Doctrine, Equipment and Organization for Reserve African Rifles in the Caribbean

[Icelander]

I'm working out a paramilitary organization developed by veterans of the Rhodesian African Rifles, British South African Police, Selous Scouts, support forces and augmentees for those, as well as Zimbabwean military units for a few of them.

The senior and most respected figure was a Regimental Sergeant Major of the Rhodesian African Rifles, served as a CSM in in the Selous Scouts and trained several intakes of national servicemen, in a career that stretched back to British rule. If in doubt, he will decide what a given unit will be called and what the title of the NCO or OIC shall be.

I was thinking that the overall organization would be done in terms of Commandos. 1 Commando, 2 Commando, 3 Commando and Support Commando. The Commandos should be capable of heliborne air assault, they might even be paratrooper-qualified, at least one of them should specialize in boats and amphibious operations, and all should be capable of foreign deployment (though, officially, they are merely a militia force dedicated to defending the Constitution, rule of law and democratically-elected government of their adopted new homeland of Dominica).

I'm not sure whether reservists would augment existing commandos if called up or if they provide a more home-guard-esque service, possibly as a couple of Independent Companies, or even if they might continue to call themselves companies of the Rhodesian African Rifles, at least unofficially.

The leaders and bulk of the soldiers are all emigrants from new Zimbabwe, with some being refugees, as Mugabe's Shona-dominated new administration went through Matabeleland with fire and sword, with historical emnities and present rivalry betweeen ZAMLA and ZIPRA erupted in the use of North Korean trained soldiers to curb the power, prestige and numbers of Ndebele in the new Zimbabwe.

I'm also not sure whether to call the next smaller level platoon or troop. Furthermore, I'm not sure whether to use the UK & Commonwealth term 'section', and if I do, whether that would be 9, 10, 12, 13 or 17 men (the 17 men, consisting of three 'sticks' or fireteams of four, one Intelligence and Reconaissance element of three, sniper, observer and automatic rifleman for defence, one NCOIC and a communications man, would be creeping up close to a platoon-size).

[Icelander]

I figure that the existence of this unit won't be secret, as such. The Prime Minister of Dominica, where the Zimbabwean emigrants and refugees have bought land and been granted citizenship, has herself weathered two coup attempts in her time, and witnessed several in neighbouring islands, both from internal dissidents and foreign-backed groups ranging from Communists to Neo-Nazis.

She doesn't trust her military forces and will basically get rid of them entirely. She doesn't trust the police either, but figures she has no choice but to reform them instead of wholescale destruction. She does, personally, like and trust the American billionaire whose charitable backing enabled victims of Mugabe's ethnic cleansing of Matabeleland to emigrate and is asking her to allow those of them who are veteran soldiers to join her military as part of a reserve unit based near their homes.

PM Eugenia Charles enough of a canny politician not to let personal feelings lead her too far onto a path which might make her dependent on a powerful foreign man of any kind, but he's lived on the island since its independence, consistently championed democratic institutions, invested in the local economy and backed many necessary infrastructure projects, of the kind that make life better for everyone on Dominica. And he makes no secret of his desire to become a citizen, but promises never to run for office or accept a Cabinet position, simply to remain available as a friend of any elected government of Dominica.

Realistically speaking, if he wanted to remove her from power, it would not have been difficult for him to have backed her enemies in either of the two attempted coups. Instead, he advised her when she asked for his advice, used his influence abroad when she needed that, and has continually offered to provide Dominica, free of charge, with the same services as his security firms provide other Caribbean countries, training, threat analysis, new security and surveillance technology and better weapons. Charles is not prepared to have the police and armed forces effectively beholden to a billionaire born somewhere else, even if he becomes a citizen.

On the other hand, immigrants who become citizens can serve in the military. And if some of the immigrants happen to be expert trainers, intelligence, security or law enforcement professionals, their reservist service can be discharged through training new police officers or members of new armed services. And she can agree to buy arms from local vendors, if they happen to bid better than foreign ones, as long as there are no explicit gifts, except military assistence from the US or Commonwealth allies.

