African Mercenary Loadout

[JackofBlades2448]

I never made the cold war connection myself- Lookin forward to reading about that. You don't need to see zulu to see the warrior culture of Africa -_but as for the millitarization and use of modern weapons- that I didnt know. I guess you kind of answered my rhetorical African - AK47 question there. Obviously those days are finito but I think there's a drug connection too

Namely diamonds for cocaine- won't do much for peaceful resolution of the many, many civil wars maybe?

Good list though I've checked some blurbs on those and they look,fascinating.

[Imperator]

In Angola, the Cold War connection was very present!
UNITA was backed by US during the conflict with Portugal, while MPLA (that came to power after the independence in 1975, and still remains in power today) was backed by the USSR and Cuba. Portuguese troops actually fought against Cuban troops, in some occasions.
After the independence of Angola, in 1975, as I stated earlier, some Portuguese troops and settlers went to fight in the Buffalo Battalion for South Africa. The last operation that Daniel Roxo, the White Devil, took part was Operation Savana, against said Cuban troops. He died a few months later when his jeep capsized due to an IED, trapping him under it. In Operation Savana, the Cubans took 400 casualties, while Buffalo, comprised mostly by Portuguese mercenaries, took 4 casualties.

[JackofBlades2448]

Yeah, Those post apartheid mercs would just tear their way through the landscape wiping out everything - you should read about Executive Outcomes (the outcome is they execute everybody you don't like for the right price). Superior equipment is obviously a major part but a lot of its just sheer training and experience-these lot were the real thing though - everybody makes a big deal of Blackwater, but they really more about VIP protection and defensive security stuff.

[ninja master of coffee]

The crazy thing is, executive outcomes ended up training the MPLA after the war ended. One of the biggest reasons conflicts have been so intractable is that the colonial powers more or less ignored tribal territories when carving out their own so rather than having a region more or less being the home of a given ethnic group borders frequently cut through one ethnic groups territory and forcing them to live in the same country as one or two others. Add to that some groups got preferential treatment under colonial rule with all the resentment that is likely to leave and you have a recipe for some really nasty conflicts.

[Biggus]

you should read about Executive Outcomes (the outcome is they execute everybody you don't like for the right price).

I've read the same stuff.  It's nonsense.  Stuff to sell newspapers.  I'd strongly recommend with Four Ball, One Tracer by Roelf van Heerden for a start.  I'd also recommend Eeben Barlow's blog.

 

On the AK question, regarding where the majority come from, the answer is simple:  Eastern bloc sponsors during the Cold War.  Lots of Soviet and East German AKMs, occasionally other Eastern European ones too.  Chinese backed insurgencies often had Chinese clones of AKs and SKSs.  Type 56s have continued to flow in from time to time, given Chinese investment and relationships with African nations.  The Nigerians were tooling up for a Type 56 clone about a decade ago, but I don't believe they went ahead with production.  Egypt made (and possibly still makes) AKMs, Angola recently received a number of AK74s (probably Bulgarian) for their special forces, and the Libyans were receiving AK103s prior to the revolution.  There are probably others that I'm leaving out.  South Africa has enough 7.62x39mm that they looked at either producing or converting their R4 and R5 stocks to the calibre.  Plenty of ammunition factories that have been set up mostly with Chinese help. 

 

Africa is far more diverse than oil and diamonds.  There's a drug trade, but my reading leads me to believe that the people on the African end of the trade are heads of state or at least part of governments, and as such don't really need illicit weapons - they control national armies or parts thereof.