A Nigerian Army Special Forces commando leads troops out on patrol in the far northeastern frontier district of Baga near the Lake Chad, sometime in April 2013 (AFP PHOTO)
ANADOLU AGENCY
9 October, 2014
By Rafiu Ajakaye
LAGOS
Dozens of militants were reportedly killed when Nigerian fighter jets on Thursday afternoon bombed a major Boko Haram base near Lake Chad, eyewitnesses have said.
“Air force fighter jets are currently hitting Wulgo village, which is on the banks of Lake Chad. The strategy is to flush them from the area,” a military officer privy to the operation told Anadolu Agency on condition of anonymity. “The militants were found attacking nearby towns and settlements from Wulgo, where they have a fortress,” he said.
Saidu Batagarawa, a Fulani herdsman in the area, said the military had warned local residents ahead of the aerial operation. “Boko Haram had long stationed themselves in Wulgo and other villages near Fotokol in neighboring Cameroon,” Batagarawa, who spoke in the local Fulfude dialect, told AA by phone. “It appears to be their launch base, but the soldiers are now smoking them out,” he added. Batagarawa suggested that up to 45 insurgents had been killed in the bombardments. “They are trying to escape. We are aware that they have a tunnel through which they escape,” he said. “But we exposed this to the troops long ago.”
Militants are known to launch attacks from border communities and then escape through waterways in the area – a strategy that is now being thwarted by deepening regional cooperation between Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger.
Following a meeting in Nigerien capital Niamey on Tuesday, the leaders of Niger,Nigeria, Chad, Benin and Cameroon agreed to form a “joint force” to combat Boko Haram.In May, the five countries agreed to deploy a joint force composed of some 700 troops as part of a wider strategy for combating the militant group.
Boko Haram, which means “Western education is forbidden” in Nigeria’s local Hausa language,first emerged in the early 2000s preaching against government misrule and corruption. It later became violent, however, after the death of its leader in 2009 while in police custody.
In the five years since, the shadowy sect has been blamed for numerous attacks – on places of worship and government institutions – and thousands of deaths in Nigeria. The group has also been blamed for several earlier cross-border attacks in
Cameroon.
Beegeagle's Blog 
With the release of the cameroonian hostages I actually doubt the cooperation of our neighbours, no recent BH activities in Chad and Niger as well as few BH raids in Cameroon in the other hand we have massive BH offensives in NE Nigeria. I smell a rat, anyway good job NAF. We shall overcome
To me it seems obvious that cameroon has given up the fight against boko haram and the release of the hostages and the fact that biya didn’t go to the regional security meeting against boko haram is a testimony that biya and boko haram have a new undersanding. Please Nigeria, equip, we might be forced to go into cameroon ! And please mr president, don’t waste your time going to the US, rather go to Russia and China and Pakistan and India. Get the weapons for our gallant troops, also ask these countries to help us upgrade DICON into a world class defence industry. Please, biya has stepped on the tigers’ tale.
Seconded.
seconded as well
Because of our geography, our armed forces must become and remain a giant. We must be able to fight on several fronts at the same time. We must be so strong that the mere thought of a war against us would give fatal brain damages to anyone.
Seconded
Supported. Brain damage and heart attack
Bravo!!! Maintain the initiative and momentum, its time to finish off these miscreants.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-29581498
WHAT!!! the Brits caught embellishing
Embellishing what exactly?
One man embellished and was going to embellish even more so his medal was withdrawn.
So an individual did something wrong. The system found him out, he’s been convicted, dismissed and stripped of his medal.
In other words the system that someone tried to abuse, resolved the issue. How does that equate to the Brits caught embellishing?
Just wanted to inject a slightly military note before we descend into the inevitable, USA, UK, Cameroun, outh Africa blamefest
Plase review this video from AMISOM
It is grade A media ops/ psy ops
Note from a military point o view the equipment off the UPDF troops, well kitted with comms, PPS, ammo etc. Note also the nice mix of weapons in the squad, Dragunovs, PKMs etc. In still photos more weapons systems can be seen.
Good drills with the dismounts protecting the vehicles in close country.
Note lso the mix of vehicles pick ups and MRAPs. MRAPs appear to bee used as protected troop carriers while the technicals are fighting vehicles (I guess)
Also note the embedded Oyibo journalists.
Now from a media ops point of view the UPDF Commander is physically speaking from Barawe town, nobody can claim the capture is propaganda or didn’t happen.
The video is excellent quality and also freely available.
If NA wants to do the same thing, it can be set up in 3 weeks or less. Its a simple thing,
I no fit shout abeg
This is beautiful modern soldiering at a fifth of our own defence budget.
I need to stop watching this stuff. I get angry and say things I later regret.
Oga peccavi, let us also point out that all UPDF troops ride in MRAPs, only SNA use Technicals and Pick-up trucks.
#very important.
Oga go to the AMISOM page and view still pictures, UPDF, KDF, Burundians and SNA use soft skin vehicles as well.
The key point is that they are SNA’s key troop carriers, while the other forces mainly use MRAPS
Oga, I subscribe to Tobin Jones, the photo-journalist embedded with the UPDF. I can confidently say the UPDF do not use soft-skins.
I’m currently referring to the video you posted, all the troops in barawe using techincals are SNA. There are no UPDF troops in technicals in that video you shared.
hehe
Thank God for our real allies Russia, China and Pakistan and India and Sri Lanka and Bielarusse and so many more… USA your planned prediction of the breaking of my country (Nigeria) will fail. We shall not break ! We shall grow stronger !
Nigeria forever !!!
Leaders of Nigeria in Abuja, you do not need to consult a village oracle to find facts, Nigeria is clearly surrounded by local and international enemies or haters who want your giant status downsized to a dwarf, there is too much hostile and potentially hostile military activities and emerging threats around Nigeria’s perimeter.
Arm the Nigerian air force.
Arm the Nigerian army.
If Cameroon is involved, we have common ocean interface…
Arm the Nigerian navy to become a blue water conventional and international fighting force.
USA, UK, France, South Africa, etc are all threats, we have them from far and near.
Boko Haram should be continuously bombarded by NAF same way USA/NATO degraded the mighty Iraqi army and Elite Republican guards of Saddam Hussein until they became soft as jelly fish for the ground assault by allied forces.
Bokos hate air attacks, and dread it the more when they are not able to hit back. NAF, please keep the bombs and rockets flying everywhere a Boko exists.
SSS, DMI, NPF, Immigration, watch both the borders and interior towns for new Boko foot men recruitment, new vehicles and weapons especially 14.5mm to 35mm guns, armoured vehicles, mortars, RPGs.
Also watch the home front for city suicide bombings.
Boko Haram has not recovered from the death of ‘Bashir the Shekau’ and Nigerian army/air force must NOT let them recover, keep attacking, take the initiative, dictate the fast pace, maintain the tempo, put them on the defensive, show superior aggression, increase your firepower, add more MGLs and AGLs, plus knee mortars, and if you can get Chinese reverse engineered 25 mm M242 Bushmaster cannon configured for our Toyota Landcruisers or Cobra/VBL/MTLB, the final offensive will be sweet revenge.
We should be able to bring in Chinese engineers and technicians to work overtime here, we don’t have time to send equipment overseas for re-configuration.
Border closure with Niger, Chad, Cameroon I have shouted tired. Algeria did it in 2013 with Niger and Mali when militants were infiltrating. Saudi Arabia just built a fence along it’s Iraqi border, Israel has a fence built to cut off Palestinians.
Algeria’s border closure last year is an eye opener, but when it is Nigeria’s turn people will say it is hard to do and therefore impossible. So, we keep our doors open to armed enemies, right? Never mind the leakages, at least close the borders officially and patrol them, let anyone caught crossing be made to explain himself after being body searched and vehicle searched including opening all bags of beans, even ‘open’ cow and camel humps maybe hidden explosives dey for there. Na the two eyes crab dey take monitor him head.
For now I think that the only neighboring country trying to stab us in the back is cameroon.
I may be wrong though.
For years, I have been imploring NA to at least equip itself to amisom. Standards.
Initially the Ethiopia n’s came it blitzkrieg style with their large amounts of ex Soviet armor.
However they were not prepared for an urban and rural insurgency.
Then came the ugandans, at the behest of Africa’s most brilliant leader.
Yoweri. Museveni.
1) He got US and EUROPE to fund the whole AU venture.
2) the equipment paid for by the west now becomes UPDF. Property.
3) US pays for a Washington based PMC. Comprising of ex special ops. Guys from Europe and US, to mentor updf. Into a cracked outfit in urban warfare, and other military maneuvers.
4) US also conducts pre deployment training for amisom.
5) updf. Smartly combines the cheap but effective Soviet armor that Ethiopia did, and tthe SADF. Methods and equipment in counter insurgency.
Soviet and SADF doctrine.
If NA generals and politicians paid any attention to amisom. Ops, the BH. Terror would never have escalated to what it is.
