Zambian army in the Rhodesian bush war.

[Lord of Jerwood]

HI guys

I'm planning a 28mm Rhodesian bush war game along the Zambian boarder. I was thinking of having a Zambian army patrol appear late in the game but can't find any information on there equipment and uniform. Anyone have any information?

James     

[carlos marighela]

Dunno but a bit of informed guesswork....

 Kenneth Kaunda was in good odour with the British Government for much of the period and Britain supplied quite a bit of weaponry to the Zambian Amy including SLRs, Ferret Scout Cars etc. Britain even sent a battalion and a detachment of Javelin fighters to Zambia at the time of UDI. If you are doing this in 28mm I'd suggest using the Eureka British for Aden, appropriately painted, as suitable proxies. Zambia also imported a lot of Warpac kit in the 1970s so the more uniformed ZANLA guerillas with AKMs would probably work.

Apparently at least some Zambian troops had a camouflage uniform in the '70s.

http://camopedia.org/index.php?title=Zambia

[Arlequín]

Carlos is (as is mostly usual) pretty much on the money. The ZNDF started off with L1 SLRs, Sterlings, GPMGs... the full British Commonwealth standard for the time in fact, including 2" mortars. During the '70s they became the conduit through which Soviet equipment was passed to ZIPRA and other Freedom Fighters within Zambia. At this point AKs began appearing in the ranks of the three regular battalions, with the British kit (along with Enfields, Brens and Stens) appearing when the army was occasionally expanded to its full 9 battalions following some emergency or public demand for action against Rhodesian incursions.

Occasional raids by the aforementioned freedom fighters on the various Zambian paramilitary camps (Police reserve etc.) Further reduced the stocks of British items, which were made good from Soviet aid.

With the exception of the aforementioned Ferrets, the ZNDF was transported by truck and Landrover/UAZ. It wasn't until the '80s that Soviet armoured vehicles entered the inventory. For reasons best known to himself, Kaunda would not build up his military with heavy gear other than AA weapons and even the ZIPRA 'mechanised' force was stored in Angola, with other items smuggled into Zambia and then being buried to avoid upsetting him.

There's a useful chapter here: http://www.issafrica.org/pubs/Books/Evol_Revol%20Oct%2005/Chap12.pdf but which gives little away as far as equipment goes for the '70s. Barring 81mm mortars, 37mm Bofors, Yugoslav M.50 triple 20mm and the OTO-Melara 105mm howitzers, everything else seems to have been acquired in the '80s.   

[carlos marighela]

My 1979 copy of Chris Grant's The World's Armies credits Zambia with 10 X T-54 MBT, 8 X M56 105mm pack howitzers and 24 X 20mm AA guns ( presumably the Yugoslav triple mounts). It's not the most comprehensive guide and probably not the most authoritative source but overall it's a reasonably accurate tome. I'm not convinced about the existence of the T-54.

[Arlequín]

Yep... the database which covers arms shipments has the T54 as ordered 1979, but delivery would be sometime later. IIRC 'World Armies' did have some errors based on rumour rather than fact, so much so I never rely on it. The pack howitzers and the AAA appear to be correct and Britain supplied a Rapier battery after the 'Green Leader' incident, but again I'm not sure it was operational before the end of the war.