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Almost certainly the Tanzanian artillery.

No 120 mm mortars there that I am aware of, they only deploy rarely. 107 mm MLRS may be there, but was not involved in this.

Probaly true. I find it hard to see a 81mm morta destoying a T55. Could be credit due to us providing the targeting info and damge assement and thuse some one assumed we called in our own arty. Or some one forgot the DC from SADC arty.

Probably just someone who was misinformed or confused, as the South Africans and Tanzanians were both involved in the action. I'm not sure if joint training or the ops setup ever got to the point where cross-national fire support mission calls are possible.

I would hope it did reach that point. They fighting has a brigade not inpended battlions there could be SA and tanzian People in the HQ. Is the second in command not a south african in any case.

Could it not perhaps be a Journalist not knowing what artillery is? Do we have Milans deployed?

If the deployed the infantry battlion at full srength they should have a few milians. And seeing has how it not new that the rebels have T55s, BTRs, PT76s and BMPs or there chinnes coppies I hope they went in with all the bells and whistels. Would hat to think we left our guys there with only RPGs to fight tanks when we have the most up to date version of the milian aviabel.

The FIB is not as well-equipped as it should be. Ambition met reality.

Where is malwi. Are they still AWOL.

The Malawian battalion is there. As far as I can tell the FIB is now operational with all elements in place except for dedicated combat or transport helicopters.

@Darren

Thank you for your factual, to the point and most informative synopsis reflecting the situation on the ground in the DRC. Without your informed contribution, this thread / subject would have descended into speculation, misinformation and make-belief bravado.

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Where are the "embedded" journalists?
Why are we not seeing "...reporting live from the Goma area." on tv news every night?
That's the main reason why so many South Africans don't care about defence - they don't know what's really going on.
Keeping "the masses" ignorant plays into the agenda of the "we don't need a defence force, SA has no enemies" brigade.

It seems to me that the Malawians are being forced to keep a low profile because the DRC government believes they are actually supporting the M23 rebels - http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/afr ... story.html
The artillery unit of the Intervention Brigade is Tanzanian.

Agreed.

Keeping the masses in the dark, in the case of SA that's 80% of the population, the government will and can get away with anything. The masses neither care nor understand the world of intellectual information, analytic questioning, insistence on factually correct information or anything that's beyond their immediate scope of interest. The world of global politics right down to technicalities such as Gripens in storage, is of no importance to them. It has no bearing on their day to day life and therefor "no reporting live from Goma".

As an aside - does the subject line not need changing, seeing as Tanzanians have the artillery

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It is the media that keeps them in the dark. Etv had reports in the DRC once apon a time but where are they now.


Just had DC at the end of SA.

sob, you are one of the biggest criticizers of the media on this Forum. Now you want that very same media to keep you informed ?! How do you explain that?

It is firstly the job of your 'government' to keep its electorate informed. However, as I've stated before, because the electorate / the masses don't care, the government is quite happy to keep them in the dark.

It is 'government' by the principles of the tokoloshe

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How has the goverment not kept us informed of the DRC mission. We know how many solders we sent, how much it costs and that how forces are near the front line in defencef postions. Any more info and it becomes leaking intel to the enemy. Hell the SANDF has a You tube chanel. Yesterday I watched a 30min documantry they made on the 3 day selecstion to become a para bat (and how women did not get any speciol treatment) showing every part of the selcstion.

The media could apply for a tour of simmons town any time. School kids vist us all the time. Instead they sit in a office and don't fact check the rubish they put out.