This is just a repeat of opinions I have expressed here over the years
I agree with your views on Museveni. I would also put Paul Kagame and to an extent Uhuru Kenyatta in the same boat. They are not nice gentlemen at all. However they get the jobs of defending the security interests of their countries done in a ‘relatively effective’ way. The only problem is that all of them are too west aligned. This however does not subtract from the successful practical intellect they have brought into governance and the loftiness of the vision they are chasing for their countries. Kagame i think is the best of the lot.
Boko Haram’s Ramadan Offensive 2:
In the first article we reviewed Boko Harams current campaign in Northern Nigeria in which Boko Haram meticulously prepared, shaped and then isolated the battlespace before launching their offensive and then defended their gains. In this instalment will examine reasons for Boko Harams operational success and ways to counter it.
Enemy Intent:
It is difficult to discern the enemies’ strategic or even to a degree operational intent. In their halting negotiations with the Camerounian and Nigerian governments there has been no articulation of a desired end state that would make sense to a group fighting to enforce a particular way of life.
Every armed group has a desired end state even those which are merely armed proxies of warlords such as in 19th Century China or present day DRC. This is not so with Boko Harams who’s stated objective is an Islamic state in Nigeria yet have failed to advance an intellectual argument for this (even by Islamists standards) . Their interpretations of Islamic Law in captured areas appear to revolve around forced marriages, forced conscription and punishments by stoning, beheading, amputation and floggings. The Taliban by contrast would arbitrate cases in their Islamic courts to which were generally seen as fairer and quicker than Government courts. Hezbollah provides social services that rival the Palestinian Authority.
Negotiations with Boko Haram appear to have revolved around finance (ransoms, compensation for deaths and damaged property) and personnel (release of captured leaders, fighters, wives and children).
This could indicate they are of the opinion there is no negotiated way to achieve their ends thus are focussed purely on the functional tasks of raising money and maintaining their numbers (and keeping those members entertained). Or it could mean they do not actually have any logical higher strategic intent.
Irrespective of their strategic intent, operationally the enemy needs to:
Ensure the continued physical, financial and material survival of the collective groups and its leadership.
Maintain freed of movement in their key terrain
Boko Harams Operational Success
I would assess that the reasons for Boko Harams survivability and tactical success has been their ruthlessness, unity of purpose, operational flexibility, mobility and use of geography. We can analyse these factors further.
Mobility:
Strength:
Boko Harams operational mobility allows them to take advantage of porous borders, poor infrastructure and overlapping family, linguistic and tribal ties to cross borders with ease.
Poor communication and coordination between these border states allows the enemy to evade follow up, capture or detection simply by crossing the border from one country to the other.
The use of motorcycles and utility vehicles means that bush tracks that are impassable to MRAPS or APCS are legitimate avenues of approach.
Tactically they are able to rapidly concentrate forces for an attack against targets, resupply and reinforce using tracks and terrain considered impassable to the security forces.
Weakness:
Boko Haram needs vehicles to get around just as much as Nigerian, Camerounian, Nigerien or Chadian forces. It is in essence a road bound force despite its more practical vehicle and route choices.
Motor vehicles need roads, heavy vehicles need wide and/or all weather roads. Lubricants, tires, spare parts but most importantly fuel. Specialist vehicles need trained drivers and operators and mechanics.
Opportunities:
Greater coordination, cooperation and eventually complete integration between the four Border States, would degrade Boko Harams operational mobility costing them respite and sanctuary.
Boko Harams dependence on vehicles means that fuel, spare parts, lubricants and even tyres are a strategic asset to them. The need for these items presents numerous opportunities for ruses to lure the enemy into ambushes or set them up for deliberate attacks.
The enemies need for roads also presents opportunities for ambushes. Bush paths can be easily ambushed by even a small force, reducing their freedom of movement and forcing them to divert forces and resources to force protection.
Threats:
Degrading Boko Harams vehicular mobility runs the risk of causing Boko Haram to devolve once more into a smaller more compact force with a reduced range and footprint but the same lethality.
Destroying their vehicular mobility could lead to an increased use of IEDs particularly in smaller towns and along roads and against infrastructure
Restricted enemy mobility in the North East could see them spreading further south and west, where thicker vegetation affords them more hiding places.
Ruthlessness:
Strength:
Boko Haram has used terror as a weapon to demoralise soldiers, uproot the populace and cause a severe humanitarian crisis.
This ruthlessness means that civilians are extremely compliant and security forces when surrounded or at risk of defeat would rather withdraw rather than risk a final close quarter battle that might result in capture and beheading.
Using coercion and terror they can develop a network of supporters, helpers and spies.
Terror has been used in indiscriminate IED attacks to distract the security forces and divert resources and personnel from kinetic operations.
IEDs are relatively cheap, as are bladed weapons which can be used quietly and repeatedly. Terror is thus an extremely cost effective and efficient tactic
Weakness:
Indiscriminately killing the population you wish to govern generally means they are less likely to support your cause and even if they do, being dead is somewhat disadvantageous to providing aid and sustenance.
Attacks on the population causes them to leave, thus depriving the enemy of human shields, sources of food, shelter, medical care, fuel etc.
Killing soldiers rather than capturing and co-opting them as has been done in Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Libya etc deprives the enemy of a potential pool of trained men who could lead effective operations or infiltrate friendly forces camps on their behalf.
Opportunities:
Boko Harams ruthlessness means they have conceded the battle for hearts and minds
The overt, humane treatment of civilians, IDPs and prisoners of war will produce a large pool of intelligence and local knowledge
A significant proportion of their foot soldiers are forced conscripts forced to fight and commit atrocities. A well-resourced and publicised demobilisation and reintegration programme would incentivise many to surrender.
Threats
Terror has been an effective weapon for the core leadership, when threatened they are more likely to increase its use than decrease it.
Terror is a tool that binds even unwilling conscripts to the group through collective guilt.
Indiscriminate terror, such as IED attacks will always generates a response thus is an effective way to distract and fix security forces at relatively low cost particularly when the enemy main force is under pressure.
Unity of Purpose
Strength:
The various factions of Boko Haram are unified in that they have a common enemy
Boko Haram’s leadership more than anyone in this conflict understand their intentions, how they intend to achieve it and what resources they have.
They have several predominant common goals, the first of which is survival.
Weakness
Their unity is borne as much out of necessity as ideology
The mutual distrust and the legacy of previous betrayals means that in moments of stress the different factions could rupture.
Ego and arguments over spoils have previously led to deadly clashes
As is true of any ‘idealistic’ collective, ideological purity is extremely subjective and narrowly focussed and as has been seen from Communist, Fascist and Islamist group or even animal rights groups or environmentalists, orthodoxy can become so narrowly defined that anyone not holding the view of a particular faction or more often than not a particular individual becomes an enemy. This is especially prevalent in groups who hold a viewpoint in an ideology in which they only have a rudimentary understanding.
Opportunity:
The differences in the factions can be exploited using a combination of psychological operations and direct kinetic actions. Pressure on the battle field combined with a skilled campaign to make certain factions to believe they are either being betrayed or let down by others could cause tensions, distrust and eventually fratricide.
The different factions will have different desired goals and end states that will become more apparent the closer they are to success. By understanding these nuances, factions can be negotiated with to either ceasefire or surrender leaving other factions isolated
Threats:
As long as the different factions and individual commanders believe they have a chance of winning they have no reason to seek accommodation.
Without an understanding of their higher strategic intent it is unlikely that a psychological operation can work on the senior leadership who have the most to lose.
Pressure or fear of defeat could actually cause them to resolve their differences and bind closer together.
Geography
Strength
The geography of the Area of Operations is a mixture of far flung, sparsely populated villages, wooded hills and mountains, caves, swamps, forests and deserts which favour light, mobile forces.
The large distances and poor infrastructure restricts friendly forces movement
The huge expanse of space means the security forces have a large expanse of ground to cover, long supply lines and a multiplicity of targets to defend
The poor infrastructure mean that rivers in the rainy season are only passable at certain points particularly by a motorised force
Certain geographical features such as the Mandara Mountains or Lake Chad are multi jurisdictional and multi lingual, which the enemy can exploit.
Local knowledge allows enemy forces to utilise the terrain providing them covered approaches, hiding places and maintain the element of surprise.
Weakness
The enemy has to cover long distances as well in order to secure their conquests
Water features and mountains present obstacles to enemy forces and also restrict their movements
The enemy is channelled by their use of vehicles, destroyed bridges and the limited roads to certain routes, roads, river crossing points, mountain passes, and paths through swamps or forests
The rainy season further limits enemy movement due to swampy terrain, flooded rivers and muddy tracks.
Conditions in the mountains, forests and swamps are quite harsh thus the enemy is forced to emerge and raid villages to sustain themselves
Opportunities
Superior friendly force mobility with helicopters, patrol boats, etc means that they can move quicker and concentrate forces at will.
The need for roads, mountain passes, bridges etc means that enemy movement can be predicted, interdicted and directed by friendly forces.
