The politics of Rhodesia remain controversial to this day, as they gave Rhodesia a disadvantage despite tactical superiority. While Rhodesia eventually dissolved and left white Rhodesians scattered throughout the English-speaking world, feeling exiled, the tactical lessons from such units as the Rhodesian African Rifles, the Rhodesian Light Infantry, and the Selous Scouts remain relevant well into the 21st Century.
Much of what the Rhodesian military did to combat insugency was influenced by Portuguese methods in their colonies of Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and Angola. Where Portugal failed due to a reliance on more convential equipment and strategy, Rhodesia was able to succeed. In addition, the Rhodesians modeled much of their doctrine and structure off of the British Army, a natural approach considering many Rhodesians had served under the British crown and had special experience fighting insurgency in Malaysia. Finally, the South African Border War in Namibia and Angola also led to shared strategies against a similar enemy.
Indeed, much of what Rhodesia did is considered ruthless in a modern context, and can hardly be adapted by NATO troops in Afghanistan--essentially the use of guerilla tactics without regard to many often-precarious intricacies of the international laws of war. Nonetheless, many details of Rhodesian tactics are especially noteworthy, and one of the most important lessons to learn from the Rhodesian Bush War is the importance of tracking in combat operations.
Rhodesia itself was named after Cecil Rhodes, a British businessman who founded the African territory that was later named for him. Rhodes was also the founder of De Beers diamond company, and the well known Rhodes Scolarship. Rhodes was integral to the British establishment of commercial and political dominance in central and southern Africa, and to some is considered the equivalent of George Washington to white Africans who lived--and still live--in Africa. For many black Africans, his name is much more malignant. One of Rhodesia's most elite military units, the Selous Scouts, was also named for a famous Briton who lived in Africa--Frederick Selous, an explorer with political clout on line with Theodore Roosevelt and Cecil Rhodes himself.
The Selous Scouts were one of many special warfare units established as a response to increasing rural, low-intensity conflict. In addition, they were established under constraint of low budgets and scarce materiel, in stark contrast to the well supplied and thoroughly funded special operations forces of the modern American, British, and other militaries of today. The Rhodesians proved that they could operate effectively in these conditions, in many ways having less manpower and similar resources to the insurgents that launched cross border raids from outside Rhodesia.
The tracking itself featured many remarkable traits. Rhodesian trackers, unlike those they tracked, wore shorts and tennis shoes--a uniform that seems hardly practical for combat in the African jungle. However, this gave them two distinct advantages. The first advantage was that they were not as easy to track as their enemy was, as tennis shoes, being lighter and having less intense tread, left a far more vague mark on the ground, and thus were less visable to enemy trackers. The shorts, meanwhile, instilled a habit of avoiding close contact with vegetation that could cause scrapes, rashes, and would otherwise produce noise and signs of movement. By avoiding vegetation, these trackers were also more difficult to follow as they did not leave the more recognizable trails that combatants wearing pants would leave as they trudged less cautiously through the countryside.
The Selous Scouts, being the primary group of trackers, also followed two effective patterns of organization. One was a nearly four to one ratio of native black scouts to whites, allowing for more local insight into their tracking and movement. Many of these black scouts were supporters of the majority white Rhodesian government; others were captured insurgents who had been turned, whether against black nationalism or against the Marxist ideology that was propogated by Soviet and Chinese backers of ZANLA and ZIPRA, respectively. The second organizational pattern was the use of three teams for a single tracking operation--one as the primary trackers, moving less swiftly and using a more thorough method of investigation; another as an advance party, moving ahead on the trail less focused on following each and every sign of movement and more focused on establishing visual contact with the insurgents they tracked; and a third as a rear party that would move backwards on their own trail, hoping to encounter and disrupt any insurgent force that doubled back hoping to ambush the trackers. Each of these teams usually consisted of four highly experienced men.
The Selous Scouts underwent intensive training, much of it, admitted their primary organizer, Major Reid-Daly, in a prison camp type environment meant to push soldiers to their mental and physical limits and thus force them to find deep self-sufficiency and endurance. This is an approach that is still central to training such units as the US Army Rangers and the British Royal Marines--week after week of hell that tests how far one can go without comfort and recovery. A very low percentage of volunteers finally made it into the ranks of the Selous Scouts.
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| Rhodesia, 1975. (Wikimedia Commons) |
Ranging from the 1960s all the way to 1980, the Rhodesian Bush War was a tumultuous period of African history that marked one of the last transitions of white, colonial Africa into the modern group of majority ruled states today. By 1980, the British Empire had relinquished its grip on its colonies, handing the governments over to the native and historic populations. Rhodesia was an anomaly, however, as it followed a path that echoes the history of both American and Israeli statehood. While the British government insisted that Rhodesia make a constitutional handover of power to native blacks, the white ruling minority there declared independence from British rule and attempted to establish itself as a permanent state in southern Africa. While the thirteen colonies fought the British, and while British Palestine saw a violent but rapid transformation into the state of Israel, Rhodesia found itself under much harsh international criticism and in addition fought a long and lonely war against Marxist insurgent organizations such as ZIPRA and ZANLA, the latter of which would eventually establish the state of Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe.
