Soviet military aircraft africa

From the outset, the export of revolution and Communist ideology had been one of the cornerstones of Soviet Russia's (and later the Soviet Union's) foreign policy and by the mid-1950's the export of Soviet arms expanded into Africa with Algeria being amongst the first African countries to receive Soviet combat aircraft. By the 1960's and 1970's, a large number of African states had gained independence and the Soviet Union increased supply. This situation persisted until the early 1990's when most of the former Soviet allies shed socialism and switched allegiance to the West. Having often been flown by foreign volunteer or mercenary pilots such as the Cubans in Angola and South Africans in Sierra Leone, Soviet/Russian military aircraft can now be seen in countries as varied as Algeria, Libya, the Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Uganda, and Sudan. Combat types from the MiG-15 to the latest Su-30MK fighters, Su-24MK tactical bombers, Su-25 attack aircraft, Mi-24/25/35 helicopters and transports from the Antonov An-12 to the Il yushin Il-76 can all be seen across Africa. Arranged by country and using previously classified sources, Soviet and Russian Military Aircraft in Africa includes comprehensive fleet lists of all known Soviet/Russian military aircraft together with their Chinese derivatives. Highly illustrated with contemporary photographs, air force insignia and colour profiles this book forms an invaluable reference for modellers, enthusiasts and aviation historians alike.  HARDCOVER, 272 pages with over 300 photographs and 100 colour profiles.  Published April 2013 The title is imported on demand and a waiting period might apply.

The Encyclopedia of Modern Military Aircraft Ed. Paul Eden  A reprint softcover edition published by Amber books in 2007 Picture cover boards are as new, binding is tight & strong, no marks or inscriptions, an as new copy Packaging and Postage within South Africa R70.00 Overseas Customers can contact us for a Postal Quotation

AFRICA@WAR SERIES: VOLUME 6 CONGO UNRAVELLED: Military Operations from Independence to the Mercenary Revolt, 196068 Clearly and comprehensively explains the intrigues of the Congo wars Colonel Mike Hoare Post-independence events in the Republic of the Congo are a veritable Gordian knot. The ambitions of Congolese political leaders, Cold War rivalry, Pan-Africanism, Belgiums continued economic interests in the countrys mineral wealth, and the strategic perceptions of other southern African states all conspired to wrack Africas second largest country with uprisings, rebellions and military interventions for almost a decade. Congo Unravelled solves the intractable complexity of this violent period by dispassionately outlining the sequence of political and military events that took place in the troubled country. The reader is systematically taken through the first military attempts to stabilize the country after independence and the two distinguishing military campaigns of the decade - the United Nations military operations (Opration des Nations Unies au Congo, or ONUC) to end the secession of the Katanga Province, and the Dragon Operations led by Belgian paratroopers, supported by the US Air Force, launched to end the insurgency in the east of the country - are chronicled in detail. Finally, the mercenary revolt - an event that tainted the reputation of the modern mercenary in Africa - is described. Lesser known military events - Irish UN forces cut off from the outside world by Katangese gendarmes and mercenaries, and a combined military operation in which Belgian paratroopers were dropped from US Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft and supported by a mercenary ground force to achieve humanitarian ends - go far toward resolving the enigma surrounding post-independence Congo. Paperback, 72 pages. Illustrated throughout, including 8-page colour section.

US Army, Plane, F-86, Military, WWII, Korean War, Navy, The Forgotten War, Token Edition Technical Specs Presentation Country: Metal Purity: Box: Year of Issue: Weight: 1 oz CoA: Face Value: Dimensions: 40 Quality: Mintage: New token with capsule The North American F-86 Sabre, sometimes called the Sabrejet, was a transonic jet fighter aircraft. Produced by North American Aviation, the Sabre is best known as the United States' first swept wing fighter which could counter the similarly-winged Soviet MiG-15 in high-speed dogfights over the skies of the Korean War (1950ﾖ1953). Considered one of the best and most important fighter aircraft in that war, the F-86 is also rated highly in comparison with fighters of other eras. Although it was developed in the late 1940s and was outdated by the end of the '50s, the Sabre proved versatile and adaptable, and continued as a front-line fighter in numerous air forces until the last active operational examples were retired by the Bolivian Air Force in 1994. ____________________________________________________ Feel free to e-mail me with any questions.