Operating on all sides of international borders means that more than one force element can be brought to bear on them with better coordination.
The inhospitable terrain means that the enemy is susceptible to pressure if surrounded and cut off from supplies.
Threats
The enemies’ use of ground is superior at the operational level to friendly forces
Tactically the inhospitable terrain favours light, highly mobile forces
Many of the enemy are locals with significant local knowledge of the area
Operating in difficult to reach areas will generate huge logistical challenges. Aerial or vehicular resupply would be subject to ambush and interdiction.
Flexibility
Strength
The enemy has evolved from urban to rural ops with ease
They have developed a conventional capability and built a terror infrastructure which they have been able to utilise singly or together at will.
The enemy has shown they are capable of taking an opponent with air superiority and superior firepower and winning
Weakness
They are only as flexible as their opponents are inflexible. When faced with a well led, disciplined force with effective fire support such as at Konduga, they have been defeated, rather than bypassing the town or attempting different tactics they attacked in exactly the same way repeatedly and suffered the same results.
It takes different skillset at both the command and operator level for mobile rural guerrilla warfare, mobile rural conventional warfare, urban warfare and terror operations. As attrition sets in a few truly effective commanders will remain but the rest will be inexperienced substitutes leading to a degradation of capability
Opportunities
Coordinating the conventional and unconventional, rural and urban elements of their operations requires a communications and logistic network which can be interdicted
Threats
Flexibility is a battle winning asset. As long as the enemy retains a significant element operational flexibility they will retain the initiative
As long as the enemy retains a significant element of tactical fluidity they can dominate the battlespace when in the ascendant and retreat when under attack.
The enemy can switch between rural or urban battlespaces as the situation dictates or from lowland to highland or one country to another.
Friendly Forces Courses of Action
In order to restore constitutional rule throughout Northern Nigeria friendly forces must destroy the enemies will and ability to fight, their ability to sustain themselves, their ability to regroup regenerate or recover by neutralising enemy strengths, exploiting their weaknesses and mitigating potential threats.
If Boko Harams success are due to their creative mobility over a multi jurisdictional area of difficult terrain, using ruthless and flexible operational and tactical manoeuvres then the answer to defeating them is by using mobility and counter mobility to isolate them in these areas of difficult terrain, restricting their freedom of movement and operational and tactical flexibility.
The key geographic features in the area of operations are the Mandara Mountains and Lake Chad. These two natural features and the land around them are key to Boko Harams operational mobility thus any attempt at destroying their operational capabilities will involve, isolating, seizing, clearing and holding this area.
Phase 0: Integration
As mentioned this area encompasses 3 countries, so for any counter insurgency strategy to be effective the forces operating in this area must be fully integrated under a single chain of command. A Corps HQ encompassing the 3 North Eastern States, Extreme Nord Region in Cameroun and Lac Prefecture in Chad should be set up integrating Police, Army, Air Forces, Customs and other Para military units in one chain of command.
Phase 1: Preparation
For success friendly forces should go through the necessary steps to build up combat, artillery, air, logistic and engineer forces correctly structured and balanced, integrate intelligence gathering and analysis, develop doctrines and harmonise equipment particularly communications. The Legal framework necessary to allow Nigeria to base air and ground forces in neighbouring countries should be ironed out as well. Also combat operations would have to continue to prevent Boko Haram from making any more gains
Phase 2: Isolate the Area of Operations
The second phase of this operation should see the start of large scale combat operations to cut Boko Haram off, block their easy movement across the battlespace and isolate them from population centres, food and fuel sources. This would require strong forces holding a line on both the Nigerian and Camerounian side of the battlespace, preventing further movement east, west, north or south by the enemy and harassing them with constant raids.
Phase 3: Isolate enemy safe areas
The next option should be to deny Boko Haram their safe areas in Cameroun. Historically these are around Kousseri, Waza Forest, Mayo Sava, Lake Chad and the Mandara Mountains etc. Rather than isolating by national boundaries, isolation should be done by natural geographical features. By starting in Cameroun rather than Nigeria it not only destroys enemy safe areas and normal lines of communication but will cause Boko Haram to remove forces from Nigeria to defend their rear.
Phase 4: Destroy Enemy Forces
It is assumed that Boko Haram will be forced to react to this threat and try and eradicate friendly forces in their key terrain and to reopen lines of communication with their rear areas. Attacking well-constructed, well supplied mutually supporting bases with organic fire support and air and artillery support acting should denude Boko Haram as an effective conventional fighting force.
Simultaneously the enemy could attempt to launch an urban IED campaign or armed attacks beyond the battlespace. This should have pre-empted and negated during the preparation phase, through proactive police action. However forces should not be diverted from the offensive whatever the provocation
Phase 5: Clear
Even if Boko Haram does not oblige and attack friendly forces in their key terrain and engage in a battle of attrition, friendly forces continuing the offensive would clear the area from the Lake Chad- Mandaras axis up to and beyond Damaturu of enemy main forces. As majority of the enemies effort is focussed west in Nigeria it might be prudent to move again from east to west, i.e. from Cameroun to Nigeria, forcing the enemy to either retreat towards the blocking forces stand and fight or disperse.
Phase 6: Hold
As clearance operations are ongoing, the hold phase should begin, with troops and the police garrisoning the cleared areas and maintaining security. At the same time repair damaged infrastructure with emphasis on roads, bridges, electricity and telecoms.
The Clear and Hold phases would most likely be running at the same time as the Destroy Phase as certain areas will be cleared of enemy forces before others and will need to be secured. It is at this point that the danger of an evolved threat will arise through infiltrations, assassinations, IEDs and highway attacks. The enemy must be kept off balance through robust and aggressive actions, constant patrols and quick reaction to any incident.
Phase 7: Secure
As part of the effort to secure the recaptured land and populace a significant effort should begin with securing and sustaining the IDP and refugee population from the conflict. Well run, hygienic camps with educational facilities should be used to secure the displaced population. This has the advantage of ensuring they are far enough away from the conflict zone to avoid being used as cover by insurgents and that they can be registered a recorded so that once they return the security forces will have better knowledge of who lives in the area of operations.
Securing the cleared areas would require a strong force presence from the military and the police and maybe even the formalisation of local vigilante groups as Police Auxiliaries.
Summary
It is the opinion of this reviewer that Boko Harams current success emanates as much from a well planned and intelligent campaign as errors by the security forces. Their efforts are vulnerable to clear weaknesses from the factional alliances of convenience, to their need for fuel, forced recruits and supplies over rugged terrain. To defeat Boko Haram, the fight must be taken to them, to destroy them they must be denied access to their key terrain and their safe areas. This means a wide ranging offensive not just in Nigeria but in Cameroun, Chad and Niger. For this offensive to work and to prevent the enemy from simply hopping over the border when the going gets tough, the entire effort must be integrated, with one HQ controlling all force elements.
Conclusion
Not being able to make a propaganda video for Sallah or Independence Day with video clips of an attack on Maiduguri notwithstanding, Boko Haram still retains the initiative across the battlespace by virtue of the huge swath of territory they control, a point they underscored with their latest video featuring a resurrected ‘Shekau’ and the murder of a Nigerian Air Force POW.
Within their plan they will expect a counter attack and they will definitely fight a bloody and costly defensive battle as they retreat to their safe areas, hoping to bleed Nigerian forces and leave a trail of destruction behind them so by the time they get to their key terrain having given up their conquests the calculation would be that there would be limited resources or stomach for a fight to the finish in the Mandaras and more importantly in Cameroun.
It is thus imperative that friendly forces go back on thee offensive and at the bare minimum isolate the Mandaras and Lake Chad before the onset of the Dry Season.
“The Germans did the right thing every time and their men are quite steady. They ‘know war’ which we don’t…….” Lt Lees 2nd Battalion, Nigeria Regiment, Northern Cameroun in 1914.
Despite the British attacking from Nigeria in the west having artillery, twice as many men and being aided by the French attacking from the North and East the Germans (14 Germans, 125 local trained African Askaris and 65 locally recruited troops), repeatedly beat them, even counter attacking into Nigeria, until besieged on Mora Mountain until were finally persuaded to surrender in 1916.
I add it to illustrate that the more things change, the more they stay the same. A determined enemy with local knowledge will prove a tenacious foe. But history also shows that despite initial missteps that foe can be beaten.
Reply
Precise
Oga Peccavi,nice piece, DHQs should invite you to Nigeria, so that you would lecture and share your experience with our military guys at Jaji,Kaduna and at our War College on counter-insurgency.
Oga Gbash How far?
Any new info of the new Jets?
Oga peccavi insightful write up as usual.the chips are falling down and gradually our foes are showing themselves..oga oje and many others on this blog have been strong proponents of an invasion of cameroun,it has always been waved aside right now.there is nothing to wave aside now…invasion may seem obsolete but right now a taste of their own medicine in any way seems appropriate.
