economically restrained by western, Soviet and Afro-Asian bloc world opinion. So the combination of RENAMO auxiliaries and Rhodesian forces sees them roll back FRELIMO control across most of Mozambique from their Maputo heartland.
Again,k you have done your homework, but you have two crucial problems - Rhodesia's civilian economy and RENAMO's support among the people of Mozambique.

RENAMO never had a lot of support among the people of Mozambique, largely because they never accomplished much aside from killing people, and it was well known that Pretoria and Salisbury were behind the organization. Without dramatically changing their tactics and somehow reducing the support FRELIMO had, RENAMO would have virtually no chance of taking over Mozambique.

The problem of the high costs of their wars would be reduced by the government having a much bigger indigenous arms industry, but the costs of mobilizing virtually every white male in Rhodesia, which was the case by 1975. Even if you manage to stop the problems raised by ZANLA and ZIPRA (which will still have very wide support among Rhodesia's black population, which was 96% of the population in 1978), these external operations will still cost a very large amount of money. Rhodesia's economy was being strangled by the sanctions, even with the South Africans allowing goods from Rhodesia to go to the ports at Durban and Port Elizabeth. What killed Rhodesia's economy, just as ultimately did in South Africa as well, was the problems selling its civilian products. Rhodesia, because of the sanctions, was forced to sell its products at a discount and purchase at a premium, and between the Labour Governments' hatred of the Rhodesians and Thatcher and the US State Department convincing Reagan that Rhodesia / Mozambique / South Africa was not a front against communism and that strangling Rhodesia was beneficial to those involved, Rhodesia had very few allies and even fewer customers. With substantially growing Rhodesia's economy, they could not handle the costs of the Bush War.
TurretHead wrote:
The Soviets and Tanzania do try and respond to prop up ZANLA and FRELIMO in Mozambique leading to the big battles in 1983. But this is very different to Angola where Cuban troops had been flooded into the country since 1975 to prop up the MPLA regime. There is no direct air link from Cuba to Mozambique and Cuba is already overstretched in Angola. So the same kind of reinforcement is not possible. Also the geographic nature of Mozambique is very different to Angola and holding Maputo is not the key to the rest of Mozambique. Maputo is the key to Joh-Berg and the South African high veld but that’s another issue.
Cuba's forces in Angola were supplied and paid for by the Soviets, who liked the fact that they could make a lot of trouble for the South Africans for very little cost. These haven't changed in Mozambique or Rhodesia, and Cuba's armed forces still had lots of troops, and was mostly using equipment that old Red Army stuff, which they practically gave away. Cuba was overstretched in Angola, but with the Soviets being willing to help them as much as they were willing to, they could commit more forces to the region, and they would almost certainly gain plenty of international approval for helping Mozambique against what would widely seen as stooges of Salisbury and Pretoria.
TurretHead wrote:
The Rhodesian air force is a very different beast in my scenario thanks to a domestic aircraft industry. Started in 1960 building what in our world was called the Malmö Flygindustri MFI-9 Junior it develops over the next 30 years into a company to rival IAI and one of the best aircraft companies outside of Europe and North America. Also without the RRhAF aircraft sell of at the end of the federal government era and additional aircraft acqusitions they have a total of 40 Canberras (including 24 B-57Bs) and 48 Hunters at UDI. Both of which are rebuilt during the 1970s to provide better capability and zero hour airframes.
But where would the customers come for this? Rhodesia was not strong enough economically to support a major aircraft industry. And where would they get the upgrades from to provide major upgrades in the 1970s? The country simply hasn't got the money or technological skills base to do these. In conjunction with Atlas in South Africa and/or IAI in Israel you could do this, but on their own the cost of it was way too high.
TurretHead wrote:
The details of the strike on the Soviet carrier battle group I’ll keep to myself for now (for dramatic effect) but the Soviets reliance on SAMs leaves them open to a coordinated strike package using precision guided weapons.
Where would the Rhodesians get precision weapons from? The Israelis? Washington would go apeshit if Tel Aviv sold missiles to the Rhodesians and they used them to attack a Soviet CBG. The Russians always saw Pretoria and Salisbury as Western stooges, and a major strike on a Soviet Navy CBG could well cause WWIII, or at least cause the Soviets to strike back against the Rhodesians a whole lot harder than a bunch of missiles on industrial facilities, and Tanzania and Zambia would in this case probably be happy to host Red Army units to attack Rhodesia, just to keep Salisbury and Pretoria from screwing with them like they here are doing to Angola and Mozambique.
TurretHead wrote:
The whole concept of the scenario is that Rhodesia’s war economy is completely turned around by having a domestic defence industry before UDI. Domestic production of armoured cars, small arms, aircraft and ammunition means that the huge expenditure on acquiring like externally through an international embargo is just not needed. All that money that Rhodesia had to spend outside Rhodesia in the real world can be spent inside Rhodesia on much cheaper domestic weapons resulting in more tax base and reinvestment in the country. External acquisitions can be focused on production investment like new tooling and engineering equipment to generate more income inside Rhodesia rather than to be wasted (in economic terms) on non production weaponry.