1985. Large hard cover. 192 pages. Very good condition.  Over 1kg. Hostility between the West and the communist world is such an accepted part of modern life that it is all too easy to forget that in 1939 the Soviet Union was the world's only communist state and that the Soviet Union was then seemingly riven by purges and economic troubles and threatened abroad by the ravening power of Nazi Germany. Today the Soviet Union is master of the eastern half of Europe; China, the world's most populous country, is also communist and there are communist or single-party socialist states in central America, Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. The rise of communism began with the victories of the Red Army in World War II and the establishment of "people's democracies" in eastern Europe which quickly followed. The success of the Chinese communists in 1948 confirmed in many Western eyes the existence of a worldwide communist conspiracy, setting the stage for the Cold War confrontations of the fifties. The Korean War was fought to halt the expansion of this communist monolith, but there were soon signs of disharmony within the communist bloc as was seen in the growing independence of Yugoslavia and the Chinese-Soviet split. Such Dissent continues to the present day as persistent Sino-Soviet disputes and the efforts of Solidarity in Poland show. The Vietnam War, the Cuban intervention in Angola and the invasion of Afghanistan are examples of communist initiatives of the sixties and more recent times but in the same period Soviet missiles have been kept out of Cuba, a socialist government in Chile has been overthrown and Egypt has been weaned away from being a Soviet client.  

1985.  Hard  cover with dust cover. 231 pages. Very good condition. Under 1kg. CONTENTS Include: The Detente Legacy; The Current Crisis; Persian Gulf; Accommodating OPEC: The Chinese Connection; The Penetration of Africa; The Soviet-Cuban Partnership in America; Our current Military Posture; Restoring the Balance; APPENDICES: the SALT Delusion; The NATO disaster; Arms to the Arabs. The author lays bare the flawed assumptions that have ruled American foreign policy, from our unilateral détente concessions to the appeasement diplomacy of the Carter administration. The light-headed manner in which policy is made, particularly in regard to the Middle East and the Soviet threat to our oil supplies, is subjected to incisive analysis.

This book captures the experience of the South African Air Force helicopter pilot as never before; from 'rookie' to seasoned combat aviator in one of history's most intense counter-insurgency conflicts - the South African Border War. Nick Lithgow's work relates the gruelling endurance of SADF National Service and its grind, grind, grind... until one day, helicopter drills with an SAAF Puma, saw him optimistically apply for pilot training. Called to Pretoria, Nick completed the mandatory tests before returning to the Border to complete his duty. At the end of his National Service, Nick was surprised to receive instructions to report to the Air Force Gymnasium in Valhalla. Here he began training began in earnest with Harvard fixed wing trainers and the Impala jet, before long Nick had progressed to rotary aircraft - training on the Alouette and graduating to the Puma under the guidance of one of the SAAF's legendary instructors, 'Monster Wilkins'. An operational tour in Rhodesia followed with deployment to the South West African/Namibian Border. Here Search and Rescue, troop carrying and close air support operations became the order of the day -an intense cycle of briefings and operations with the ever present threat of small arms fire and surface to air missiles. LZ Hot!  is an unrivaled work - it relates the drama of recovering downed fighter pilots under fire, responding to the horror of mine-strikes with soldiers dreadfully injured and needing urgent evacuation, or deep penetration operations into Angola in support of South African Special Forces. It also relates the candour of mess life, the characters and incidents that amuse, delivering much needed relief from the demands of operational flying - Nick's accounts of mess dinner high-jinks are especially entertaining and will be recognisable to all who have served! Flying mountain rescue missions and responding to terrifying shipwrecks, a crazed Military Policeman during a casevac, Lithgow takes all in his stride. LZ Hot!  is a stunning, captivating read. Paperback, 176 pages 16 colour & b/w photos.  Published December 2012

