Anyway, the K-Car pilot directed the willing troops with ease and led them to success. Initially the Army commander frantically checked his radio leads for a fault he had no hope of finding. He gave this up when the air-gunner leaned across and shouted to let him know that the pilot and soldiers were managing fine and that the “headset failure” could only be rectified when they returned to base.
One RAR officer I got to know quite well at Mtoko was André Dennison, commanding ‘A’ Company of 1 RAR. He was an ex-British Army officer who performed with considerable courage in many ground actions with a weapon in his hands. As a combat leader on the ground he was first-class but his troops performed abysmally under his airborne control, even though they had done really well under previous airborne commanders. The reasons for this were very plain to many pilots, but André took no notice of the advice offered to solve his soldiers’ “outright stupidity and inability to understand plain English”. It was through officers like André that the RAR came to be regarded by many as second-rate soldiers. Those of us who knew how well they could perform thought otherwise.
André had a phobia about the Selous Scouts in general and Lieutenant-Colonel Ron Reid-Daly in particular. This led to a very unnecessary incident when, following two failed callouts by Scouts pseudo callsigns, André flatly refused to respond to a third one on the same day. Whilst all hell was breaking loose between Ron Reid-Daly, COMOPS and André Dennison, I arranged for Territorial soldiers operating fairly close to the Scouts callout position to prepare for immediate uplift for a Fireforce action. For this I had first sought COMOPS approval from Harold Griffiths, who was then working under Norman Walsh.
Away went the empty helicopters from Mtoko with their accompanying Lynx to pick up the TF troops who, though inexperienced in the Fireforce role, thoroughly enjoyed a small but successful action in the Msana Tribal Trust Land. André’s frustrated anger switched from the Selous Scout CO to me for having “taken away my aircraft without my permission!” Such was the nature of the man as Fireforce commander! But with gun in hand and feet on the ground, André was a great soldier and leader of troops.
Bold actions—007 ideas
THE SAS CONTINUED WITH THEIR successful operations using minimum manpower for maximum results. During May 1978 eight SAS men made a parachute descent with canoes and plenty of explosives to take out a ZANLA barrack block in the FRELIMO stronghold town of Tete. In a typical SAS-styled night action involving moments of threat and doubts, they paddled heavily laden canoes down the Zambezi River right up to their target set high on the bank of the river. There they set the charges that blew the barracks and its occupants to hell and back. Upon their return to Rhodesia the participants described the operation and spoke of their passage under the huge Tete bridge spanning the great river. They said how awesome the illuminated bridge appeared as they passed silently below FRELIMO guards and vehicles on the bridge deck high above them. The business of blowing bridges had become quite fashionable so it was not surprising that these men were considering how the Tete bridge might be dropped, if the need arose.
I was fascinated by the problems involved and went away with the subject turning over in my mind. As the SAS had said, dropping the bridge could be done easily enough if it was not located at a garrison town containing hundreds of well-armed troops. The question that exercised my mind was how the Air Force might deal with the problem, if given the opportunity. Looking forward in time and considering friendly Malawi’s future interests in the bridge, there seemed no way Rhodesia would ever consider destroying such a vital road link. Nevertheless I could not get the subject out of my mind.
Tete bridge is a huge suspension bridge with two high support towers on each bank of the river. Over these towers two suspension cables pass from their deep anchor points on the south side to those on the north. These two enormously thick and powerful cables support the entire road platform by means of many vertical drop cables.
No available bomb or rocket would have any meaningful effect on this type of structure because assured destruction could only come from cutting through one or both of the suspension cables. The question was how this might be done. So far as I was concerned great accuracy would be required, so low delivery at high speed would be essential against this target sited at the edge of a highly defended town. It also meant that our fastest aircraft, Hunters, could make only one pass.
The system I conceived may sound too James Bondish but I have no doubt the project team could have developed it given time to perfect the explosive shearing device I refer to as a ‘cable cutter’.
None of our team had any experience in high-energy shaped charges and explosive shearing devices so I went to Cambridge-trained ex-British Royal Engineers Captain Charlie Small with whom I had worked on the odd inter-force project. One of these projects had been to design a bridge and culvert destruction device to be mounted on a self-propelled vehicle that could be lifted by helicopter and placed on a safe section of the Maputo to Malvernia railway line. Once on the rails the vehicle was to be controlled remotely from the air and run to the target, bridge or culvert and usually defended, where it would be brought to a halt at the selected position for command detonation.
Charlie, who was then working with Selous Scouts, was experienced in the destruction of bridges as recently proven during Op Virile. His approach to dropping a bridge was to calculate the amount of explosive required for the job then double the quantity. Because of this, the rail vehicle became too heavy for carriage by one or two helicopters. Charlie’s explosives alone required two Alouettes, another to carry the vehicle and a fourth one to transport engineers to assemble the unit on site. Though the feasibility work and designs were completed, the device was never put to the test.
Charlie’s reaction to my plans to drop the Tete bridge was “it can be done”. But he needed the cutting charge, 100kg minimum, to be in direct contact with the suspension cable and oriented so that the explosive ‘cutting’ wave faced the cable.
Arising from Charlie Small’s advice, my concept involved two Hunters each carrying two 150kg bomb-shaped cable cutters under slung, and partially imbedded, within and under, 500kg inert bombs. One Hunter would approach on a line just inside the bridge towers at one end of the bridge whilst another did the same at the other end of the bridge approaching from the opposite direction. Both pilots would have to aim to pass thirty meters above the suspension cables at the relatively slow speed of 300 knots
To give them safe passage, another pair of Hunters would precede them by a few seconds flying at maximum speed directly over Tete town. This pair would then pull up into a steep, noisy, full-powered climbing turn away from the river to draw attention from the slower-flying Hunters approaching each other at low level along the river.
At half a kilometre from target the cable cutters would be released. As they fell away they would draw out a heavy twenty-metre length of super-strong stranded steel cable from a drum mounted inside the inert bomb. Just before the cable was fully withdrawn, as measured by the number of rotations of the drum, the 500kg inert bomb would release automatically from the aircraft.
The requirement was for the inert bomb to pass above the suspension cable and the cable cutter below it. Both units would have passed the suspension cable before their linking cable came taught against the bridge cable. The heavier bomb would continue on and the shock load on the cable (the reason for the slow attack speed) would be slightly damped by the inert bomb’s flight line being drawn down. The cable cutter would pitch steeply upwards as it was brought to a rapid halt before changing direction back towards the suspension cable. As each cable-cutting device slammed up against the suspension cable it would fire its cutting charge.