The our politicians our countless bickering over power has made us an open kettle easily beaten with a stick.sometimes I wonder if in all ur maf lust for power we have failled to recognize that power on works in the entity called nigeria..if we go down today political power becomes an illusion whether ur pdp,apc or etc.
To the president,some call u clueless,devicive,slow etc.i only see a nigerian surronded by a bunch of highly incompetent staff(not all)..mr president sometimes I wonder if u take time out to read paper,surf the net etc leading the mire intellectual dev.there is no way u wont come accross this blog as and aid in insuring that we build the greatest military establishment african has ever had
To NA ur sacrifices will never be in vain,root out the fifth columnist..slowly we are arming up,morale is being built and strategist are been made.we must end this war so cos many more will follow.
I am still eargerly awaiting our first 4g fighter to arrive.and I must scream we need it now or never…so far our strategy of strikr and mop up have been yielding results but we all know how long an airframe can take such a beating.
Ransome has been paid gentle men,let us brace ourselves,as for those that ask hoe BH get their arms now we shuld ask chad first before cameroun I recently stumblef across an article abt a town in chad where arms are sold like groundnuts in a market have we ever thought of dat..if I find the article again I will post the link here..
Happy sunday my able gentlemen and generals
Before the dry seasons sets in we must ensure dat the mandara mountains are secured and also downgrade BH mobility..the Job of our ISTR aircrafts havd just increased .their camps in cameroun must be found out.
Beautiful analysis as usual Oga Peccavi. Methinks in addition, our intelligence services and DSS need to start running some covert operations in Cameroon, Chad and Niger to “ensure cooperation” from their governments in routing Boko Haram.
Excellent. Among many things, a confirmation that unilateral operations again BH inside Cameroon are becoming increasingly inevitable!
i heard Paul Biyas Govt gave 400,000 dollars plus returned BH members captured and weapons in exchange for this 27 soldiers if true God will punish Cameroon if such happens to be true.
This Security web link was Created by Beegeagle for Matured mind, do we realise other foreign security expert also visit this blog and lots on Nigeria also, we should hence forte cease all comment on the Invasion of Cameroun, I would advice the Beegeagle to please delete or block anyone that carries on with such comment, this is not Nairaland or some cheap blog, have we been able to Invade Sambisa, is it not the same Cameroun we handed over Bakassi to, please can we respect ourselves here and look for a way forward for our country Nigeria to have security and peaceful co existent with our neighbours.
When was the last time an Africa country invaded another one, while Nigeria is African biggest economy and also one of the strongest military wise, it amounts to pure teenage ideology to think of invading Cameroun, have we all forgotten what happened to Iraqi when she invaded Kuwait even South Korea with American and Western Backing cant even Invade North Korea.
Beegeagle you have created a good blog, please don’t allow this people drive away the matured mind from your blog, as lots of foreigners come here even though they don’t comment on it.
North Korea is a nuclear military power. You can’t really be making a comparison with them and cameroon. By the way, your spelling of cameroon as “cameroun” makes me thing that you may be a francophone, indeed the english spelling is cameroon and the french one is cameroun. I understand the ut=rge of some people to protect their beloved cameroon, but I think those people should rather adress their biya, because winter is coming and biya will feel it painfully.
And once again, we gave them bakassi because the ICJ decided so, we militarilly dominated them, but Obasanjo agreed to go to the ICJ.
What kind of peace are you seeking, they keep giving money and weapons to terrorists who keep killing and raping and kidnapping our civilians, men women and children. Is that your definition of peaceful coexistance ?
If that is it then your peace is a one way thing.
You need two sides to declare peace and only one side to declare war.
I agree that the invasion of Cameroon thing has been taken too far. It is a very amateurish idea and badly reflects on the IQ of those actively contributing to the blog. So also moronic notions about a naval war with south Africa. Now there are quite a number of defsec blogs around and the discussions are actually very matured and based on realistic projections of what might transpire and what to do about them. This is the level we should aim for.
Also in discussing other sovereign entities, let us start with objective analyses of what their strategic objectives might be and in what ways those conflict with ours and how then to counter them. Presentations should be intellectually sound, balanced and finished with actionable ideas. Arresting Paul Biya, invading Cameroon, naval blockade of S.Africa are and developing the atomic bomb are not only taking things into the realm of fantasy, they might also be objectionable in terms of morality and not actionable in current time frames. I know that some contributors here are rather young but if we are not careful people may start reading some stuff we post here and stop coming to Beegeagle as they will perceive that we are all a bunch of cranks here.
I think it shows low IQ when people lack the ability to challenge an idea and instead insult those presenting the idea. The last time i checked insults were not arguments. Even though I have enough information to send the self proclaimed wise men back to a “mirror” and see the reality about themselves, I will not. Indeed my ideas and reasonning are sound and stand tall. I am not commenting for the ego trip. I don’t need some blogger to call me general or chief, I am trying to serve my country, and if that brings insults upon me, then so be it. You keep the ego, i will keep looking for ways to help Nigeria.
Nigeria needs an agressive foreign policy. Do away with the politeness, the meetings and the tolerance. Build your military and when you talk, let there be no doubt that you will match the talk by actions ! The one problem we have is our political structure as well. The opposition and other politicians have been caught several times committing treason. Treason must be punished by death !
Ogas, thank you for your compliments.
Please note though I am not calling for the invasion of Cameroun or unilateral incursions. A man at the top of a palm tree does not cut his rope when it starts scratching his waist him. Invading Cameroun is (a) illegal (b) pointless (c) militarily ridiculous. We will end up fighting Camerounian forces as well as BH, under genuine (not internet amebo gist variant) sanctions and arms embargo and it wwill not stop BH in the slightest. If we have 10005 control of our territory then there could be tentative case fro nilateral action but we do not. The problem started here, moved to Cameroun and has moved back, they have been in the Mandaras since at least 2004.
The Camerounian issue is very complex and needs to be handled intelligently.
However it is (in my opinion) the only way to destroy Boko Haram. Cameroun does not have the force numbers or assets but Nigeria does, I would suggest basing a Brigade Group with air support at Garoua, Maroua and Kouserri and moving west from there, with a Chadian Nigerian Task Force moving from N’Djamena through to Diffa Prefecture.
But please let me emphasise, in the context of this conflict any invasion of Cameroun will not work and will completely and utterly destroy the country and armed forces.
No sane country fights an insurgency ( that is currently struggling with) and then starts a war of choice at the same time. It didn’t work for Argentina in the Falklands or Saddamin Kuwait or Idi Amin in Tanzania so any belief it will work for Nigeria is not logical.
However the central point of my write up is that the Mandara Mountains must be isolated an the fight taken there and Cameroun before the dry season starts or else alongside our election obsessed political leadership, Paul Biyas ‘dash’ and our obsession with looking to the stars for solutions we are. to put it politely fucked.
Are james and Peccavi, Respect to you both, I have also noted the comment on a Naval confrontation with South Africa, we need to widen our ideology and realise Military confrontation is not in our foreign policy with other countries in Africa.
Gentlemen what we want to read on this Site is a good foreign policy, Military upgrade within reason, how to handle the insurgency, how to prevent future Insurgency which Education of the masses is important, upgrade of our Air force, Navy, Police, maybe having a state or street police as they have here in the UK (We do have them in communities and cites but they are not armed), how to make our local DSS more effect and world class standard, making our own weapons with strategic location nationwide, Good roads, New Airport, Sea Port, how to balance the nation wealth and make the average northern Nigerian feel more Nigerian, Military pact with friendly countries.
We should also not forget that it was only President Zuma that stood up for Late Gaddafi of Libyan on the no fly zone, while our President Jonathan all wanted Gaddafi out, the result now is high grade weapons from Libyan have now been used to destabilised the regions as Boko Haram get this weapons easily from several Criminal element in the saturated Libyan arms market, this weapon where also used in Mali and now Nigeria, Chad and Sudan have been having internal armed crisis for decades and when you add Central African Republic with their own crisis, then with the level of illiteracy in that region you find out how easy it was for Boko Haram to raise a 10, 000 Strong Army (did you just say impossible ), African should stick together, if President Jonathan had stood on the same side with President Zuma on President Gaddafi, maybe today the story would have been different, we all know the state of Libya right now, even thought the Western world no longer report it as Tripoli and Benghazi remain under siege.
I believe you are conveniently forgetting that Quaddafi openly called for the division of Nigeria first along religious lines into two .Then the next day he said it should be divided into three.For that he deserved to go. T-Mobile. America’s First Nationwide 4G Network
@ odion777 You are cleverly obfuscating the facts.
Gadaffi funded the wars in sierra leone and liberia where thousands of Nigerian soldiers and millions of people died. Gadaffi also actively sought the balkanization of nigeria. So why shouldn’t nigeria engineer his downfall?
Whatever your point, south africa, cameroon are not exactly friends of Nigeria. They never have and probably never will.
