Christine was pleased to see that she’d gotten some attention with that statement. Frequently a straight line could be drawn from point A to point B; good noncommissioned officers meant a good fighting unit.
“That’s the way Belewa works,” she continued. “He puts his resources into training, logistics, and combat support. He will not acquire any weapons system unless he can also acquire an adequate technical base to service it. If you check out the West African Union’s Table of Organization, you won’t find a bunch of complex and expensive jet fighters and main battle tanks sitting around rusting because they can’t be maintained. What you will find are a lot of very basic infantry weapons: machine guns, rocket and grenade launchers, mortars, and recoilless rifles. However, these weapons will be in good working order, they will have plenty of ammunition, and they will be manned by people who know how to use them.”
Offshore, the day was dying out beyond the Camayenne Peninsula. The crew of the pinasse used the last trace of the brief equatorial twilight to seek for the marker they had been told would be waiting for them.
They found it. A tree branch bobbing upright in the low oily swells. A totally undistinguished bit of flotsam, it would have taken several minutes of careful observation to note any thing unusual about it at all. Specifically, that it wasn’t drifting with the sluggish tidal currents. It had been anchored a carefully calculated number of yards offshore.
The captain cut the engine and more anchors splashed down, heavy stones linked by rope to the bow and stern of the little craft, holding it broadside to the shore…and directly in line with the lights of the buildings strung out beside the Conakry airfield runway.
The briefing continued.
“Belewa may be an army puke, but he also understands sea power and how to use it. While he’s been waging guerrilla warfare against Guinea by land, he’s also launched a parallel campaign off their coast. Fishing villages have been raided and coastal shipping has been shot up. In addition, every navigational aid along the Guinea coast has been taken out and the harbor approaches mined.
“Major damage is being done here. By hitting the fishing villages, they’re cutting off a desperately needed food source. They’re also driving the villagers inland to further inflame the refugee problem. Disruption of coastal shipping is putting a further strain on the ground transport network, which isn’t all that much to begin with, and the mining threatens to isolate Guinea from both international aid and overseas commerce. Part of the UNAFIN blockading mission will be to prevent these incursions into Guinea’s coastal waters.”
“A question, Commander.” Trochard, the French navy liaison, spoke in mildly accented English. “What kind of mines are we speaking of? What models? Where is their origin?”
Christine glanced over at the British mine warfare officer. “You want to answer that one, Lieutenant Traynor?”
The Englishman nodded. “So far, we’ve seen a very basic but effective moored contact mine of local manufacture. The West African Union has apparently set up a production line to build these weapons to a set standard. It’s rather clever really. They’re using old hot-water tanks as mine hulls.”
There was a brief snort of laughter from Commander Emberly. Traynor only lifted an eyebrow. “It’s not all that funny, Commander. These mines carry a sixty-five-pound charge of civilian blasting gelatin, more than adequate to sink a patrol boat or put a hole in a freighter hull. A Dutch ore carrier has been badly damaged, and two coastal ferries have been sunk with a heavy loss of life. To date we’ve located and swept seven more of these damn things in the approaches to Conakry and Rio Nunez. Every one of them has detonated as advertised.”
The American TACBOSS gave a noncommittal grunt and looked away.
“What has the Guinea military been doing through all this, Commander?” Macintyre inquired from the back of the room.
“Pretty much what you’d expect,” Christine replied, “with the expected outcome. When the Union started hitting the coastal areas with their two- and three-gunboat raids, Guinea stepped up their naval cutter and police launch patrols and deployed platoon-size army garrisons to some of the coastal villages. The Union waited until the patrols and garrisons were in place, then swarmed the coast with a series of ten- and twelve-boat search-and-destroy sweeps. They shot hell out of the navy patrols and totally flattened several of the garrisoned villages. The local military was handed a decisive defeat and the Conakry government lost a heck of a lot of face with the coastal tribes.”
“It strikes me that what we’re seeing here is Mao’s classic guerrilla warfare doctrine applied in a maritime environment.”
“Exactly, Admiral.” Christine changed screen images again. This time the photograph was of a sleek and low-riding speed boat, perhaps forty feet long, and painted in a mottled gray and green camouflage. Its hull was open from bow to stern except for a small, enclosed helm station amidships. Driven by a pair of powerful outboard motors, it carried a brace of Russian made 14.5mm KPV heavy machine guns in a twin mount forward. Hardpoints for other automatic weapons were spaced along the Fiberglas bulwarks. Its crew, half a dozen fit and wiry Africans, clad only in ragged shorts, looked up belligerently at the aircraft taking the picture. They were a considerable contrast to the refugees seen earlier in the briefing.
“This is the Union’s weapon of choice for littoral warfare. I’m sure you all recognize this little guy from the Good Old Days in the Persian Gulf. It’s a Boghammer gunboat, Sweden’s gift to the maritime terrorist. Cheap, fast, easy to maintain, and great for work in shallow coastal water. The Union has about forty of them in commission, operating in four ten boat squadrons. Two squadrons, the guys giving Guinea grief, base out of Yelibuya Sound in what was Sierra Leone. The other two operate over Frenchside, covering the coastal smuggling pipelines in from Côte d’Ivoire.
Christine palmed the projector controller again. “The Union navy also has a single squadron of larger vessels.”
Click. Thumbing the key, she called up the first of the next sequence of images.
“This is the Unity, formerly the Moa of the Sierra Leone navy. One hundred twenty-seven feet in length, 135 tons displacement. A Chinese-built Shanghai II-class patrol boat. Primary armament consists of six 25mm autocannon in three twin mounts.”
Click.
“This is the Allegiance, a Swift-class patrol cutter. A hundred and five feet, 103 tons, another acquisition from Sierra Leone. Currently she’s carrying a bow-mounted Bofors L70 40mm cannon and an Oerlikon twin 20mm astern plus machine guns amidships. There is also evidence that both she and the Unity also carry shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles, either the British Blowpipe or the Egyptian-made copy of the Russian SA-9B.”
Click.
“And this is the Promise. The flagship of the Union fleet. Formerly, she was the minesweeper Marabai of the Nigerian navy. However, when General Belewa made his move in Liberia, the crew of the Marabai came over with him. A hundred sixty-seven feet in length. Displacement 540 tons. Her sweep gear has been unshipped and she’s been rearmed as a light gun corvette with an Emerson twin thirty forward and two pairs of Russian-made ZPU 57mm pom-poms aft. And we know for sure she carries antiair missiles.”