Why Operation Lighting Thunder Failed.

Kampala- On November 26^th  1977 White Rhodesia woke up to the news that on November 23^rd  at a quarter to eight in the morning, White Rhodesian security forces launched Operation Dingo, a combined air and ground attack against Robert Mugabe’s  Zimbabwe Africa National Liberation Army (ZANLA) camps at Chiomio and Tembue in Mozambique ninety kilometers away from the Zimbabwean border. Ten aircraft and two hundred ground troops were set against 10,000 ZANLA forces. (Rhodesian SAS Troopers Below)

White Rhodesian forces hit the camp with a wave of bombers, which were followed by helicopter gunships  before prepositioned ground troops drawn from the Rhodesian SAS and the Rhodesian Light Infantry finished off those who the planes and the gunships had not killed. When the dust and the smoke cleared, there were three thousand confirmed ZANLA dead and as many as five thousand wounded. Two days later, on November 25^th the smaller camp of Tembue was hit. After action reports indicated the body count could have been higher had there been more ground troops assigned to the mission.

In military terms, Operation Dingo is an example of perfect planning and flawless execution. In the planning and execution all nine principles of war, mass, clarity of objective, surprise, economy of force, maneuver, unity of command, security and simplicity were held to a tee and the results were clear. Rhodesian security forces deployed ninety kilometers outside Rhodesia killed three thousand combatants, losing two of their number and in the process putting the fear of God in ZANLA.

On December 14^th 2008 Ugandans woke up to the news that the regional governments Uganda, DR Congo and Southern Sudan had launched Operation Lightning Thunder to put paid to the Kony menace Unlike White Rhodesia three decades earlier Uganda was not celebrating success, it was full of questions.  By far the most disturbing picture was of a group of armed men standing before basins, jerry cans, plastic chairs and a guitar items which allegedly belonged to Joseph Kony. As a country we were hoping that the UPDF had finally killed or captured Kony as opposed to capturing his Kaunda suit.

Why did Uganda fail where Rhodesia succeeded? The key failure was a failure of mass. Where Rhodesian Security Forces were able to concentrate all their firepower on a single target at a specific time, UPDF applied force in a piece meal fashion. Operation Lightning Thunder failed because the UPDF did not apply firepower in a concentrated manner. The  fighter jets were not designed for ground attack and the helicopter assets were insufficient.

The ground combat element, a key component of the entire operation did not make their objective in time because they were slowed down by a combination of bad weather and difficult terrain. The challenges presented as reasons could have been reasonably been anticipated. At H-hour, what should have been a thunderous concentrated blow was an effort devoid of focus and thus potency. 

The failure to mass firepower has been blamed largely on the weather, the rain and the attendant fog and low lying clouds had delayed the aerial attack. General Tinyefuza in his impassioned article argued we had and still have no control over the weather.  He argues Uganda did not have a meteorology department in Garamba and neither did the DRC. With all due respect to the general that argument has no legs.http://www.independent.co.ug/cover-story/531-tinyefuza-tells-off-generals-on-garamba-attack

Granted, the attack was launched in what is the dry season for that part of Congo however, based on data available in the public domain, Garamba national park (see aerial picture below) receives 1260MM of rainfall annually. Uganda as a whole receives 1574 mm of rainfall annually. The argument I am making is, that it rained in Garamba that day, should not have come as a surprise to anyone. The attendant fog and low cloud cover that delayed the deployment of the fighter planes should have been factored into the operational plans.

A combination of the terrain and the weather also hampered the ground combat element. The average soldier can walk six kilometers per hour carrying full combat gear over relatively even ground. The terrain in Garamba is characterized by forest, swamp and or savannah covered by high elephant grass. Even without the rain, which turned the ground into a soggy, jellylike mess it would have been impossible for the ground combat element to reach their objective in time. (Ugandan troops in Congo below)

Still on the issue of the weather General Tinyefuza argues, First of all, it is not true that an army can have 100 per cent certainty on weather conditions even when they use meteorologists. You can see how Israel today is facing problems in bombing Gaza because of unforeseen weather conditions. During the Gulf War in 1991, US forces had to suspend bombing for seven days until weather conditions improved. Besides, Uganda could not have had a meteorology department in Garamba. DRC does not have one either. But when Plan A could not work, we employed Plan B. That is why we had contingency plans to substitute MiGs with helicopter gunships in the initial assault on Garamba. (A road in Democratic Republic Congo below)

First off, MIG -21 fishbed planes were designed as fighters, which is they went head to head against other planes and interceptors, which is they went head to head against bombers.  The other way of putting this is they were not specifically designed to destroy targets on the ground. The then Soviet Union had used them with limited success in Afghanistan in the 70’s and 80’s which in part led to the design of the SU-25 frogfoot (see picture) a pure ground attack plane. The limitation of the MIGs was immediately apparent; with a high operating ceiling somewhere in the region of 2000m they were not very useful because fog and low lying clouds limited their operational capabilities.  Furthermore in a ground attack role, MIG-21 planes carry 1.5 tons of ordnance, compare that with the SU-25 which carries 5 tons of ordnance.  The MIG-21 was not the best weapon system for a ground attack mission.