Conflicting Missions  is a compelling and dramatic account of Cuban policy in Africa and of its escalating clash with US policy and later its direct military clashes with the South African Defence Force in Angola. It is the other side of a conflict that South Africans have not been told about until now. Gleijeses' narrative gallops from Cuba's first hesitant steps in rendering assistance to Algerian rebels fighting France in 1961, to the war in the Congo (later Zaire and now the Democratic Republic of Congo) in 1964-65, when 100 Cubans led by Che Guevara, acting in support of the Simba rebels, were confronted by white mercenaries from South Africa, Rhodesia, Britain and elsewhere - supported and controlled by America's Central Intelligence Agency. Gleijeses writes about the dramatic dispatch to Angola of Cuban troops to aid the communist-backed rebel MPLA movement in 1975. And how, being the rainy season, their destruction of the major river bridges in Angola's north contributed to halting the rapid and victorious advance of the seemingly unstoppable Battle Group Zulu of South Africa's SADF. The blocking of Battle Group Zulu from reaching Luanda led to political decisions by the US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, to call off the CIA's future operations in support of UNITA and the FNLA and to South African Prime Minister John Vorster withdrawing all South African forces from Angola. This left the MPLA and its Cuban and other communist allies in control. This was undoubtedly the most significant domino that would soon lead to the fall of white Rhodesia and ultimately to the handover of Namibia to SWAPO and finally to black rule in the Republic South Africa. Piero Gleijeses analysis is clear, rigorous and balanced; the archival research supporting it is unprecedented. Not only is he the first historian to have gained access to closed Cuban archives, he also worked extensively in the archives of the United States, Belgium, Great Britain and East and West Germany. In addition he interviewed many of the protagonists in the United States, Cuba and Africa - from the head of the CIA station in Luanda to Che Guevara's second-in-command in the Congo - and analysed the American, European, South African and other African press. The result is a remarkably comprehensive document that sheds new light on the history of those times. It  revolutionizes  our view of Cuba's international role, challenges conventional beliefs about the Soviet Union in directing Cuba's action in Africa and provides, for the first time, a look from the inside of Cuba's foreign policy during the Cold War Hardcover, 490 pages.  Published August 2005

THE CHOPPER BOYS Helicopter Warfare in Africa by Al J Venter ; Hardcover; Southern Book Publishers 1994 ISBN 1 86812 528 9    No. of Pages; 240 Review from " Goodreads "  Al J. Venter,   Richard Wood " Out of 5; 4.08     Rating details  ·  13 Ratings  ·  2 Reviews Covers the history of helicopter use throughout Africa, from the war in Rhodesia (1962-80) to the last days of Somalia. " Very good condition, no damage, no inscriptions added, a very nice copy. For postage via SA PO  and within S A   please add R60.00   alternatively Postnet to Postnet for a total combined weight of up to 5kg then please add R105.00. Buyers from outside of S A can contact me for a postal quote.  South African Air Force SAAF Helicopters Aircraft aviation military army war warfare 

 128 PAGE SOFTCOVER BOOK IN GOOD CONDITION. POST OFFICE POSTAGE = R50. / POSTNET TO POSTNET = R99                                             RUSSIAN MILITARY PLANES, RUSSIAN MILITARY AIRCRAFT, SOVIET AIRCRAFT, FLASHLIGHT, FIREBAR, BREWER,MANDRAKE, MANGROVE, 