That would certainly do much to help the economy, but it wouldn't stop the problems. Rhodesia's white population was too small for the size of the economy and munitions industries you have in mind, and without substantially growing the number of whites or bringing several hundred thousand blacks into the major economy, Rhodesia's economy is too small, the costs being much for these big external operations, much bigger air and ground forces and a smallish but still undoubtedly expensive Navy.
TurretHead wrote:
As to the recognition of Rhodesian independence on Rhodesian terms by the UK in 1991 this comes about for a range of important reasons. For one the South African Government is not crumbling, if anything it is much stronger, especially as Rhodesia has installed a friendly government in Mozambique and joint efforts in Angola result in the fall of MPLA and Cuban forces in 1989.
If the Rhodesians and SADF have installed UNITA in command in Angola and have caused problems in Zambia and Tanzania, you better believe that the British would have more than distaste for them. South Africa would probably have formally annexed South West Africa. You'd have PaxPretoriana in this case, which is not good news for black populations across Southern Africa.
TurretHead wrote:
Hopefully the South African government is winding back the racist policies of Apartheid and restoring the Cape qualified franchise system to South Africa as in Rhodesia to provide for a non racial political system that recognises the immense economic and social disparity within these mixed countries of Southern Africa that promotes gradual political enfranchisement in keeping with gradual economic and social evolution so as to avoid the terrible malaise that has inflicted itself upon the rest of decolonised Africa. While there is a lot of cultural and political isolation of South Africa and Rhodesia in the western world in the late 1980s there is equally a lot more economic integration (as with South Africa in the real world).
With their economies being much bigger and more stable and no more external threats, the chances of apartheid being narrowed down are close to zero. The more likely scenario is that you'd have the South Africa doing more of the homelands style black republics, and this scenario would for all intents and purposes make apartheid permanent. The South Africans began narrowing apartheid in the early 1970s, only to have that come to a screeching halt due to the war in Angola and the Soweto Riots. The Afrikaners who dominate the government in Pretoria would never let that happen again, and they got astoundingly paranoid in the 1980s. The ultimate result in this case is that apartheid lasts for a couple decades more, with the Russians probably quite happily in this case providing lots and lots more guns to the ANC, MPLA, ZIPRA and plenty of other black opposition groups, and both Washington and Whitehall seeing the fact that Pretoria and Salisbury can spite them as a big, big insult. Apartheid would probably last another decade, but when it finally cracks, it won't end as nicely as it did in our world. It would almost certainly end with a race war. Rhodesia might move towards greater rights for blacks, but that would be a very slow process, if it was progressing at all. UDI came about out of a demand to never give up Rhodesia to the blacks, why in this case would they give up much, if anything, of their own wealth and influence?
TurretHead wrote:
But the UK the reason to recognise Rhodesian independence is based a lot more on real politic rather than wishful thinking and concern for the interests of the African one party regimes in the Commonwealth. That is Rhodesian support for the IRA that has seen the British Army driven from South Armagh and a massive wave of Irish bombing in Great Britain. Rhodesia without an insurgency war to fight in the 1980s has a lot of surplus military power to expend chasing down its enemies in Tanzania, central Africa and Libya. The Rhodesian Navy and their increasing control over the western Indian Ocean is a symptom of this. After 25 years of failed policies to destroy Rhodesia since UDI and facing direct threats from the Rhodesians its time for the UK to cut their losses. Legal status for Rhodesia won’t change things too much, as there is no way the corrupt regimes of the UN would allow their membership but it does go a long towards normalising life in southern Africa.
OK, you jumped the shark big time here. Rhodesian support for the IRA would make the idea of realpolitik a thing of the past, and if the IRA was bombing targets with greater capability because of Rhodesian actions, in Thatcher's mind that would probably be a causus belli right there, especially as they tried to kill Thatcher more than once. Whitehall would in this scenario NEVER support Rhodesia, and would probably more likely in this case support MI6 actions to try and cause problems for Salisbury. Part of the reason Britain allowed the US to use British bases for attacking Libya in 1986 with F-111s was because Gaddafi was giving arms to the IRA. In this case, Tanzania, Zambia, Kenya, Madagascar and others would probably find themselves getting substantial amounts of aid from Whitehall, and probably Washington as well. As for direct threats, The British COULD attack Rhodesia, using either the Royal Navy's submarines and/or aircraft carriers to annihilate the Rhodesian Navy, and probably Royal Air Force Avro Vulcan bombers to bomb Rhodesia itself, as they did to the Argentines in 1982. Rhodesia is considerably closer to the UK than the Falklands are. Britain would in this case probably beef up its forces substantially as well, which means the prospect of them buying stuff like B-1 bombers from the Americans for the sole purpose of getting the people who effectively declared war on them is real.