With that in mind, she'll authorize a Reserve 'Regiment', which seems likely to be more like company-sized in reality, especially as they'll be based on the opposite coast of the island from her and there's no path through the jungle to the seat of power in Roseau, anyway. She'll organize some other reservists of loyal citizens nearer important sites and try to have her newly reformed police and Coast Guard powerful enough to defend against communist militias, Cuban invasions or Neo-Nazi mercenaries.

By 2019, the Reserve African Rifles, and their full-time, three deployable Commandos of 90 men each, complete with a larger Support Commando including logistics, medical, medevac, intelligence and surveillance, repair and transport elements, are quite a lot more numerous, well-trained and professional than Dame Eugenia foresaw in 1990, as well as being more capable at projecting force over distances even longer than across Dominica. All three Commandos will be trained to perform Fire Force operations using helicopters, but each will also have a different speciality.

1 Commando (Jungle) will specialize in jungle warfare, off-road travel, ambushes and clandestine surveillance, as well as being designated subject-matter experts on camouflage, fieldcraft, scouting, sniping and tracking; 2 Commando (Paras) will all be airborne and air assault trained, capable of being inserted by parachute from almost any kind of airplane, assault airfields by exiting aircraft or gliders under fire, or spearhead a heliborne assault; and 3 Commando (Marines) specializes in maritime operations, insertions and extractions, visit, board, search and seizure of potentially hostile vessels, underwater and amphibious warfare. By default, the Support Commando will specialize in ground transport and provide the majority of support weapons as well, medium to heavy machine guns, automatic grenade launchers, mortars, recoilless rifles and MANPAD missiles for AA and AT capabilities.

Dame Eugenia Charles eventual replacements don't worry too much about any potential threat from the Reserve African Regiment, though, as after almost thirty years of history of the 'African' (the majority of the original emigrants were Ndebele, but there were numerous people from the Kalanga tribe, Shaangan, Yao and even some Shona, as well as people from Mali, Malawi, Nigeria and other African countries) community in Kraal Khumalo at Petite Soufrére, Saint David Parish, are regarded as being both trustworthy and Dominican. The original tribal divisions have shifted, as mixed marriages are common, and many of the African immigrants have married natives of Dominica*, so Roseau politicians mostly see the community as a positive force. It doesn't hurt that, unlike Dame Eugenia Charles, the Iron Lady of the Caribbean, current Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit (from 2004) is extremely amenable to foreign aid of all kinds, public or personal.

I suspect that the Reserve African Rifles are, formally, the only legal force maintained by Kraal Khumalo and all the men who bear arms there are formally enrolled as reservists that way. The 1 Commando, 2 Commando, 3 Commando and Support Commando will exist independently of the armed forces of Dominica, but they'll protect Petite Soufriere Bay and Dominca if needed, but also remain ready to project force onto other Caribbean islands, in case of major supernatural threats.

*Politically, none of Dame Eugenia's successors have minded having a group with unimpeachable African credentials backing the democratically-elected Prime Minister, the police and other institutions of society in Dominica, as that makes it much harder for revolutionary organizations to appeal to pan-African solidarity against the Roseau-based government. Rastafari claims to represent 'Africa' ring hollow when most of the dreadlocked Dominicans have never been to Africa, but the inhabitants of Kraal Khumalo emigrated from there and much prefer the democratic institutions of Dominica.

[Icelander]

The fall of the Soviet Union in 1990-1991 was the greatest bonanza for arms dealers and surplus shoppers in history. A newly authorized armed force would be fools not to take advantage of some of the bargains.

While they will clearly buy AKMs, RPDs, RPKs and other arms, what about vehicles and support weapons?

Are there are Soviet trucks or jeeps worth getting if it's at pennies on the dollar or would it be better to just buy new Toyotas, even if they are way pricier?

What about Soviet APCs or IFVs?