Even if it’s not about invading south africa or cameroon, Nigeria has to find a way to neutralize these threats. Be it regime change or supporting subversive forces or at worst defeat boko haram decisively and then arm itself to such a degree that it can carry out gunboat diplomacy with ease.
@Odion777
In the words of that Black US Republican Presidential candidate;
“You are my brother by another mother”
And they say we shouldn’t have sukhois
****************************************
Built to be the deadliest hunter killer aircraft of all
time, the F-35 has quite literally become the
hunted. In every scenario that the F-35 has been
wargamed against Su-30 Flankers, the Russian
aircraft have emerged winners. America’s newest
stealth aircraft – costing $191 million per unit – is
riddled with such critical design flaws that it’s
likely to get blown away in a shootout with the
super-maneuverable Sukhois.
Stubby wings (that reduce lift and
maneuverability), a bulbous fuselage (that makes
it less aerodynamic) low speed and a super hot
engine (which a half decent radar can identify)
are just a few of the major flaws that will expose
its vulnerability during air combat.
With more than 600 Flankers (Sukhoi-27s and its
later iterations such as the Su-30, Su-34 and
Su-35 Super Flanker) flying with air forces around
the world, the fate of the fifth generation F-35
seems decidedly uncertain. Aerospace experts
across the world are veering around to the view
that America’s most expensive fighter
development programme (pegged at $1.5 trillion)
will be a sitting duck for the flankers.
Flanker fleet down, but not out
“It’s a turkey,” declares aerospace engineer Pierre
Sprey in an interview to Dutch television. Few
people are as qualified to speak about fighter
aircraft as Sprey. He is the co-designer of the F-16
Falcon jet and the A-10 Warthog tank buster, two
of the most successful aircraft in the US Air Force
(USAF).
Winslow T. Wheeler, Director of the US’ Straus
Military Reform Project, Centre for Defense
information, agrees. “The F-35 is too heavy and
sluggish to be successful as a fighter,” he says. “If
we ever face an enemy with a serious air force we
will be in deep trouble.”
So far the US has been lucky it has never really
encountered a “serious” military. Over the skies of
war-weary Iraq, tiny Libya and utterly defenceless
Afghanistan, the American aircraft operated with
impunity. But luck can run out – if they ever
come up against the air forces of Russia, China or
India the outcome won’t be so one-sided. In
particular, the Indian Air Force has beaten the
USAF’s fourth generation fighters using both third
and fourth generation jets.
The biggest problem with the F-35 is that its US
designers are betting on stealth and long range
radar to compensate for its lack of speed and
maneuverability. But stealth is not really all that it
is cracked up to be; it is not the cloak of
invisibility.
Plus, Russia’s already excellent radars are getting
better. Says Defense Industry Daily (DID):
“Meanwhile, key radar advances are already
deployed in the most advanced Russian surface-
to-air missile systems, and existing IRST (infra-red
scan and track) systems deployed on advanced
Russian and European fighters are extending
enemy detection ranges against radar-stealthy
aircraft. Fighter radar pick-up capability of up to
(46km) by 2020 is proposed against even ultra-
stealthy aircraft like the F-22, coupled with IRST
ability to identify Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-
Air Missile firings and less infrared-stealthy aircraft
at (92km) or more.”
Read section:
Defence and Security
At the same time, there is no such thing as one
radar in a war. “There are lots of radars,” Sprey
explains. “And you can’t be nose-on or dead-level
to every radar in the theatre. There are always
going to be radars that are going to be shining up
(from below) or looking from above – they can all
see you.”
Short on firepower
Another issue is with the American aircraft’s
overall shape. “Most great airplanes are beautiful
because you are trying to reduce drag,” Sprey
says. “But here because of stealth they had to
make it very bulbous, very big as they had to
carry the weapons inside because as soon as you
carry the weapons outside they reflect radar. So
this is a huge penalty to the performance of the
aircraft which is now big and lumbering like a
bomber.”
Lower internal payload means the designers at
Lockheed-Martin have signed the F-35’s death
warrant. The aircraft carries just two large bombs
and four small ones, and a maximum of four
beyond visual range (BVR) air-to-air missiles
(AAMs).
The USAF claims the F-35’s advanced radar will
see the enemy aircraft first and be able to take it
out with one of its four long-range AAMs. But BVR
kills are still the stuff of dreams for fighter pilots
and are quite rare.
In fact, the reliance on the radar acquisition and
AAMS can prove suicidal – as indeed it was once
upon a time. During the Vietnam War the USAF
was so smitten with the concept of BVR combat
that the first F-4 fighters were armed only with
missiles. But after the Vietnamese Air Force pilots
shot them down by the bucket load, the
Americans reintroduced cannons in the F-4.
In fact, Russia, which has the most advanced and
varied range of BVR missiles in the world, arms its
Flankers with at least eight missiles for the simple
reason that it takes several shots at a fast moving
target to score a kill.
That the Americans ignored this basic lesson of air
combat is mindboggling.
Sukhois shift the balance of power in the Asia-
Pacific
In theory, American pilots would play ‘video
games’ and take out enemy aircraft at 1000 km.
In practice, air combat is like a knife fight.
According to DID, the F-35 is very likely to wind
up facing many more “up close and personal”
opponents than its proponents suggest, while
dealing with effective BVR infrared-guided missiles
as an added complication. Unlike the F-22, the
F-35 is described as “double inferior” to modern
Su-30 family fighters within visual range combat.”
The much larger and varied inventory of missiles
combined with super-maneuverability, therefore,
bestows the Flankers with an edge that’s
unparalleled in modern air combat.
Fleet availability
According to the new philosophy of air combat
that is being defined by USAF-Lockheed-Martin
careerists, the one-size-fits-all F-35 will replace all
other fighters as well as ground support aircraft.
But here’s the rub. Because the F-35 is such an
expensive aircraft, air forces will buy fewer units.
For instance, Japan currently has 100 F-15s but it
will replace them with just 70 F-35s. Again,
because the F-35 will also be expensive to fly and
maintain, air forces will limit pilot flying hours.
(Already, spending cuts have forced the USAF to
eliminate more than 44,000 flying hours and
ground 17 combat air squadrons).
Besides, ‘stealth’ comes with a price. On the F-35
most of the maintenance is on the stealth
coating. “It is a ludicrous impediment to combat,”
Sprey says. “You are sitting on the ground for 50
hours fiddling on the aircraft trying to make it
stealthy when it’s not stealthy anyhow.”
Dissecting a dogfight: Sukhoi vs USAF at Red Flag
2008
Plus, 100 per cent fleet availability is a logistical
impossibility. The USAF averages around 75 per
cent – which is pretty decent – but when it comes
to stealth aircraft the figures nosedive. The
USAF’s super-secret B2A stealth bomber has an
availability rate of just 46.7 per cent. And
America’s most expensive fighter, the F-22,
despite its $350 million price tag has a fleet
availability rate of only 69 per cent.
So if you are, say, the Australian air force, just 48
of your planned fleet of 70 F-35s will be battle
ready at any given time. Your chances against
the Chinese who have 400 Flankers are smaller
than small. You can bet the Aussies won’t be
joining the knife fight unless escorted by big
brother USA.
Wheeler, who has dealt with US national security
issues for over three decades, lays out the
implications for western air forces planning to
induct the F-35: “The pilots will get worse as
they’ll get much less training, which is most
important than any technical issue. There’ll be far
fewer pilots as the whole force will have to shrink,
and you will basically have a showpiece aircraft
that can’t do anything. It’s useless, it’s truly
monumentally useless, it will ruin any air force
that uses it.”
The dogfight hasn’t yet started and the Flankers
are up 1-0.
We have not figured out how to maintain and operate Jaguars and Alphajets, na Su 227 be your problem?
Thats just excuses. We can maintain 18 units of su-35 or su-30sm air superiority aircraft if we really want to and you know it.
@trigger
You are right on the Sukhois being very good aircraft and partially right on the war game results but wrong on the operating cost and availability of the F35. Please do your research well.
As for the war game and red flag exercise results please take it from me that the US and its allies have been faking it during most exercises. The true capabilities of these fighters when operating alone is something but when operating together in numbers and with ISR, satellite and other assets their domain dominance is unmatched and matcheable for now.
The people who have been making plane to plane comparisons are not scratching the surface of what is possible when you are going against flying super computers with long range eyes that see in the dark. What will never happen in a modern engagement between superpowers is battle of Britain type of dogfights so let us not get things wrong.
*unmatchable for now*
Jeez i cnt believe the total specs.nigeria wetin we still dey wait for
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-30
@ jimmy I know he deserve to go talking of Late Gaddafi, but the timing was wrong and the methodology was also wrong, hence we are having crisis on the Region with several armed criminal group uniting.
Gadhafi was an as****e and got everything he deserved. I pray every dictator ends up begging the very people they lorded it over in the moments before their deaths.
So saying from a strategic/ geopolitical endpoint it was an unmitigated disaster. Like him or loath him Gadhafi kept a lid on the Taureg issue by employing lots of them in his army or as migrant workers. he also invested billions buying influence around Africa.
