The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale: Cold War Angolan Finale, 1987–1988 (Africa@War) Paperback – October 13, 2016

Leopold gives a clear factual description of what happened. His research is good and he expresses the overall picture clearly. The next chapter in the story of Cuito or the East as us SWATF Officers called it should be The Men Speak. The question is who is steely enough to tackle that mammoth task? A challenge for Leopold and Helmoed and a few others! I enjoyed Leopold's account.

Liked the professional journalistic approach.

Much has been said about the battle and who won it. Mostly the opinions are based on a political narrative. But clearly those lack credibility. In this book the battle is properly researched, through interviews and written records. It gives a balanced view with a surprising result.

Despite being a relatively well known Cold War proxy conflict, there is surprisingly little to nothing written about what is likely one of the largest wars ever fought in Sub-Saharan Africa.So the subject matter is important, the sequence of events is quite well presented and the book's format is fun to peruse or read front to back. I just have an issue with the author's clear bias favoring S. Africa in a war that deserves far more nuance.

I really liked this book. Short, comprehensive, and organized well enough to really help make some sense of the military campaign. I also appreciated the author's opinions and critiques through. I've already loaned it to another amateur historian and would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone else.

both orders came with not dent scratch and came ahead of time thanks

Well done

The author presented a very biased account of events. His disdain for Angolans, Cubans, and Russians is clear, as is his view of post-apartheid political figures. He worships certain middle rank cliques within the S.A. military (the overrated and egomaniacal Roland Devries, for example) while openly and unfairly denouncing any higher ranks who had to manage the tricky politics of an unpopular by a country with degrading internal security. I would say he is biased against English South Africans as well: in one picture of several bearded young men he notes their appearance resembles those of their forebears from the Boer wars. On top of this, there is not a lot of useful info on The operations and The pictures are mostly of destroyed Angolan equipment and SA Olifant tanks 1st Bing around or sitting at rest. The author probably needs to stick with Afrikaans audiences who buy them into his extreme viewpoints. Save your money.

I have read many publications about the "Border war", The personal experiences is exactly what it is from the perspective of each individual. This publication is an objective analysis of factual information from original resources resulting in a excellent and enjoyable read.

Libro di facile lettera. Si concentra sull’ultimo periodo della guerra tra Sud Africa ed Angola. Più che altro è un veloce sunto.

A good overall summary from the South African side of the fighting between the various parties in Angola in 1987 and 1988. The text is accompanied by good maps and lots of combat photos. The author, who fought there, has strong opinions of how the South African Defence Force (SADF) should have operated, and does not always agree with the generals on the spot. Fought over difficult terrain far from major cities the campaign opened up with MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) offensives on the UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola ) faction but into this came SADF units and Cuban army formations sent by Fidel Castro. The clash of conventional and unconvential war fighting styles (and the SADF desire to keep casualties low) made for some dramatic assymetries and some of the largest armoured combats seen in sub-Safaran Africa.

A translation from Afrikaans to English bring some unintended focus on spelling and format. However on the whole a thorough briefing with some excellent maps. And a above all the photos emphasize the true difficulty the SADF had in undertaking the missions given to them.

All good thanks.