Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

As recently as three years ago, the South African army was asked if it could provide a single platoon of military engineers to help African Union peacekeepers in Darfur.

The answer was an embarrassed no.

But that incapacity is a thing of the past – the first reservist engineers were deployed to the Democratic Republic of Congo late last year – and now the army is about to undergo a radical reorganisation.

Into the dustbin goes the SANDF’s trendy post-1994 business-inspired model of cobbling together its operational brigades in an ad-hoc manner under two standing brigade headquarters.

Defence analyst Leon Engelbrecht calls it a “Lego-block mix-and-match approach” and it proved confusing for soldiers who, outside of a month’s combined training each year, never truly became accustomed to working with other units.

At the moment, the two HQs – 43 SA Brigade and 46 SA Brigade – are tasked with providing brigade-level command-and-control to whatever hodgepodge of units they are assigned to lead for any given exercise or operation.

And the fighting end of the army is organised into three formations – none of them self-sufficient. The largest – the Infantry Formation – includes infantry, armour, artillery, air defence artillery, engineers and tactical intelligence.

The Infantry Formation consists of four main components – each of which is backed up by its own reserve force units. The units are:

n Mechanised Infantry, the heavy-weight force, consisting of the units 1 South African Infantry (SAI) Battalion and 61 Mechanised Infantry Battalion, which use the Rooikat armoured car and consist of 2 148 soldiers, including reserves, according to 2005 statistics;

n Motorised Infantry, the medium-weight force, consisting of the units 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, and 15 SAI Battalions made up of about 1 966 soldiers, including reserves;

n Airborne, consisting of 44 Parachute Regiment and 6 SAI Battalion;

n Light Infantry, staffed by the “pongos” – the foot soldiers – consisting of 8, 10, 14, 21, 118, and 121 SAI Battalions, which, together with the Airborne troops and their reserves, each have 1 882 soldiers).

Then there are the Armour Formation, which weighs in with 1 437 members organised into two regular units, both based at Tempe in Bloemfontein: 1 SA Tank Regiment, which ideally fields about 35 Olifant main battle tanks, and 1 Special Services Battalion (1 SSB), which fields about 17 Rooikats. It has three reserve regiments.

The 660-strong Artillery Formation also consists of two regular units, based at Potchefstroom: 4 Artillery Regiment, whose striking power relies primarily on G6 self-propelled and G5 towed guns, and the Artillery Mobile Regiment, mainly G5-based. It has seven reserve regiments.

Air Defence Artillery, whose 385 members provide anti-aircraft cover with 35mm guns and missile-launchers, consists of 10 ADA Regiment. It has five reserve regiments. The 624-strong Engineers consists of 2 Field Engineers Regiment, with four reserve regiments. Tactical Intelligence consists of 1 SA Intelligence Regiment.

There are also two “support formations”, consisting of 16 and 17 Maintenance Units and odds and ends like the National Ceremonial Guard, as well as the army’s various training outfits like the combat college at Lohatlha in the Northern Cape.

Now that will all change with the reintroduction of the utilitarian military convention of organising the army along the lines of 10 self-contained brigades.

This, says Engelbrecht, “allows the various elements like infantry and armour to constantly live with each other”, which aids operational coherence and boosts esprit de corps.

The army will be reorganised into three different divisions, the largest of which will be a Motorised Division, consisting of six identical brigades in Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, the Western Cape, the Eastern Cape, and KwaZulu-Natal.

Possibly one brigade at a time will be deployed on peacekeeping missions, while three others will be in training, with the rest either winding down from or gearing up for service.

Each motorised brigade will be a medium-weight infantry outfit, made up of two regular and three reserve units – for example, in Gauteng, 21 SAI and 10 SAI Battalions will be backed by Transvaal Scottish, SA Irish and Rand Light Infantry reserves – and will each include their own maintenance, field workshop, engineers and signals units, plus chefs, military police, stores, headquarters and personnel clerks.

Next will be the heavy-hitting Mechanised Division, consisting of three tailor-made, self-contained brigades structured along similar lines to the motorised brigades. But each will also have artillery and air defence: one an armoured brigade headed by 1 SA Tank Regiment and 1 SSB; the next a mechanised brigade led by 8 SAI Battalion; and the last a motorised brigade led by 2 SAI Battalion.

This division will also be home to “divisional” units, including 1 SA Intelligence Regiment, a planned “Long-range Artillery Regiment” and possibly, a “Combat Support Aviation Squadron” – incorporating ground-support aircraft like 16 Squadron’s Rooivalk attack helicopters.

The first of the 10 self-contained divisions will be a Contingency Brigade consisting of 1 Parachute Battalion and its two reserve battalions, Grahamstown’s 6 SAI in its new air-assault role, backed up by Prince Alfred’s Guard in reserve, Cape Town’s 9 SAI in its new sea-landing role and backed up by the Cape Town Highlanders in reserve.

This brigade will also be supported by “divisional” units, including two light artillery and two light missile regiments – everything light-weight that the army can squeeze into its spacious new Airbus A400M military transports for rapid deployment to conflict zones.

The elite Special Forces will remain on their own, answerable directly to the chief of joint operations, and ultimately to the president as chief of the armed forces.

Engelbrecht says the new force design will require a total overhaul of the SA Military Health Services and the creation of new maintenance, provost, signals and other support units.

By 2020 it will be a more rationally designed army, he says.

According to defence analyst Willem Steenkamp, part-time soldiers will not be excluded, and reserves will make up 70% of total forces, which is good news, as they cost the taxpayer 10% of the cost of regular troops to maintain.