Attack helicopters or gunships are a valuable asset, Uganda’s principle gunship is the MI-24 Hind, and it is an impressive weapon by all accounts. However, according to the Military Balance a publication by the prestigious International Institute for Strategic Studies, Uganda has six gunships with only two (2) being functional. The other four are part of the flawed procurement process (junk chopper scandal).

This begs the question, even with its impressive capabilities how would two gunships deliver the firepower necessary to destroy the three camps lighting thunder was targeting? It may be argued that the other helicopter assets such as the MI-8 hip can be fitted for fire support missions but their pay load which affects the amount of firepower they can bring to bear is limited because they are primarily troop carriers.

We are familiar with the well-worn cliché the best coaches and players are always in the stands and that is why I have limited my critique to facts and information that was available at the time the operation was launched. A failure to bring all the firepower to bear at H-hour meant the UPDF was simply not in a position to hammer Kony decisively. 

Operation Lightning Thunder.

Kampala - It was meant to be our finest hour, a lightning fast air raid followed by a thunderous blow from elements of the Special Forces. A Uganda Peoples Defense forces (UPDF) air-ground taskforce equipped with fighter planes, attack helicopters and elite forces, poised to deliver a telling blow to the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) a rebel force equipped with nothing more than assault rifles, razor sharp machetes and a potent ideological mix of traditional religion and an insane reinterpretation of the Bible and the Ten Commandments.

The LRA has proved to be resilient, while several armed groups have come and gone, the LRA has persisted. Carefully reading the geopolitical signs, it has survived by remaining relevant to one destabilizing agenda after another. And, in that time has built a gruesome reputation founded on kidnap, the venerable AK- 47 assault rifle and razor sharp machetes.   

The protagonists were thus not unfamiliar with each other, having been locked in a macabre embrace for more than two decades.

Zero hour

December 14^th 2008, in a tent somewhere in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Operation Lighting Thunder planning staff are only mildly anxious as they pore over maps of North Eastern Congo. Outside; mechanics obsessively check the planes and the helicopters.

Men from the newly formed Special Forces Group in full battle gear stand  in groups checking and rechecking their rifles. The air is tense. They will be inserted into battle by helicopters, they are the lucky ones, somewhere in the vastness beyond several companies of men, the blocking force, are walking to the objective.

The weather has cast a deciding vote, it has been raining and there is thick fog, the Mig- 21 planes, the crucial first wave cannot deploy. In the tent, there is whispered talk about how the weather slowed down Operation Overlord the allied invasion of Europe and it turned out to be a success and how the air campaign in Gulf War One had been halted for a whole seven days because of bad weather.

The  mission commander asks his signaler to reach out to the blocking force, the report is not good, the rain has turned the ground into a gelatinous mess, they may not make the objective in time. The clock winds down.

The window of opportunity is slowly closing; mission command reaches out to the blocking force again what is their status. Progress is still slow they will not make the objective in time.

The meteorologist comes in, there is good news, the weather has cleared enough for the fighter’s to be launched. The mission commander calls a meeting attendees are the air wing commander, the ground forces commander, the operation intelligence officer and lays the options on the table; the ground component will not be in place in time. The weather has cleared enough for them to launch the fighters, the new plan is air assets only. 

Without the ground troops there is a real chance Kony will escape into the vastness of Garamba. An attack from the air will deprive him of food and shelter and may kill off some of his forces. Furthermore there is no telling what vindictive, retributive wrath he will unleash upon the people of north eastern Congo. Will this constitute victory?

There is silence around the table, each of these men know this is not only about killing Kony, it is one the most important auditions in their lives, it is about proving the post- Luwero generation of officers and men have what it takes. It is also about proving that the new bi service model of the UPDF can work.

After Action report.

A lot has been written about that day December 14 2008, the mission failed in its cardinal aim killing Joseph Kony and yet it was a success in the sense that it showed all and sundry that Uganda has evolving capabilities, there is no such thing as a safe haven.

Why talk about this operation three year after the fact? In 2008 the Americans offered technical and financial support, in 2011 they have offered boots on the ground, the Chinese have offered money some would say a violation of their long held tenet of non-interference and the Europeans have offered to build a base.

In 2011 the battle to end the Kony menace is a microcosm of the much wider battle between the US and China and to some extent the EU for what has been called the Post-American Era. In the second part of this is three part piece I will highlight the key failures of the initial strike in December 2008, and lastly I will address the current context in which we find ourselves.