Worth buying if they are cheap enough?

They'd have to be amphibious and easily portable, at minimum with ships of unremarkable size or construction, but ideally with An-12 or Il-76 aircraft.

The ubiquitous BRDM/BTR-40P-2 scout vehicle is amphibious and actually lighter than Soviet VDV vehicles meant to be transported by air, but I don't know if you can actually drop it with a parachute aimed at the target area, possibly while manned by a driver and gunner whose balls clanked as they walked.

[RogerBW]

At that era, I believe most of Africa still swears by the Toyota Hilux as everything from personnel carrier to support weapon platform. The Soviet kit may be cheap, but it can get ferociously expensive to keep running. Depends on the knowledge of whoever's doing the purchasing…

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

At that era, I believe most of Africa still swears by the Toyota Hilux as everything from personnel carrier to support weapon platform. The Soviet kit may be cheap, but it can get ferociously expensive to keep running. Depends on the knowledge of whoever's doing the purchasing…

The prospective Colonel of the RAR Regiment, Joseph Khumalo, spent 32 years in the British Army, Rhodesian Security Forces and Zimbabwean National Army as, among other things, the Regimental Sergeant Major of the Rhodesian African Rifles, CSM of Selous Scouts and the senior Warrant Officer of the Recruit Training Depot (RTD) in Imbizo Barracks, Bulawayo. He also spent three years as a mercenary recruiter and trainer of private security personnel for foreign businesses in Africa, after he became a wanted man in Zimbabwe for claiming no man of honour could desert the Zimbabwean National Army, as the Army had deserted honour first.

Khumalo has with him some old friends and many promising young men of the Ndebele, Kalanga, Shaangan, Xhosa, Ngoni, Yao, Venda and Batonga people, who were not hard to convince to come with him to the New World once Mugabe turned the military against all other tribes than his Shona. There are even Shona wives and sons-in-law who chose a new start in the Caribbean over life in Mugabe's Zimbabwe, especially as any Shona who had supported the government, or happened to fight on the side of Mugabe's rival Joshua Nkomo and his ZAPU, could be killed, tortured or otherwise attacked by the North Korean trained Fifth Brigade, the Army formation tasked jointly with ethnic cleansing and preemptive political reeducation.

Khumalo served with white Rhodesians and a few foreigners in the Selous Scouts and a few of them became mercenaries earlier than he and know some even older mercenaries, so among some few advisors in the field of private procuration and freelance logistics, there are well over a century of military experience, with individuals averaging fomr twenty years each. At one remove from the trusted advisors are some unsavoury arms dealers tasked with acquiring all the bargains they can with now unpaid and uncertain former Soviet commanders of supply depots, warehouses, storage facilities and underground vaults, not to mention the senior staff of factories with no orders or payment.

More legitimate vendors can supply arms from Israel, Taiwan, France, the UK and US, among other places, but Dame Eugenia Charles set some peculiar limits on her new self-defence forces back in 1981. She would accept and, indeed, solicit donations and arms from Commonwealth countries and the US, as long as they did not come with unreasonable demands, but she could not accept private arms donations. She could, however, accept foreigners in the process of becoming citizens advising ministries on the best deals in surplus and pre-owned military supply, as well as donating their work in inspecting and maintaining anything purchased in that way.

This means that Dominica has a lot of donated and purchased surplus military equipment and, with the new bonanza from the former Soviet Union, is poised to acquire more. While reserve units can buy their own arms, under the new arrangement, it would quickly become contentious if those arms were newer and more expensive than anything the defenders of the Prime Minister have.

Formally, the Commonwealth of Dominica has no military any more, there is the Coast Guard, the Special Services Unit of the Commonwealth of Dominica Police Force (with APCs, machine guns and recoilless rifles, they are a significantly paramilitary police unit, but officially, still not a military), and then there are Volunteer Defence Forces. The Reserve African Rifles are one of them, but there are similar units in Roseau, Portsmouth, Salisbury and Vielle Case, as well as small rural units, all of which function as Search and Rescue, volunteer coast watchers and civil defence after natural disasters.