Libya was a dictatorship but it was well run at least from an admin point of view.
The problem of course is when you have to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea. The sensible thing would have been to support Gadhafi and maintain stability in North Africa, the Sahel and the Mediterranean. Unfortunately in this day and age the great powers could not simply ignore him or covertly support him and more to the point Gadhafi has pissed every single country in the West and most of Arica off thus when the time came no one really gave a shot, except SA, ( I presume from intelligent geopolitical reasons).
As much as I hate Ghaddafi and dictators his removal was a disaster however I really don’t see how he could have been left in power, once he started attacking civilians.
The same geopolitical reality pertains to thee sudden love for invading Cameroun and declaring jihad on South Africa and the US.
The first order consequence of an invasion of Cameroun is that our troops will be sucked into a pointless war. What is the objective of this invasion? To topple Biya? And replace him with whom? Orr to eradicate BH? If it the former then its fairly stupid as we have no pliant candidate and whoever does take over will need to spend time and resource protecting himself and is regime and thus denude forces facing BH in the north. If the latter again its not just stupid ut militarily impossible. We have not eliminated BH of Fulani marauders in Nigeria and we want to chase them in Cameroun. Not only would we be facing Camerounian forces but attacks on our extended supply lines both in Nigeria and Cameroun and dealing with a resurgent BH as the pressure eases of them in Nigeria. Before Turkey went after the PKK in Iraq they had shut them down in Turkey. Its tactics 101,secure your rear first. Thee second order consequence is once there is an invasion (if it is successful) the structures of the state are destroyed, so no police or army. Under international law the conqueror assumes responsibility for security thus Nigeria will legally need to securre Camerouns borders, citites and countryside. Where do we get these forces from? We’d need to suck them from our own cities thus giving our armed robbers, bunkerers kidnappers etc a field day. There is a cyclical nexus of gangsters and mercenaries who revolve between Chad, Niger, Sudan, CAR and Cameroun. Once you destabilise Cameroun these people will move into vacant space, adding another element to contend with. Where do you think the Fulani raider in the North Ceentre/ Middle Belt are from. Third order consequence is that we will be sanctioned and embargoed, thus we would need to support deployed army with no access to legitimate markets meaning we would be paying a fortune to illegal arms dealers to sustain our forces.
4th Order consequence the defeated Camerounian forces and political parties will form a rebl group to harass Nigerian forces and most likely raid Nigeria.
Thus in this current operation I strongly believe the only way to defeat Boko haram is for Nigeria forces to operate in and from Cameroun, but this must happen legally, with a status of forces agreement and integration of forces in the area of operations.
I am not a fan of Biya and would (in my wilder moments) also advocate the recovery of not just Bakassi but Anglophone Cameroun but that is random jingoistic nonsense not logical strategic thought and planning.
And for those worrying about Cameroun you have no idea how dangerous a country Chad is in terms of it foreign policy.
Cameroun’s problem is the same as Nigeria’s, long term sit tight recycled leaders who can only think in terms of settlement and arrangement
weda ghadaffi was an asshole or shot hole.removing him was d greatest mistake….and dey ar trying to repeat it wit Assad and we are just watching. if Assad should fall I mercy for nigeria
Nigeria only worries about Cameroon because Nigeria is always afraid of France.
We know what North Korea did to free itself from the fear of America, so Nigeria should copy that and free itself from the fear of France, then Abuja will never worry again about Yaounde.
Respect to all, yes the issues of Gaddafi has been settled, errors have already been made on all side Gaddafi inclusive, this is now lesson for the future leaders and their foreign policy, issues at hand is how to handle security issues in the North East, top DSS official and Nigeria military expert also visit this site, so constructive suggestion are needed, someone actually got a job with M15 in the UK by having smart Idea on war fare blog, M15 requested his email and he works with them presently, it wont be a bad idea to work for Nigeria DSS as recruitment comes in several forms with top pay and chances to travel the world over with diplomatic privileges.
As for Bakassi, that land is gone, Nigeria will never get it back, what the Gowon government should have gone was to lease Bakassi to Cameroun for say 100 years or 500 years, but they gave it all away, am hoping Jonathan Government do same and give part of Adamawa and Borno to Chad and Cameroun if they can secure those lands from Boko Haram (Joking).
At times I get tired with this blog. No Nigerian military top brass have more important things to do than visiting a defsec blog, even if it were the best defsec blog on earth.
The most likely visitors of the blog are civilians, several journalists and a few statesmen. So the idea that the ideas shared here are meant to guide the military is ludicrous.
“As for Bakassi, that land is gone, Nigeria will never get it back, what the Gowon government should have gone was to lease Bakassi to Cameroun for say 100 years or 500 years, but they gave it all away, am hoping Jonathan Government do same and give part of Adamawa and Borno to Chad and Cameroun if they can secure those lands from Boko Haram (Joking).” i don’t think any Nigerian would ever say this. This explains the type of “peace” you want, a humiliating peace that sees more of Nigerian land taken away. I take ofeence to that and every Nigerian should !
I just have one question: are you a cameroonian ?
correction: “No, Nigerian military top brass have more important things to do than visiting a defsec blog, even if it were the best defsec blog on earth.”
I believe the contributions of Beegeagle’s Blog are not just visited by the military brass in Nigeria but worldwide. Divergent disparate views may occur and even disparaging comments may occur but for what this Blog stands for it is second to none. Last week none other than an upset American ambassador is being put on the defensive as to their refusal to sell Nigeria weapons. The week before that saw a doubling of personnel being sent to Russia.This has been a position being strongly advocated by peeps on this blog. The decision to send such a huge number of personnel would of come down to two countries. The ramifications are for another day. This blog advocated as early as 2010 with me ,beegs solorex,xnur,spirit and later on peccavi for a new division,later on came the 7division and also the central command. I could go on but before I go back to siddon look mode.I will say this. Like in the Godfather Kaddaffi was bad blood that had to be washed clean. It is telling outside of Naive South Africa,Every single neighbor of his were happy to see him meet his well deserved fate.I shed no tears for the man who caused the death of many Nigerian soldiers and civilians. T-Mobile. America’s First Nationwide 4G Network
I maintain my statement.
Well put Bakassi to one side because I fit misyarn but the fundamentals remain that, although the seeds of BH were planted in Nigeria, the roots are anchored in Cameroun.
We have to ddestroy it and as I wrote previously it is in Camerouns interest to do this. All that postulatd is coming to pass and BH is now facing Cameroun directly. If they are simply pushed out of Naija they will take over N. Cameroun.
SO its a fairly easy case to make
My Brother they do come, even phone calls are been monitored world wide and you are talking of blog or website, they are all been monitored, do you know how many extremist website re closed down daily, ask boko haram how many of their twitter account have been shut down.
Yes make perfect sense comrade Peccavi, once BH is eliminated from Nigeria, they will most likely dig deeper into Cameroun.
I THINK DAT BIYA IS ON OUR SIDE JST DAT HE AINT DOIN ENOUGH COS OF MAYBE FEAR OF BH WEAKENIN HIS DICTATORSHIP SO HE HAS GONE D EASY ROOT WHICH IS TO PAY RANSOM ND GIV BH BACK THEIR ARROWHEADS.
I understand that it is relatively ill advised (in the case of some countries like uganda) to declare a war on a country at the same time as you are fighting an insurgency. But what if that country is serving as rear base and arms and ammunition depot for the terrorists. At which point can you arrive to the conclusion that the synergy between cameroon and boko haram makes them a monolith. For example, the us had problems with alqaida, and to get rid of alqaida it had to deal with the government of Afghanistan ( then that government was thhe talibans). It is a fact that the terrorists and the government of their country of residence (cameroon) are not the same, but to destroy the terrorists you might have to take down the government which is giving them refuge and money and weapons. Like it or not biya and boko haram seem to be partners, perhaps unwilling partners but partners nevertheless.
I guess the problem associated with a war against boko haram and cameroon is the very long border. I think we need to upgrade our capabilities and that will do. I wonder what planet Okonjo was coming from to think that we live in a fantastic world with no ennemies and brothers all around. I remember those days when so many ignorants were chanting that we didn’t need a strong military ! We do ! We always did !
Sorry i never did any research since i have’nt attended any RedFlag exercise, i’m just quoting from a source in USA. But since you are in charge of the data sheet of the outcomes of all RedFlag exercises why don’t you share with us sir!
***
by the way i have read countless reports of how Indian Air Force Sukhois defeats USA and Europes finest fleet even with their AESA radar turned-off (Apparently to hide it’s freq.., Et al)
Triggah there is a marked difference between military exercises and real time warfare. South African submarine once surfaced in the middle of NATO surface vessels and of course this was trumpeted by the media. Any major success against america in a training exercise becomes headline news, people are this clueless as to in a training exercise conditions have to be engineered to fit a particular purposes, to test submarines against carriers two U.S Ohio Class submarines that ride shotgun in any American Carrier battle group is removed, the AEGIS DEFENCE SYSTEMS are also removed, this allows for proper training on diverse systems.