AFRICA@WAR SERIES: VOLUME 9 SOMALIA: US INTERVENTION 1992-1994 The end of the Cold War introduced an altered global dynamic. The old bond of East/West patronage in Africa was broken, weakening the first crop of independent revolutionary leadership on the continent who no longer had the support of one or other of the superpowers. With collapse of the Soviet Union, all this changed. The question of global/strategic security devolved into regional peacekeeping and peace enforcement, characterized primarily by the Balkans War, but also many other minor regional squabbles across the developing world that erupted as old regimes fell and nations sought to build unity out of the ashes. In Africa the situation was exacerbated by an inherent tribalism and factionalism that had tended to be artificially suppressed by powerful, often military, dictatorships, generally unconcerned with the needs and requirements of an oppressed population. No more striking example of this can be found than Somalia. One of the only effective armed resistance movements mounted against European colonisation in Africa took place in Somalia, which was suppressed only after enormous military expenditure. The crisis in Somalia that began to take shape with the ouster of military leader Mohammed Siad Barre during the early years of the 1990s forced both the United States and the United Nations to adapt their collective military policy toward the challenges of peacekeeping, and peace enforcement, in a human environment only dimly understood, extremely austere in terms of local infrastructure and with a warring clan leadership. This book tells the story of the international intervention that took place in Somalia, the successes, failures and lessons learned. Many broad assumptions were made based on an unclear understanding of the dynamics of a regional conflict, coupled with the necessity for the first time in modern military history to balance political necessities with military. The crisis in Somalia set the tone for military intervention in a post-Cold War world, and although the same mistakes have been depressingly often repeated, the complexion of global military organization changed dramatically as a consequence of this episode. Paperback,  72 pages. 130 colour & b/w photos, maps  

AFRICA@WAR SERIES: VOLUME 26 The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale: Cold War Angolan Finale, 1987-1988 In the broad history of the Cold War, the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale was the climax of a far-off, but nonetheless important African war. It was waged between the apartheid South African Defence Force (SADF) and the armed forces of the communist MPLA government in Angola and the Peoples Republic of Cuba. Led by Soviet generals, the MPLA embarked on a grand offensive in order to knock out the pro-Western rebel movement UNITA in southeastern Angola. As UNITAs survival was crucial to South Africas military strategy in fighting its own counter-insurgency war against the South West African rebel movement SWAPO, the SADF stepped in with a single mechanised brigade and broke the back of the overwhelming MPLA offensive. The MPLA forces were subsequently driven back over a hundred kilometres, before the SADF advance was finally stopped just short of the town of Cuito Cuanavale. Since then, a hot war of words have been waged about who actually won. In this book, a South African military historian and retired journalist examines the campaign, the adversaries, and their achievements on the basis of his research in SADF archives. His scrupulous attempt at objectivity results in interesting conclusions. While the MPLA lost hands down, he posits a draw between the Cubans and the SADF. Although having been a South African reservist officer himself, he has critical words for the SADF leadership. Many misunderstandings, some of which were purposefully created by Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, are put to rest. While not sharing Castros political beliefs, he acknowledges Castros military acumen and political savvy in extricating his country from an unwinnable war while smelling of roses. The analysis contains many lessons about mechanised warfare in the African context from which both laymen and military professionals alike may learb. Paperback, 64 pages.  This title is imported on demand and dispatched within 15 working days depending on supplier.

AFRICA@WAR SERIES: VOLUME 34 War of Intervention in Angola - Volume 2: Angolan and Cuban Forces at War, 1976-1983  - Adrien Fontanellaz  As of mid-1976, the civil war in Angola was seemingly decided: supported by a large contingent of Cuban forces, the MPLA established itself in power in Luanda. Its native competitors, the US-French-Zaire-supported FNLA, and UNITA, supported by China and South Africa, were in tatters. The French and Zaire-supported FLEC an armed movement for the independence of the oil-rich Cabinda enclave was in disarray. The last few of their surviving units were either driven out of the country, or forced into hiding in isolated corners of northern and south-eastern Angola. Nevertheless, the war went on. The MPLAs government failed to decisively defeat UNITA, in southern Angola, and then found itself facing a coup attempt from within in May 1977. Crushed in blood, this resulted in thousands being jailed and tortured: many more escaped abroad, where they reinforced the ranks of the battered opposition. The coup prompted the Soviets to attempt increasing their influence with the aim of establishing permanent military bases in the country. While all such overtures were turned down, Angolan operations along the border to what was then the South-West Africa (subsequently Namibia) in October 1980, combined with the increased activity of SWAPO an insurgency against the South African control of that territory - subsequently Namibia prompted South Africa to launch another military intervention and resume supporting UNITA. In turn, this prompted not only the Cubans to further increase their military presence, but also the Soviet Union into delivering massive amounts of military aid to the government in Luanda. Angola not only assumed the role of one of the major hot battlefields in the Cold War: its civil war saw a number of major showdowns between diverse belligerents, culminating in the Battle of Cangamba in 1983. Based on extensive research, with help of Angolan and Cuban sources, the War of Intervention in Angola, Volume 2, traces the military build-up of the Cuban and Soviet-supported Angolan military, the FAPLA and its combat operations, and those of the Cuban military in Angola, in the period 1976-1983, their capabilities and intentions, and their battlefield performances. The volume is illustrated with over 100 rare photographs, half a dozen maps and 18 colour profiles. Paperback, 80 pages. 

