Rhodesia ‘Formidable’

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31042, 23 April 1966, Page 17

Rhodesia ‘Formidable’

(A’ Z P A -Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, April 22.

Two leading military experts said today that armed intervention by Britain or African States against Rhodesia would be difficult, and would require a force of between 20,000 and 30,000 men in order to prevent excessive bloodshed.

Mr David Wood and Mr W. F. Gutteridge, both British military researchers, gave this estimate of the size and strength of any armed intervention that would be required to topple Mr lan Smith’s government.

In a paper prepared for the Institute of Strategic Studies —an unofficial body whose members include top politicians and military experts —they said it was “easy to underestimate the advantages which Rhodesia enjoys by virtue of her clear-cut frontier with Zambia and her | distance from the main I centres of African influence.” “NOT EASY” I Intervention south of the | river Zambesi, which forms the frontier betwen Rhodesia land Zambia, “even by a | major power like Britain would not be easy.” Rhodesia’s military strength, apart from paramilitary resources and 28,500 reservists, was placed by the report at 3400 soldiers with an Air Force of 900 men and six squadrons of planes and helicopters. It was probable that the strength, morale and endurance of the Rhodesian defence forces had been overestimated in the context of a deteriorating economy, the report said, but this was only really significant in relation to possible major-power intervention.

“Rhodesia’s geographical position, the current docility of her African population, and her relative military strength make her position comparatively formidable from a pan-African standpoint,” the report said.

Since mid-1964, the aggregate strength of ■ African forces might have increased from about 400,000 to about 480,000, excluding Rhodesia and South Africa. The United Arab Republic was responsible for about 50,000 of this increase. But while numbers had risen, there had been no corresponding increase in capacity by African armies for action outside their own frontiers.