The helicopters, boats and other really expensive gear won't be owned by the Reserve African Rifles, anyway. They'll be owned by PSC and logistics companies registered in neighbouring St. Lucia. It might be good to do the same with any really expensive and/or heavy vehicles for the Support Commando, especially anything requiring a port to onload and offload. Still, a few amphibious scout vehicles wouldn't be out of line, assuming they are available at the price of bribing a base commander + transport.

They really do intend to defend Dominica and have the support of a billionaire recent citizen of the Nature Island to do so. And if they ever have to deploy for supernatural reasons, they'll have all the budget they need. That isn't to say they won't prefer the reliable Toyota for anything it can do. Among things Toyotas can't do, though, is stop small arms fire, swim ashore from a boat when there is no port, or provide fire support much above .50 caliber.

[Icelander]

In the 1990s, what are some good options to get more equipment than athletes can carry on their backs up very tough hiking trails on jungle-covered mountains?

Commercial ATVs or UTVs, three-wheel ATCs, custom dune buggys, modified SUVs or Toyota Hilux trucks, Amphibious All-Terrain Vehicles, tracked or half-tracked vehicles are all options; though it would obviously be great if surplus Soviet vehicles available for a couple of orders of magnitude less than what new Western vehicles would cost could do anything useful at all.

Are UAZ-469 any good?

Are there other former Warsaw Pact vehicles with good performance at mountain warfare?

[Farmer]

https://www.theplaceholdr.com/p/toyo...ed-war-machine

Both the Hilux and various versions of Landcruisers.

This is too modern for you, but may be of general interest:

https://www.drive.com.au/news/toyota...load-revealed/

[Icelander]

If it comes to a deployment larger than a boat or helicopter insertion of a few sticks, a section or troop, most likely, there would be Toyota trucks used for mobility. There will be more of them than are needed on St. Lucia, owned by the Private Security Company (PSC) ISHIM Ltd., and the Support Commando will regularly practice for the unlikely event of a full-scale deployment, with the three tactical Commandos coming in by air, sea or overland, and the Support Commando landing on a seized airfield, captured port or just a free beach.

I don't think even modified SUVs will do well in the area around their settlement of Petitie Soufrière Bay on the slopes of the Morne Aux Delices on the east shore of Dominica. There is one road to the north, but as for any other direction, best case is one trail that is a difficult hike for experienced hikers, in good condition. The rest is just mountaineering and jungle mixed together, some of it sheer cliffs, some of it impassable undergrowth.

They'll have a few modified off-road Toyota Hiluxes or Suzuki Samurais at home, as well as some ATVs that might make that hiking trail, but I guess mules might be a more practical way to get building materials, optics, sensors, generators, fuels and support weapons to set up camouflaged OPs on higher ground there.

Preparing to defend the east coast of Dominica is probably done more because it's excellent training for defending or attacking any site on a tropical island, for the boys who serve their National Service for two years, age 16-18, as part of the Reserve African Rifles. Once they turn eighteen, depending on their role and interest, they train 20-50 hours a month as reservists for as long as they are still able-bodied and live at home. Only the best of them, those who want to make war their profession, become part of the Commandos and might be deployed elsewhere as part of defending the world from supernatural threats.

Meanwhile, it makes everyone on the Commandos feel safer if their wives, daughters, sisters and mothers are safe under the watch of well-trained teenagers, college kids, engineers, doctors, machinists, smiths, farmers, teachers and other part-time soldiers of the RAR, commanded by the old bull elephants old in war, who have earned the right not be soaked in the surf, jump out of airplanes or crawl through jungle, who are wise enough to sleep in their own beds, but would massacre any force smaller than a division trying to land on that coast.

I guess one Commando and a part of Support Commando might be away on exercises much of the time. A third on leave, third in readiness and a third on exercises. Keeping up full manning levels will be easier if some of the older men in the Commandos don't retire all at once, but remain as individual augments for their Commandos as and when needed, as extremely experienced reservists who do a few weeks on duty from time to time.

