Chapter 758 331st Division
Kinshasa.
The 331st Division of the East African National Defense Force is responsible for military operations in the region. The 331st Division of the National Defense Force is affiliated to the Nile Military Region and is the ace unit of the military region. In the early years, the 331st Division was one of the elite troops in East Africa.
The 331st Division focuses on training in various dangerous environments such as rainforests and mountains. It is stationed in the west of the Nile Military Region. Before the expansion of the East African army, the 331st Division was one of the five fully-staffed divisions in East Africa, excluding the Guards Division.
The division headquarters is located in Bangui, the capital of Azande Province, so when the division goes south to support Kinshasa, it mainly passes through the Ubangi River and then turns to the main road of the Congo River. The transportation is very convenient.
The northern part of the 331st Division is the royal territory of Sigmaringen, and the western part is the Belgian Congo colony. The two countries currently have good relations with East Africa, so the military pressure is relatively small. This provides conditions for the 331st Division to go south to support the Angola battlefield.
With the beginning of the counterattack on the western front, the 331st Division has successfully defeated the Portuguese army outside Kinshasa and took over the city defense of Kinshasa.
With the crisis in Kinshasa lifted, the 331st Division also plans to gain greater achievements in the war. Attacking the hinterland of Angola's colony, that is, the Atlantic coast of western Angola, is undoubtedly the key to ending the war as quickly as possible. .
Then Kinshasa became the temporary command post of the 331st Division headquarters.
Lieutenant General Custer, commander of the 331 Division, is formulating a strategy against Portugal. With the expansion of the army, although the 331 Division is not as big as other troops, it still reaches more than 13,000 people.
With the support of this powerful military force, Castel's ambitions became even greater. Although Portugal had nearly 200,000 troops in Angola, there were probably less than 10,000 that could be used in the north.
At this time, it can be said that the 331st Division is in an absolute advantage in the north.
This also made Custer want to formulate a more radical plan to achieve the goal of ending the war quickly.
Custer held a pencil and marked on the map on the table while saying to the senior officers of the 331st Division: "This is Cabinda, which is the area controlled by the Portuguese Kingdom on the north bank of the Congo River. It is one of the important strongholds in Angola, and crossing the Congo River to the south is Soyo. These two places control the outlet of the Congo River, so if we in East Africa want to control the Congo River Basin in the future, these two areas are indispensable.”
"Of course, this has little to do with our war. Our army's initial goal is to directly capture the Portuguese cities of Cabinda and Soyo in the lower reaches of the Congo River along the river, and then move south along the coastline to threaten Luanda, the capital of Portuguese Angola, will eventually control Benguela if possible. ”
"In this way, the main ports in Angola will be basically controlled by our army, and the Portuguese army fighting our army inland will collapse without a fight if it cannot obtain external resources."
Castell The strategy is to cut off the connection between Angola and the Portuguese mainland, and the East African navy is weak in the South Atlantic, so this can only be accomplished by the army.
According to Custer's vision, most of Angola's material supplies come from local sources, and the three excellent ports that Angola can use are Cabinda, Luanda, and Benguela.
As long as these three ports are cut off, the Portuguese army will inevitably have a big supply problem. Food may be solved by looking at local products, but medicines, guns and other supplies will basically be cut off.
Officer Hans Griffin agreed with Custer's war vision, but he also directly raised the difficulties of this strategy. Hans Griffin pointed to the waterfalls marked with red lines in the lower reaches and said: "After the lower reaches of the Congo River passes through the Kinshasa section, it is not navigable due to the waterfalls and terrain differences, which means that the rest of the journey is difficult. We can only rely on our feet, and it is difficult for our heavy weapons to be sent to the front line to support the battlefield.”
As the elite unit of the East African National Defense Force, the 331st Division is equipped with a large number of light and heavy weapons. Although compared to other main divisions, the 331st Division focuses more on mountain and jungle operations, so its heavy weapons are no worse than ordinary troops. .
So if you want to attack the core area of Angola, it is still very challenging for the 331st Division.
Hans Griffin continued: "The road condition in Portuguese Angola can be described as a pile of mud. The south may be better, but the north is the original indigenous country-the Kingdom of Congo. According to what we have seen In terms of the level of civilization of black people in the past, the level of black civilization in Swahili, Somalia, and the Great Lakes region is the highest. However, even these three civilizations have the highest level of civilization. The infrastructure construction is also very poor, so don’t have high hopes for indigenous countries like the Kingdom of Congo.”
In fact, so far, East Africa has encountered the most civilized indigenous civilization in Africa. , is the Abyssinian Empire, but the Abyssinian Empire, like Madagascar, is a semi-mixed race, so it cannot be compared with pure Bantu black people.
Custer: "What you said makes sense, but no matter what the road conditions in the former Kingdom of Congo are, it cannot hinder our way forward. We now organize engineers to deal with various factors ahead that may not be conducive to the march of the troops."
Speaking of this, Custer suddenly became confused, how did the Portuguese solve this problem!
He asked: "How did the Portuguese attack Kinshasa in the first place?"
"Although the Portuguese brought quite a few people, they basically used rifles and did not have heavy fire support. , so the siege of Kinshasa was unsuccessful for three months, and their troops were obviously inefficient, otherwise Kinshasa would not have been in the hands of our army now," Kinshasa Military Chief Coles explained directly.
"In other words, we may not need to think too much about heavy weapons. After all, the Portuguese's equipment level is also very poor." Hans Griffin thought while holding his chin.
Castel denied: "It's still different. If it's areas like Cabinda and Soyo, the Portuguese haven't built any decent fortifications. They may be able to easily seize local control without artillery support, but Luanda can't Similarly, Luanda has solid military fortresses and fortresses. The Portuguese have been running them for hundreds of years. They are probably not worse than some fortresses in Europe. So if you want to remove the nail in Luanda, you must have heavy fire.
And as the capital of the Portuguese colony of Angola, Luanda is probably not comparable to the miscellaneous troops we have encountered before in terms of weapons, equipment and personnel composition, so we still cannot take it lightly."< br>
A lot of Custer's intelligence came from public information. Of course, the East African National Defense Force's Military Intelligence Office actually did not make much effort in Angola, and basically obtained most of the Portuguese's intelligence.
Because the Portuguese in Angola have a very poor sense of confidentiality and the army is concentrated in several fixed locations along the coast, this is simply an open-book examination for the Military Intelligence Department.
So the confidence that East Africa dares to solve the Angolan colony first also comes from the victory in intelligence. That is, the more it understands the current situation of the Portuguese army, the higher East Africa’s confidence in victory will be.
So far, the Portuguese have not disappointed East Africa. Their performance is only better than that of blacks and Indians among the coalition forces, ranking behind the British and Boers. As for the Indian army's ability to grind foreign workers, it is indeed the strongest among the coalition forces.
(End of this chapter)