Shebi i dey talk since una dey tink say i don kolo, e don begin happen.Im having a hard time reconciling in my head the fact that many on here still think Invasion of Cameroon is amateurish and hence should be waved aside. In broad daylight Cameroon is putting paper in our eyes, we are saying to retaliate will be viewed as amateurish afterall when last did one country invade another. If Nigeria cannot defend its territory against a foreign country just a few hundred kilometers away whose combined army is roughly the size of the Lagos State Police then what business have we maintaining an armed forces and spending $6 billion a year. Have we forgotten so soon that not long ago Libyan leader GAddafi called for the break up of Nigeria? Nigeria stood in the way between Libya and her dream to head his pet project United States of Africa. Have we forgotten so soon that just January of this year Edward Snowden revealed France and Cameroon planned to Invade Nigeria,.. in an ironic twist Boko Haram saved Nigeria as plans had to be shelved because of the insurgency. No commision was set up to look into these reports that threatens the continued existence of Nigeria. I am tempted to ask who is really the biggest existential strenght to Nigeria? Boko Haram or Cameroon? if you ask me i will say Cameroon. I can tell you categorically even though i dont have proof that the purported $400,00 prisoner exchange is bollocks, Cameroon is dirt desperate poor and wont dish out $400,000 if their future depends on it. I reckon the least Boko received will be $1 million and the funds are coming from France using Chad and Cameroon as proxies. But lets assume its $400,000 what doyou think they will do with it? pay their fighters salaries or avenge the death of its leader?;et us take an in depth view on what Boko Haram can buy with $1 million…err sorry $400,000.
First of all to take care of the Nigerian air force with just $30,000 they can buy
10 ZPU-4 Anti-Aircraft Gun for $20,000
20 Czech M53 dshk quad mount for $10,000
5 units of Soviet SA-7 and SA-14
They can buy tripod mounted machine guns and even field weapons not used in the Nigerian military. Every available weapon that will counter our aircrafts and out dated armour will be acquired.
http://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-comparison-detail.asp?form=form&country1=Nigeria&country2=Cameroon&Submit=Compare+Countries
I say we hit them and hit them hard now. Since we have just the 7th division actively involved with Boko Haram what are the other divisions doing? why not protect our Eastern Flank and invade all known Boko Haram hideouts in Cameroon and hold the ground until negotiations begins. What card does a country with no air force and navy an a few thousand soldiers hold against Nigeria? What will be Cameroons answer to a $30,000 invasion force from Nigeria and sustained aerial attacks. Boko Haram have better anti aircraft guns that the Cameroonian military. do we wait until they are better armed before we act? As for Chad they have 9 MIG-29’s sitting on a runway tarmac day in day out, Special forces as little as 10 to maximize secrecy and stealth can either take out or render them inoperative.
@oga odion777, i really don’t understand what you mean by we cant recover our lost territories from Cameroon. do you mean we shouldn’t fight for the worthless peninsula? or we shouldn’t move to recover those territories? what is the folly here? is it in the fighting itself or the fear of France?
please clarify your position a bit more.
i m not advocating we invade cameroun, especially not now. yes, we would have to arm twist them for hot pursuit of BH into Cameroon. this is the short term strategy.
for the medium term, we would have to re-arm. not because of tiny cameroun, but as a deterrence against any european power intervention. a few squadron of sukhois would keep any would be imperial power out. even if france succeed in dragging in NATO due to the lure of the resources in the gulf of guinea,into any border conflict, our recapitalized military Might would keep them out.
other than the USA, the remaining members of NATO are nothing to write home about. none of them can sustain divisional size expeditionary forces for long without their economy and politics nosediving. forgive my digression. for the long term strategy, we shall recover bakassi peninsula. it might seem like wishful dream to you now, but in the future, this dysfunctional Nigerian state where leaders are more or less businessmen will change for the better. with vision, unity, and coherence, a proper chart forward for nationhood will be the only resort for Nigeria.
since we are being very generous, you should have suggested tchad for the gifting of bornu to. after all, they take security more serious than any other country in the lake chad basin.
Oga Freegulf remind me again how any squadrons Saddam had?
If one of the major powers wishs to attack you, they have the capability to do so.
Al you can do is increase the cost to the piint where it is not an option.
Our biggest worries are not European powers, there is no public appetite for wars in Europe, and outside of France no government appetite either. More importantly anything Europe wants n Nigeria they can get, very easily.
This Camerooun invasion issue is becoming ridiculous. Ordinary Sambisa and Gwoza iss there but our mini Napoleons are talking of Cameroun. Abeg make I hear word
We should rearm because we need to rearm.
Thanks oga Peccavi, Nigeria found it hard to deal with Boko Haram, but we are dreaming about over-running Cameroon as if their land size is smaller than North East, and their 20,000 man army plus tens of thousands of Police and Gendarmes cannot change tactics into guerrilla warfare if they see their weakness in a conventional war. The Cameroonian nation has capacity to frustrate Nigerian army inside their territory same way Mujahideen frustrated the entire armed forces of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Cameroon has more guided anti-tank missiles than Nigeria has tanks.
With your porous borders you want to fight Cameroon, even if you decimate them and pull out afterwards, what if Cameroon goes to arm it’s northern radicals to become another new wave of Boko Haram terrorists who can criss-cross into Nigerian mountains and create Boko Haram insurgency II so we can start this hell all over again?
Somebody wants Nigeria to fight war against NATO so we can have Abuja and Lagos reduced to Somalia level of infrastructural development by NATO’s new ordnance that want to test fire from Eurofighter Typhoon and Rafale jets, not to even mention America’s thousands of jet fighters including Stealth jets like the F-22 Raptor, as if America is not in NATO.
Somebody even thinks NNS Thunder should be using her world war II gun boat firepower to do exercises around Bakassi or wherever as a threat to Cameroon today.
Nigeria did not use NNS Aradu and others when we had about 10 missile armed warships to threaten Cameroon in the 1980s when Gendarmes murdered a squad of Nigerian soldiers in cold blood, now in 2014 NNS Thunder is the miracle weapon platform to make World War II capacity threats against a Cameroon that has ordered a new stealth OPV to balance power with Nigeria’s new NNS Centenary?
Sometimes we think we are very tall without noticing that we are wearing cheap Okrika high heeled shoes.
oga peccavi, please re-read my write-up. i m not calling for the invasion of cameroun. i only pointed out that our lost territories shall be recovered in the long term. how we do that, whether by diplomacy, war, or economic means, it really does not warrant emergency today. but take this from me, we would get bakassi peninsula back. except there is no nation state called nigeria tomorrow.
as for your european power. no, they do no have what it takes to militarily defeat a re-capitalized nigerian armed forces, they dont. whether france, britain, or any other. acting as american sidekicks is different from being a superpower. currently, no country outside of the USA can deploy forces far from their continents on some imperial expedition. and please do not bring up the falklands, that was a different game.
as for saddam you mentioned, again, if it wasn’t for the big ‘ol USA, everyone else in that coalition would have turned around and gone home. having a good air force means your would be belligerent would have to calculate their feared air losses, and without public appetite, nor a war economy, they would drop armed intervention as an option.
only the united states have the capabilities to fight on any continent at any time of their choosing (or even the oppo forces chosen for that matter). there are some few threads still lose as far as nation building goes, once we tighten those loose threads, nigeria would begin to play its real leadership role in africa.
Peccavi which word u wan hear again? and why will you call it ridiculous, is it because you are far away from ground zero you see everything in statistical terms? why shouldn’t we invade Cameroon? why should you use our performance against Boko Haram as a barometer to measure our chances of a military offensive on Cameroon? Boko Haram for starters has equal numbers (if not more) on fighters as the entire Cameroonian army, they have 1500 personnel for a Navy and 1000 men for its air force with one Alpha Jet and one Impala jet as its front line fighters. You seem to quickly forget this is still the Nigerian army. Cameroon has virtually no battlefield experience, all they’ve ever known is drill drill drill. Boko Haram is hard to defeat because in an unconventional war with an enemy whose measure of victory is by killing innocent civilians. If Boko Haram attacks a remote village at night and kill innocent people they win, they win not because they are stronger but because they are murderers and that is how they calculate victory. What does Cameroon have that will stand in the way of an invading army 3 times the size of its own? the most number of their personnel that will engage us wnt exceed 15,000. At this size if 50,000 poorly trained Nigerian police officers attack Cameroon with AK47 rifles and 50 Tanks, 200 artillery pieces 10 Mi series gunships and the our Navy bombarding their coast we will still prevail. The Cameroonian military who have never known or seen war uses our calamity for their PR Propaganda war. Ive watched so many videos on youtube. Each time you see them with foreign journalists they look smartly dressed, fresh face, and weapons ready and all but in actual fact they are scared shit.