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TurretHead
Post subject: Re: Rhodesia 1991Posted: September 22nd, 2010, 12:39 pm
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TheMannX wrote:
Excellent. I was half fearing that you would consider my comments and not like them, which I was trying to avoid.
Well I try and be polite even if I disagree strongly or am insulted. I do like feedback because it means my writing and drawing is being appreciated. I am very much working on AU from a highly informed historical perspective using economic theory and engineering. I try and make my AU as realistic as possible as well as achieving my motivation of exploring interesting engineering.

I note that most of you comments seem based around an assumption that my AU Rhodesia is the real world Rhodesia. It is a very different place. Same taste but more meat and the pie is twice as big. By this I mean that the alternate events from the late 40s through to UDI (’65) means that by 1970 Rhodesia has an economy twice as large as in the real world. The GDP, national infrastructure, financial resources and non peasant population (ie rural Africans living in a traditional economy) is larger than Israel.

Now I have only alluded to that in my introduction article about the history of the RhN. It is still a work in progress. I also think you may not have read what I’ve written to date very closely. I hope to by the end of the year have something presentable similar to Ian’s excellent North Point wiki worlds web page.

Now a few more points:

The RENAMO you detail was that of 1990s after a 10 year civil war run by South Africa. In my scenario none of that happens. The course of the Mozambique civil war is very different and RENAMO are able to appeal to the strong anti Communist and anti southerner feeling across most of Mozambique to achieve at least acceptance from the civilian population outside of Maputo.

Rhodesia’s economy suffered mixed results under the UDI and embargo. Like South Africa the mining economy suffered not one iota because that was too important to the west’s resources supply. It was in export of manufactured goods and cash crops that Rhodesia would and did suffer. For manufactured goods in the real world and my scenario the loss of export markets is more than compensated by the increase in demand for security and defence products. The real damage to Rhodesian industry came from sabotage by terrorists and ‘white flight’. Nether are as major effects in my scenario. Commercial farming lost many markets for cash crops which resulted in refocus on food production. This resulted in a huge loss of markets for traditional African farmers and the cutting of most of their cash flow from their surplus mealies and beef. At least for the long suffering tribal Africans in my scenario they would not be forced into protected villages or be ‘convinced’ to give up western agricultural science by the terrorists (tick baths, contour farming). So they won’t starve.

Finally on the issue of Rhodesia’s independence from the UK. Rhodesian support for the IRA is of course covert but because they can supply high value training and equipment, like counter electronic surveillance, working MANPADS and COMINT is far more influential than Libyan AKs and Plastique. The British will obviously know something is afoot but what can they do? I note that despite finding Libyan fingerprints all over IRA supplies the UK launched no attacks on Libya. They were already doing as much covert and overt they could to bring down the legal and legitimate government of Rhodesia. The British could always have physically attacked Rhodesia. Zambia and Tanzania were more than willing to be bases for British forces and even insisted on it.

It is only when Britain actually has something more serious to lose than face over Rhodesia that they would be willing to compromise. The Irish angle is also the one big kink in the relationship with America. The USA went along with Britain over Rhodesia because they cut a deal over the Vietnam War. Under Carter obviously the USA has its own reasons to be anti Rhodesian. But this is part of the ‘going it alone’ period when South Africa was trying to isolate Rhodesia so is frankly minor compared to closer problems. From 81 however there is Reagan and the relationship is much better. Especially as Rhodesia is enthusiastically trying to roll back the Soviet Union across Africa.

So the ground is laid for a new deal in late 91 as most of the African left leaning regimes are collapsing without Soviet aide (in the real world) and in the ‘new world order’ wake of Desert Storm. Rhodesia is still under the 61 constitution but half of the parliament is African and with a few ministers in the coalition government. So is a lot more palatable. It is also an African military super power and thanks to Operation Churchtower armed with nuclear weapons…

The UK only recongised American independence when they had too much to lose. The same would apply for Rhodesia.


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rifleman
Post subject: Re: Rhodesia 1991Posted: September 27th, 2010, 9:47 am
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did this one a while ago to patrol of the East African coast

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Last edited by rifleman on October 5th, 2010, 6:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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TimothyC
Post subject: Re: Rhodesia 1991Posted: September 27th, 2010, 1:55 pm
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The Propeller and shaft need work, and you lack sufficient electronics to take full advantage of the SM-2s. You need a 3-D radar and at least one Fire Control set.

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rifleman
Post subject: Re: Rhodesia 1991Posted: September 30th, 2010, 9:58 am
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If you check the missiles AU part sheet you'll find it isn't Standard its Thales TMS 11 & 22 and the SSM is Thales TMS01

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Thiel
Post subject: Re: Rhodesia 1991Posted: October 1st, 2010, 10:19 am
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Both your Goalkeepers are poking into areas that are best described as very important.
The aft one blocks the hangar and the front one takes up space on the bridge and it'll blast your electronics to kingdom come if the target is coming in from the front.

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TurretHead
Post subject: Re: Rhodesia 1991Posted: October 1st, 2010, 10:20 am
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Perhaps these last four posts can go into Personal Designs? They don't have anything to do with my AU.


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