It was an impressive display amid the smoke, dust and diesel fumes. Guns blazed, jets bombed, and tanks and armoured cars churned up the red sand of the army’s combat training centre at Lohatlha in the Northern Cape.
The recent Exercise Ukuthula got the thumbs up from many of those who attended, among them military attachés from foreign countries. One of the visitors remarked that the exercise sent a clear statement: "Don’t stuff around with the SANDF [SA National Defence Force]."
By all accounts the "end battle" that brought down the curtain on the exercise won praise for the defence force.
"We too often say the SANDF is not ready and has issues. This exercise truly states something else. Even with so little budget it was amazing to see this on the ground and live," the visitor said.
It was a good show, but it was just a show. Of the fighting vehicles in action, only a few would be able to make it to SA’s borders, let alone beyond the borders and further into Africa.
The exercise is an annual one and the culmination of junior and senior staff courses for officers and noncommissioned officers. As a cost-saver, members from other courses are also involved in this single exercise to test standard operating procedures and to practise the doctrine and theory of their courses in a conventional battle situation.
Those with an interest in things military would have had an adrenaline rush watching such a demonstration. Afterwards, everyone would have gone home, satisfied that the defence force still functions, somehow. This year the army used its concept of a "modern brigade" as the focus of the exercise. The vehicles used are stationed and maintained at the centre all year.
Armoured and artillery formations, normally based at Bloemfontein and Potchefstroom, took part. But at their training bases they do not have serviceable equipment on which to train their soldiers.
According to senior officers, the demise of Denel and the rest of the armaments industry has meant that only level 1 (out of four) maintenance on the vehicles is possible. For any projection into a real incursion, levels 2 to 4 maintenance are required, but these are nonexistent.
Level 1 is done at the home unit by the vehicle’s driver and without specialised tools. Level 2 is also at the home unit but requires components such as engines and gearboxes.
Levels 3 and 4 mean the vehicles need to be serviced at a bigger maintenance unit, or by specialists in the industry. Most of the army’s vehicles are more than 40 years old and need spares and components that have to be manufactured. Denel and its divisions are the original manufacturer, but because of their reduced state they cannot carry out the maintenance. To compound the problem, the defence budget doesn’t have the money for it anyway.
"Our whole conventional force thus consists of one understrength brigade with precious little logistics support," one frustrated senior officer tells the FM. "That includes the recovery vehicles, fuel bowsers, trucks and others. We cannot move that same brigade from Lohatlha to Beitbridge border post. Ammunition stocks are very close to depletion on most calibre guns, especially for the G5 and G6 guns. What we have is an illusionary force preparing for an illusionary situation."
Salaries and allowances consume about 80% of the budget, leaving no room for new equipment or topping up ammunition.
Defence analysts say a total rethink of the SANDF is needed. The current force structure is supposed to be following the concept of "form follows function", which is no longer the reality.
"It is no longer expected of the SANDF to defend the country against a conventional threat," another senior officer says. "We need to do border protection and stabilisation interventions such as earlier this year in KwaZulu-Natal and in Gauteng. No neighbouring country will attack us in any conventional way.
"There is no need to prepare forces for battle conditions or for a good demonstration to massage egos once a year. Everybody within the department of defence complains about the budget being slashed. The budget is too small because we want to do the wrong things."
Behind the scenes of the annual show, there are dire warnings of the SANDF’s continuing decline
Recently the Defence Force Service Commission, which investigated the state of the SANDF, delivered its findings to parliament’s joint standing committee on defence.
Vice-Admiral Asiel Kubu, the defence force human resources chief, painted a picture of a force on its knees with soldiers deployed but not provided with food.
Reports appeared of "starving" special forces soldiers deployed in northern Mozambique to fight insurgents. Those soldiers fell ill because of rotten food and dirty water. SANDF spokesperson Brig-Gen Andries Mahapa denied that they were left to "starve", blaming it on a broken fridge.
But another senior officer is less sanguine. "In many ways we have gone far beyond the point of no return. Artillery, armour, an air force without fighter jets and too few Rooivalk and Oryx helicopters — and, alas, a navy whose frigates and submarines are not fit for blue-water conditions, are what we have," the senior officer tells the FM. "You can try to sugarcoat it, but it’s moer toe [in a really bad state]!"
During an earlier parliamentary briefing, Brig-Gen Lester Gardiner, director of military strategy, warned that the defence force was in a critical state of decline, "characterised by force imbalances, unaffordability of its main operating systems, the inability to meet current standing defence commitments, and the lack of critical mobility".
He added: "Left unchecked and at the present funding levels, this decline will severely compromise and further fragment SA’s defence capability."
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