They can train jungle warfare right at home and 1 Commando (Jungle) will set up a school for it, one designed by veterans of the Malayan Emergency, and taught by graduates of the British Army Jungle Warfare Training School in Brunei, of the USMC Camp Gonsalves on Okinawa, the US Army Recondo School and Jungle Operation Training Center in Panama, Colombian Lancero School and the French CEFE in French Guiana. Their goal will be to get some of their outstanding young officers invited to the British, Canadian, Colombian, French and US schools, and will be more than happy to accept exchange students in return.

The 2 Commando (Paras) will do most of their training on St. Lucia, where they have aircraft, landing zones and vehicles to train assembly on objectives after landing, as well as train air assault from helicopters. 3 Commando (Marines) train with the Coast Guard of Dominica and St. Lucia, as reservists in Dominica discharging their service through training others, but they also have very friendly relations with some of the French sailors of COMAR ANTILLES, the French naval and naval air forces in the Caribbean, most of whom are based on Martinique, and have arranged some VBSS exercises with them and the Coast Guards of RSS.

All the Commandos need to rotate through the battalion-sized training facility on St. Lucia, regularly. It comes complete with shoot houses and force-on-force training for CQB and allows for pretty extensive training. Even if their location in Dominica is remote, live fire exercises there could lead to political complications, whereas St. Lucia has licensed the facility there for high-quality private security contractor training of special military or police units of the Regional Security System in the Eastern Caribbean.

St. Lucia would also be the mustering area for any deployment larger than a troop. That's where they have vehicles, support weapons, logistics trains, aircraft and shipping. They still need some vehicles in Dominica, as their kraal is a river and a hiking trail over a difficult climb away from the modern clinic many of their doctors and nurses work. They'll have speedboats and helicopters for emergencies, but they don't want a road, for security reasons*. That means they still have to be able to get a sick, injured or pregnant person to Rosalie over the mountain and river, even if there's a storm that makes the surf roo rough to launch boats and grounds all aircraft.

Mules would be the absolute least they could do. Are there better options? For travelling with someone who can't walk or move, potentially in a hurricane, over a hiking trail that is too narrow and steep for trucks?

This doesn't have to be solved once and for all in 1990. 1990 is when the first extended family and all their spouses, children and dependents arrived, maybe a couple of hundred people. Some more immigrated over time and there was the natural population increase over time. By the current year of 2019, there are 6,200 people in the community, most born in Dominica, almost half of the second generation born to mixed marriages between locals and immigrants, and more than half of them are under 18 years of age. So, they'll have had time and people to figure out modified ATVs for emergency medical transport and if they also happen to have a military utility, that would be a happy accident.

Given that I've set campaigns at different time periods, it would be fun to think about how their vehicles, weaponry, logistics and transport evolves from 1990. Obviously, when offered Soviet surplus equipment at 1% cost (and somebody else paying the bill) when unpaid General, Colonels or just bureaucrats with warehouses or factories were selling stuff in a frenzy, Joseph Khumalo and his sons, sons-in-laws, nephews, old friends and comrades-in-arms accepted everything just in case it came in handy someday.

So, they had vast stocks of stuff that came from that bonanza, anything from WWII surplus the Soviets captured from the Germans, Czechs, Slovaks, etc. and put into storage and never got rid off, through all kinds of warehoused NIB AKM rifles, RPD and RKM light machine guns, PKM general purpose machinr guns, etc., to brand-new, expensive stuff right out of factories in 1990-1991, where nobody told the factory managers to stop, but they'd stopped paying everybody.

Best part of that WWII surplus would be mint MG42 machine guns with perfect condition Lafette 42 tripods. Sure, they're too heavy to be good GPMGs on the attack. But they can mount up on that tripod fast, with a trained crew, and be deadly out to ranges bipod-mounted GPMGs (or ones mounted on simple US tripods) can't reach. Just use the RPDs as light machine guns and the MG42s as MMGs.