Much of what the Rhodesian military did to combat insugency was influenced by Portuguese methods in their colonies of Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and Angola. Where Portugal failed due to a reliance on more convential equipment and strategy, Rhodesia was able to succeed. In addition, the Rhodesians modeled much of their doctrine and structure off of the British Army, a natural approach considering many Rhodesians had served under the British crown and had special experience fighting insurgency in Malaysia. Finally, the South African Border War in Namibia and Angola also led to shared strategies against a similar enemy.
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| A Rhodesian passenger airliner--many of which were attacked by deadly insurgent surface to air weapons in the 1970s. (Wikimedia Commons) |
Rhodesia itself was named after Cecil Rhodes, a British businessman who founded the African territory that was later named for him. Rhodes was also the founder of De Beers diamond company, and the well known Rhodes Scolarship. Rhodes was integral to the British establishment of commercial and political dominance in central and southern Africa, and to some is considered the equivalent of George Washington to white Africans who lived--and still live--in Africa. For many black Africans, his name is much more malignant. One of Rhodesia's most elite military units, the Selous Scouts, was also named for a famous Briton who lived in Africa--Frederick Selous, an explorer with political clout on line with Theodore Roosevelt and Cecil Rhodes himself.
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| The Rhodes Colossus, an editorial cartoon satirizing British ambitions from Cairo to Capetown. (Wikimedia Commons) |
The tracking itself featured many remarkable traits. Rhodesian trackers, unlike those they tracked, wore shorts and tennis shoes--a uniform that seems hardly practical for combat in the African jungle. However, this gave them two distinct advantages. The first advantage was that they were not as easy to track as their enemy was, as tennis shoes, being lighter and having less intense tread, left a far more vague mark on the ground, and thus were less visable to enemy trackers. The shorts, meanwhile, instilled a habit of avoiding close contact with vegetation that could cause scrapes, rashes, and would otherwise produce noise and signs of movement. By avoiding vegetation, these trackers were also more difficult to follow as they did not leave the more recognizable trails that combatants wearing pants would leave as they trudged less cautiously through the countryside.
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| Rhodesian trackers in training. (military.com) |
The Selous Scouts, being the primary group of trackers, also followed two effective patterns of organization. One was a nearly four to one ratio of native black scouts to whites, allowing for more local insight into their tracking and movement. Many of these black scouts were supporters of the majority white Rhodesian government; others were captured insurgents who had been turned, whether against black nationalism or against the Marxist ideology that was propogated by Soviet and Chinese backers of ZANLA and ZIPRA, respectively. The second organizational pattern was the use of three teams for a single tracking operation--one as the primary trackers, moving less swiftly and using a more thorough method of investigation; another as an advance party, moving ahead on the trail less focused on following each and every sign of movement and more focused on establishing visual contact with the insurgents they tracked; and a third as a rear party that would move backwards on their own trail, hoping to encounter and disrupt any insurgent force that doubled back hoping to ambush the trackers. Each of these teams usually consisted of four highly experienced men.
The Selous Scouts underwent intensive training, much of it, admitted their primary organizer, Major Reid-Daly, in a prison camp type environment meant to push soldiers to their mental and physical limits and thus force them to find deep self-sufficiency and endurance. This is an approach that is still central to training such units as the US Army Rangers and the British Royal Marines--week after week of hell that tests how far one can go without comfort and recovery. A very low percentage of volunteers finally made it into the ranks of the Selous Scouts.
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| Selous Scouts in action. (rhodesia.nl) |
Beyond this sort of physical and mental endurance training, scouts were trained on a more academic level, as well. Botanists instructed the trackers on how to utilize the local flora in recognizing signs of movement and occupation, as well as how to survive and sustain themselves off of plants for food. Furthermore, these men often communicated using a dog whistle as a signal--a whistle producing a sound that is almost inaudible to the human ear, and thus goes unnoticed to anyone not trained to listen for it. In a way, this is a primitive and clever precursor to the modern use of infrared lights and lasers, which can only be seen by a modern force equipped with infrared vision. While today's elite units may train lasers and lights on the enemy and their positions, making obvious signals that are invisible to the enemy, the Rhodesian scouts were making long reaching audio signals that the enemy was simply oblivious to despite hearing it vaguely.
The Selous Scouts played an integral role in countering insurgent infiltration, as they stopped much movement before enemy parties were able to cross into Rhodesia from Zambia or Mozambique. They also were able to prevent insurgent psychological warfare from being effective, most importantly by hunting mine-laying teams. These teams were notorious for placing land mines on important commercial and strategic roads in Rhodesia, and often going as far as placing mines in Rhodesian national parks and nature reserves where they were intended to detonate near tourists, successfully instilling fear in the populace and undermining civil support for an ongoing war--a very highly regarded tactic among insurgents that esssentially defines the term terrorism.
Today, tracking is a skill that is severely under-used in combat operations. While many elite units may have some understanding of tracking, the average infantry soldier is ill-equipped with the knowledge to recognize subtle signs of enemy movement, nor the placements of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that see a parallel use to the mines laid on Rhodesian roads. Writer Michael Yon, a veteran of US Special Forces as well as independent combat journalism, has insisted in recent years that a basic approach to tracking and ground sign awareness needs to be re-introduced in the modern infantry. He has participated in tracking training in Norway, and recommends other sources of learning it such as in South Africa. Michael's dispatches provide a valuable insight into the importance of this skill, and only serve to emphasize the lessons that can be learned from the success of Rhodesia and the Selous Scouts in their age old war of counterinsurgency.
