Modern African Wars (1) 1965-80 : Rhodesia (Men at Arms Series, 183)

This is an informative book that anyone interested in history can rapidly read and understand the cause and effects of current modern wars in Africa.

A another great book put out by Osprey (actaully 3 book series on Africa). Volume 1 is on the Rhodesia Bush War 1965-1980. This 48 page booket is full of historical text, photo's, drawings and techincal data. It is a great intro book into the wars of Africa which have been fought form 1960 until the present. It is one of the best small book I have read with alot of into packed into a book. Great book at any price.

This is another excellent history from Osprey . They keep the book length short and yet are able to give a good overview of this mostly misunderstood war . I recomend it . Lee

If you can find one and afford it, get it. Highly recomended!!!!!

a title I have been seeking for sometime! all of the osprey references are very informative.

Well written & well illustrated reference book.

This book gives a good overview of the conflict, focusing only on what is important and detailing the units and major actions. The authors' prose is delightful, making it hard to drop the book once you start reading it. For its size, Peter Abbott and Philip Botham did manage to put a lot of useful information on this 48 page MAA. Unfortunately, as this book is from 1986, all photographs are Black&White. The authors did a decent job at presenting the Rhodesian badges and insignias, but missed the opportunity to add the famous badges of the RLI, the SAS and the Selous Scouts as insets on the plates. Another problem is Peter Abbott's preference for showing walking out and cerimonial uniforms at the expense of combat uniforms, and the appearence of the plates do not reflect the actual appearence of the fighting men while "in the bush". The single biggest mistake of this book is to have only one plate of an RLI "Troupie", and using the Army Greens instead of the usual shorts with chest pouches and the typical field cap modelled after the French "Bigeard cap", with the Rhodesians using both locally manufactured and Portuguese ones. This fault is worsened by Abbott's choice to include a Zambian soldier in cerimonial dress; a plate that is very detached from the subject. Another major blunder was to add Joshua N'Komo as a plate. Also, only two guerrillas are depicted, none using the almost universal "ChiCom" chest pouches, which is not depicted in any plate at all! The Selous Scout in plate C3 is unconvincing, as every picture about this unit shows heavily bearded men and they were nicknamed "Armpits" because of that, and the soldier depicted completely lacks facial hair. The regimental history of the Selous Scouts, as presented in this book, neglects the contribution of the Portuguese PIDE in its formation. Most plates are unarmed, and the SAS trooper is only depicted in his walking-out dress. The SAS and the RLI had to use AT guns in External Operations, so it would have been sensible to depict at least one AT operator. There is also a complete absence of Chinese advisors, that had a more important contribution to the war effort than the Zambian soldier in parade dress in plate F3. Also, Mugabe received North Korean advisors after the end of the war, and those advisors trained the Zimbabwe Army in its fight agains RENAMO (also neglected in the plates). Overall, a very good primer, with a clear and very readable text, but disappointing in terms of color plates. A solid four stars.

Like most Osprey books this title comes in at roughly 50 pages in length. The book is short; however, it is also concise and to the point. Some people are interested only in a large overview of certain military situations, and Osprey does the job masterfully with the overview. I knew next to nothing when reading this book on the Rhodesian Bush War of 1965-1980. The book did provide an interesting starting point to the fifteen year struggle between the white minority government of Rhodesian at the time, and the African nationalists who were waging a war to rid their country of white colonialism. With the massive disparity in men and resources (white Rhodesia had a population of 270,000 to roughly 5,000,000 black Africans) the war was an uphill climb from the beginning. The book characters the men who fought and died on both sides of the rifle; it also does a decent job of keeping the topic unbiased and neutral. With a topic like this, people usually get pretty torn up over it, and Osprey kept it professional the whole way through. Like I mentioned before, this is only a starting point to understanding the war. I also got Paul Moorcraft's "Rhodesian Bush War" book to fill in some of the blanks left by Osprey, and together they paint a rather complete picture of the trials and failures of an incredible minority's struggle to ward off decolonization in the twentieth century.

Libro ok

read

Excellent paperback, plenty of pictures and explanations regarding the various armies in this civil war. Very useful book for research purposes.

Tolle Bilder,gut geschrieben.

ecco mi ricordo quando le moderne guerre africane trattate in questa serie di volumi Osprey, di cui questo è il primo, erano cronaca quotidianamente trattata sui giornali, oggi è storia. E sul piano storico queste trattazioni sono senza dubbio utili per capire l'attualità mentre sul piano uniformologico forniscono, come sempre per le pubblicazioni di questa casa, notizie (e un supporto iconografico) molto preciso, ricco e dettagliato. Indipendentemente dal tema trattato (e cercato dal lettore) le pubblicazioni Osprey non deludono mai.