Eventually, cheap surplus 7.92x57mm Mauser dries up, while Dominica gets US military aid, meaning favourable terms on loans as long as they're buying sensible US-made stuff, such as ammo. Then you convert all your MG42 to the MG3 standard and have something to use their 7.62x51mm NATO ammo in. I figure you might have had marksmen with G3A3ZF in 7.62x51mm already, as long as you didn't manage to get enough Dragunov rifles at rock-bottom prices (if you did, selling them to collectors and buying new 7.62x51mm DMR rifles would probably work out economically in your favour).

I'm not sure if they ever exchange their Soviet smallarms for Western ones. Augment, maybe, once Western night vision and other accessories have gotten necessary enough so that operating without them puts you at a clear disadvantage, sure, the Commandos get new Western gear with M-LOK mounting points. But they still keep their former Soviet gear and cross-train on it, in case they ever need to deploy to somewhere in the wilds of Cuba, Haiti or DRC (closest to the epicenter of the Vile Vortex, as the PCs and their allies refer to a region of Mana emerging on our otherwise No Mana world) and deny they were ever there, all the evidence will just point at 'men with former Soviet gear'.

*They're an official part of the Volunteer Defence Force of Dominica, authorized by three different Prime Ministers. That doesn't mean they want tourists visiting their training areas, or worse, their homes.

[Icelander]

Because the founders were mostly trained in Rhodesia, the oldest by the British, the rest by fellow Rhodesians, I figure some of the doctrine will reflect that. Biggest element there would probably be Fire Force tactics, they train in what the US Army would call Air Assault, where troops deploy by helicopter and the fire support is also in the form of attack helicopters, or K-Cars, as they'll refer to them.

The billionaire founder organising research and defence against the supernatural bought some aircraft and helicopters already, the moment he discovered the supernatural. This includes some surplus Alouette III helicopters, available relatively cheaply in 1986-1989. By 1990-1991, of course, Soviet helicopters were, one time only, available for a song. The Mi-8 / Mi-17 Hip transport is a natural buy, as it might even achieve commercial certification. The Mi-26 helicopter can transport a lot at once, including heavy armoured vehicles, which could be useful, so I imagine they bought a couple. The Mi-24 Hind is an attack helicopter that also carries troops.

Now, the Soviet helicopters, if not FAA Type certified (or the equivalent for Caribbean government agencies with responsibility for flight security), won't be able to travel inconspiciously as transport helicopters between islands. That might rule them out for anything but the defence of Dominica and Saint Lucia. If push ever came to shove, I imagine that if the French islands of Martinique and Guadalupe would ask for help from nearby Cariɓean nations if invaded (metropolitan France would dispatch a military force, but it would probably take some time in getting there, and even if their Guinana garrison responded, they're futher away than friendly Coast Guards on Dominica and Saint Lucia).

Some questions.

1) How would using Soviet Mi-8 Hinds (and/or the export version, Mi-17) change Rhodesian Fire Force tactics, developed for the smaller and less capable Alouette III helicopters? I imagine that Mi-24 Hinds would make natural K-Cars, but they are much bigger than Alouettes and are able to carry two sticks of soldiers, instead of the one Alouettes could. Mi-8 / Mi-17 are able to carry 24 troops. I had planned on sections consisting of two four-man sticks + a Sergeant and Corporal to command. Maybe I should have leaner sections, incorporate the NCOIC into each fireteam, that way, an M-24 helicopter could deploy a section and the Mi-24 can deploy a troop of three sections. Should fire support in the form of tripod-mounted GPMGs and RPG-7 rockets be integral to the troop or to each Commando of three troops?