Cook Islands, 1 Dollar, Antonov 124 CONDOR, Gilded Plane, Aircraft 2008 No Box Edition Technical Specs Presentation Country:   Cook Island Metal Purity:    Silver 0.999 Box:   Yes Year of Issue:   2008 Weight:   31,1 CoA:   Yes Face Value:   1 dollar Dimensions:   40,6     Quality:   Proof     Mintage:   3500   The Antonov An-124 Ruslan (Ukrainian: ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿ ¿¿-124 "¿¿¿¿¿¿") (NATO reporting name: Condor) is a strategic airlift jet aircraft. It was designed by the Antonov design bureau in the Ukrainian SSR, then part of the Soviet Union (USSR). Until the Boeing 747-8F, the An-124 was, for thirty years, the world's highest aircraft gross weight production cargo airplane and second heaviest operating cargo aircraft, behind the one-off Antonov An-225 (a greatly enlarged design based on the An-124). The An-124 remains the largest military transport aircraft in the world. ____________________________________________________  Feel free to e-mail me with any questions.

In 1945, as the Allied forces approached the German border having fought so bravely following the successful Normandy landings, it was decided that an elite unit was needed to work alongside the frontline soldiers as they headed east: they were called Target-Force. Until now their story has never appeared in any histories of the period. Through extensive archival work and after interviewing many of the soldiers who tell their story here for the first time, historian Sean Longden can finally reveal the previously unknown story of the men who were sent into Germany to seize and secure highly developed Nazi military technology, key factories and scientists.T-Force was born out of the chaos of war torn Europe in 1945, and it is no wonder the story reads like a spy thriller: the unit was top secret and originated from a plan belonging to the Naval intelligence officer, Ian Fleming, later the creator of James Bond. The unit was selected from the remnants of the infantry after Normandy and included drivers, sappers, bomb disposal experts, commandos and teams of expert scientists, specialists and engineers. What they discovered would not only shock the allied army but also play a huge role in the opening years of the Cold War. Between March and summer 1945, the unit was constantly at work seizing targets in towns such as Bremen, Celle, Hamburg and Hanover, where they uncovered a secret laboratory hidden beneath a straw covered floor of a barn, vast blast furnaces in Ruhr Valley steel works that were dismantled and shipped back to England, and a fully functioning aircraft factory operating in two miles of underground tunnels. They went in search of codebooks that could decrypt the enemys signals; new technology such as jet propelled engines, and mini submarines. They also hunted down the men behind these extraordinary feats: nearly 1,000 top scientists, some smuggled out of the Soviet Zone in unmarked lorries, including Werner Von Braun, the brains behind the V1 and V2 rockets who was to become a key figure in the American space race, Otto Hahn, Germanys foremost expert in nuclear fission and Helmut Walther, the man who inspired Ian Flemings Moonraker.Sean Longdens riveting history will change the story of how the second World War was won and how the first battles of the Cold War were fought; it reads like the finest espionage thriller of the era.