Cuito Cuanavale, Battle of, Cuito Cuanavale, Angola, 1987-1988

The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale was fought intermittently between 14 August 1987 and 23 March 1988, south and east of Cuito Cuanavale, Angola, by the People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA) and Cuba against South Africa and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) during the Angolan Civil War and South African Border War. The battle was the largest engagement of the Angolan conflict and the biggest conventional battle on the African continent since World War II. UNITA and its South African allies defeated a major FAPLA offensive towards Mavinga, preserving UNITA's control of southern Angola. A subsequent counteroffensive was launched around the Tumpo River east of Cuito Cuanavale, and succeeded in ending FAPLA advances but failed to eliminate all remaining FAPLA positions. After several failed attempts to take control of Southern Angola in 1986, eight FAPLA brigades mustered for a final offensive—Operation Saluting October—in August 1987 with extensive auxiliary support from the Soviet Union. The FAPLA offensive took the form of a two-pronged, multi-divisional movement southwards towards Mavinga, a major UNITA stronghold and logistics centre. Once Mavinga was in its hands, FAPLA intended to expel the remaining insurgents from Moxico Province and pave the way for a final assault on the UNITA headquarters at Jamba. The Soviet Union supplied FAPLA with over a billion dollars' worth of new military hardware for the purpose of this offensive, and Soviet advisers were attached to each FAPLA unit on the brigade level. South Africa, which shared a border with Angola through the contested territory of South West Africa (Namibia), was then determined to prevent FAPLA from gaining control of Mavinga and allowing insurgents of the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) to operate in the region. Saluting October prompted the South African Defence Force (SADF) to underpin the defence of Mavinga and launch Operation Moduler with the objective of stopping FAPLA's advance. After weeks of preliminary skirmishes, the two armies met at the Lomba River on 6 September. Throughout September and October, the SADF repulsed several FAPLA attempts to cross the Lomba and destroyed most of FAPLA's vital bridging equipment. Repeated counterattacks by the SADF's 61 Mechanised Battalion Group resulted in the annihilation of FAPLA's 47 Brigade and the loss of its remaining bridgeheads, forcing the remainder of the FAPLA units to withdraw towards positions east of Cuito Cuanavale. During the second phase of the campaign, the SADF and UNITA made several unsuccessful attempts to encircle and destroy the surviving FAPLA forces before they could establish new defensive positions east of Cuito Cuanavale, an initiative known as Operation Hooper. However, FAPLA succeeded in concentrating its forces within a cramped perimeter between the Cuito, Tumpo, and Dala rivers known as the "Tumpo Triangle". Here they were protected by the terrain and by extensive minefields. They were also reinforced by Cuban armoured and motorised units, which had become more directly committed to the fighting for the first time since the beginning of Cuba's military intervention in Angola in 1975. Over two months the SADF and UNITA launched six unsuccessful assaults on the Tumpo Triangle under the auspices of Operation Packer. The defending FAPLA and Cuban troops held their lines in the Tumpo Triangle. The SADF and UNITA disengaged in March 1988, after laying a series of minefields southeast of Cuito Cuanavale to dissuade a renewed FAPLA offensive. Both sides claimed victory. The Cuban and FAPLA commanders had interpreted the SADF's Tumpo Triangle campaign as part of a larger effort to seize the town of Cuito Cuanavale itself, and they presented their stand there as a successful defensive action. The SADF achieved its basic objectives of halting the FAPLA offensive toward Mavinga, and decided not to occupy Cuito Cuanavale itself, which they claimed would have entailed unacceptable losses to their expeditionary force. Today, the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale is credited by some with ushering in the first round of trilateral negotiations, mediated by the United States, which secured the withdrawal of Cuban and South African troops from Angola and Namibia by 1991.