2) Joseph Khumalo will be around eighty in 2019. Not all that surprisingly, he viewed and still views women in combat as unnatural and a failure on behalf of society to protect them. All the more so when the women in questions are his daughters, nieces and god-daughters. However, when the new immigrants from Zimbabwe set up their Reserve African Rifles regiment, Dame Eugenia Charles insisted on any reserve unit of the Volunteer Defence Force of Dominica be open to both men and women, and for all of Joseph Khumalo's sputtering, as Prime Minister, Dame Eugenia was in a position to insist.

As the Commandos were a secret capability developed to fight against supernatural threats, Khumalo and his fellow old-fashioned soldiers were able to avoid any women in front-line combat positions. By 2019, the question of the role of women in the Support Comnando seems likely to be a complex political issue. The Commanos are no longer strictly secret capabilities, as 1 Commando (Jungle) runs a Jungle Warfare School, 2 Commando (Paras) an Air Assault Center and 3 Commando (Marines) coordinate Coast Guard and naval exercises among RSS Coast Guards and naval elements. Outstanding officers and enlisted men from special operations forces of other Regional Security System in the Caribbean will sometimes train with the Commandos as well as, ideally, having exchange programs with more powerful allied nations, Australians, the British, Canadians, Colombians, French, New Zealand, and the United States.

Which roles in the Support Commando are open to women? Nurses and other medical staff, certainly. Communications experts, probably, although this is complicated by the RTO role which accompanies commanders into the field. Drivers and mechanics are among jobs that other armies where women were not supposed to be in combat arms, but as the Support Commando will have armed vehicles intended to go into battle and use vehicle-borne ordnance as fire support for light infantry, an argument might be advanced that all driver jobs in the Support Commando are combat arms, every bit as much as Weapons Platoons in other militaries are.

Not only could the Commandos use the manpower of exceptional female volunteers, as even in a culture where all boys grow up trained to be warriors, only a small minority will be accomplished enough for the Commandos, and out of these high-achievers, some percentage will be more interested in going to college and becoming biologists, business executives, doctors, engineers, oceanographers and a wide range of other, non-military careers, but though Khumalo enjoys great prestige as the patriarch of a massive extended family and the founder of their new home, he is not a dictator and even if he might wish he was, sometimes, he has daughters, grand-daughters, nieces and god-daughters who are every bit as strong-willed as old Joseph, and belong to a new generation where women can aspire to greater things than being mothers to warriors.

How successful have the young lionesses of Kraal Khumalo been in advancing the cause of female equality in the military? They may freely join the RAR and serve in any job there, from rifleman to officer. The three SOF/light infantry Commandos have absurd physical requirements, however, justified by them having to carry all their weapons, ammo, kit, water and food, perhaps through rough terrain, before they link up with vehicles from the Support Commando. The Support Commando, with their need for highly trained communications and signal experts, sensor operators, forward observers, mechanics, drivers, anti-air and artillery, have less intense physical requirements (as in, more like the UK Special Forces Support Regiment than the SAS), so extremely athletic and dedicated women could meet the standards, if they were allowed to try out.

Should women in the campaign have already achieved the step of being allowed to serve in any role they qualify for on the Support Commando or should there still be, in 2019, an ongoing political dispute over roles like Intelligence & Reconaissance platoon scouts and snipers, Weapon Platoon machine gunners or mortar crew, or the drivers and gunners of Armoured Cavalry Reconaissance platoons, all of whom closely support infantry in battle, and are definitely fully 'combat arms'?

[DeadParrot]

If former Soviet vehicles can be had for pennies on the dollar and the new owners have lots of time and labor, the vehicles could be converted to something more suited for whatever uses the new owners need.

Examples - modify existing Land Rovers to take Soviet wheels and tires. Use a Soviet engine to get a ag tractor moving again. Build a total custom ATV that can deal with the mule friendly trails.

Bonus if the vehicles were not de-milled before the sale. A turret mount gun might make a decent pill box weapon. Any comm gear could be useful and provide an alternative to western gear. Some vehicles have limited Surface to Air defense and maybe even offense capabilities. Also, even older tanks can make a decent if short ranged 'shoot and scoot' artillery system.