They mock us for not yet ”rescuing” those 200 girls like they expect our special commandos to badge in, kill all the terrorists holding these girls hostages, rescue the girls and come home to a victory parade at Abuja square, classic Hollywood style. Boko Haram kidnapped the wife of their minister and till this day they have no clue where she is being held. They were the first to declare to the world they have killed Boko Haram’s leader Shekau, saying he was killed by the Cameroonian air force who launched ”airstrikes” deep in Nigerian territory” that is not only an insult its a slap on our face. Where have our inaction diplomatically and military gotten us thus far with out neighbors? they have capitalized on it and are no longer afraid to step on our toes.
Since Biya has deemed it fit to be an agent of destruction for Nigeria we have no choice than to remind them they have the country with the largest military in sub-saharan Africa as a neighbor.
I am yet to see any evidence that can be used to prove in World Court that Paul Biya is an agent of destruction against Nigeria. Cameroonians generally envy and hate Nigeria after Ahmadu Ahidjo left, the problem is historical and becoming generational, it is the 20 million man francophone Cameroon against Nigeria and not one man Biya against Nigeria. I have met five Cameroonian ministers last month at an African event and my attempt to give them a message to Biya was put off with open hatred and red eyes, replace Biya today and problem continues if the crop of leaders they have go on to fill his vacant shoes of it becomes vacant.
Simple envy is what Cameroon has against us, France envies the greatness of ex-British colonies in Africa as opposed to the low down status of ex-French colonies in Africa. The French could instigate Cameroon to be a thorn in Nigeria’s flesh. Cameroon itself is not comfortable with a 10 times bigger 10 times richer 10 times more powerful neighbhour like Nigeria, so natural human envy comes in, when envy is not controlled it grows into hatred.
Let’s look beyond politics and see the human psychology involved. Among us here in Nigeria, don’t we have envy against ourselves? One tribe envies the educational advantage of the other, one tribe envies the oil wealth of the other, one tribe envies the commercial/technological wealth of the other. See your street where you live, people climbing okada and keke marwa to work envy the other neighbour that drives his brand new Mercedes SUV to work, even on this blog people envy other people for what those people know and they do not know. Is it not human nature at work?
Envy is as old as man itself, did one blood brother not envy his fellow blood brother whose effort was appreciated and accepted instead of his own? Did he not use the envy to kill his own blood brother in cold blooded murder and establish the world’s first homicide?
If Cameroon envies Nigeria, is it not the way the world started even when there were only four human beings? It twins can hate each other what stops Cameroon from hating and killing Nigeria? We should just accept realities of life and stop complaining that our neighbours behave like human beings, how else would they have behaved? Like robots?
Nigeria should just stop complaining about other African countries that envy us, Cameroon, Chad, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, blah blah blah as if only we get hated, do Arabs not hate Israelis? Do Americans not hate North Koreans?
What did Israel and North Korea do to make their haters fear to mess around with them? Do I need to tell anybody? No, I have said it many times and I am not saying it at this moment, Nigerian leaders should join two and two together to figure out what Israel and North Korea has done to checkmate their sworn enemies.
If you want to be giant, be real giant by strength and not by word of mouth, and be capable of proving to be a giant if need arises. Stop complaining about a title you believe you deserve and some people do not respect you as such. You go prove yourself. If they don’t think Usain Bolt is the world’s fastest man, they should go run faster than him. The man you are unable to fool has proved himself wiser than you are. No contest.
Nothing good having to work with men that are more researchful and know more than you do, Respect to Comerade Peccavi and Comrade Augustine on the Cameroun wishful invasion ideology, we have not forgotten how long it took us to conquer Biafra and even with Cameroun help back then strategically by closing its border on Biafra and frustrating their supply line, and also we are yet to take back territories from Boko Haram.
Cameroun turned its back on its colonial Masters France to support Nigeria against Biafra and this act made sure we did not have another Sudan like war in Nigeria of more than 3 decades, Biafra had support from France, South Africa, Israel, Zimbabwe and was recognised by Gabon, civ, Zambia, Tanzania, because of Cameroun assistance to Nigeria that was the reason we ceded Bakassi to Cameroun, this things happen in time of war, please understand the reason why we cant take Bakassi back, Nigeria as a country should be able to keep its word and have integrity among other state, as a Nigeria we don’t want Bakassi back as we have agreed to give it to Cameroun constitutionally.
ceded what? please bring the papers where it showed gowon signed and gave out bakassi peninsula to cameroun because they shut their door on biafra. hearsay and speculation not included please.
what was the size of our armed forces as of ’67? the best middle level officers were already part of the secessionist force, yet i keep hearing peeps comparing every manoeuvre to the civil war conflict.
i m not advocating war with cameroun today. but as of the bakassi question, i stand firm and resolute. you need to have a better understanding of the breakup of the southern nigeria and northern cameroon union. they where hoping for an independent state when they decided to leave, only to find themselves be swallowed by an even poorer francophone cameroon. the so called ambazonia would also be hoping to have bakassi as part of their future nation.
your comment and that of oga augustine leaves a lot to be desired. which constitutional agreement handed the peninsula to cameroon?
which nation state would willingly give away territory outside of armed conflicts? huh? even tiny eritrea went head on with mighty ethiopia over some dirt strip.
in the end, it is not about the worth of the land in resource terms, rather, its just absolutely detrimental to ‘dash’ territory to anyone be it big or small, rich or dirt poor. even when two nations trade territories, its always pertinent to try and end up with the longer part of the stick.
let me even for a min stand on the same position as oga oje, word for word. say we invade cameroun (my fictional scenario), i wouldn’t want to go into detailed tactical dispositions, whether for the SE AOR or that of the NE AOR. is it simply for regime change? carving out anglophone cameroon? or just crushing the cameroonian military forces and annexing the peninsula? that should be the most important questions to answer.
@oga augustine, which guerrilla forces? do you think it is that easy to change skin from a conventionally trained force to that of guerrilla bandits? and where do we stop with our drive, yaounde? rio river? or the gabonese borders? defining that would give you the answer on the issue of your guerrilla army harassing nigerian forces.
like i said i m only playing devils advocate with oga oje position. our individual positions are different and divergent. where it aligns is simply on the issue of action towards cameroun. however, when, where, how, we completely are on different plains on those subjects.
what i find sad with you and oga odion is why the need to put nigeria down just to make oga oje idea sound so call amateurish. whether he is right or wrong does not mean we have to start playing cameroun up and destroying ours just to show our so called maturity and peaceful neighbourliness. as for oga peccavi, his position is more complicated than simply fighting any other overlapping wars.
hell, even russia the largest country on God’s earth refuse to ‘dash’ some tiny islands to japan. and putin made sure he recovered the crimea that nikita (himself a ukrainian) gifted ukrainian ssr.
as far as foreign affairs are concerned, obj action is the most foolish thing we have ever done! short of getting invaded by external military forces, nothing can match such a pathetic, unpatriotic, and treasonable action of obj. in more serious countries, he would be arraigned before a tribunal and shot!
Oga freeegulf, I don’t put Nigeria down anytime. I just say what I see as truth, it may be bitter.
I am the only one on this blog who insisted that for the sake of National pride Nigeria should not have, and must never again surrender our guns of a whole battalion to Cameroonian army who put us inside a school classroom, feeding our army there like primary school children. The whole of this blog stood against me but I stood my ground, and I said I will NOT lose my Nigerian national pride because of any UN law that has been violated by USA, Israel, Russia at random etc
It is NOT national pride for me if Nigeria invades a sovereign state of Cameroon without any provocation, killing innocent Cameroonian civilians by collateral damage in a war of vengeance and Nigeria becomes the new devil on the international scene such that even our allies like China will be ashamed to support us, and so Abuja ends up with a broken spinal chord. I won’t make my country a new global murderer-criminal because I seek revenge for old issues that have been mutually settled peacefully in full eye view of the whole world with records to prove it.
oga augustine, hightlight that last sentence. it hasnt been mutually settled. as for now, there will be peace. but i say this, the bakassi peninsula issue would be revisited all over in the future.
@freegulf Bless you for this sir!
Everything we are saying here converges at the same thing. I know everybody knows what it is?.
Oya Oga Freegulf, let me not mention the Falklands, let me mention Iran, how many squadrons did they have before Saddam attacked? Egypt/ Syria and Israel? India and Pakistan.
The advocacy for the Sukhois is all well and good but if do not do all the underlying underlyables first we will simply have expensive junk we cannot service. Let me start by stating I am an advocate of rearming with Mig 29s or Su 27s. My question is whether we are ready for them, whether we have improved our training and maintenance programmes.
And more importantly what e are using them for?
Oga AreJames is 100% correct, exercises are all well and good but they are held under exercise conditions so a lot of things are not used, I have read an account of that exercise and the conditions were highly restrictive. This does not detract from the Indian success, it is a testament to their training, however in true battle conditions, a lot of assets will be in play that will be to the advantage of the F 35. This again leads to my central point, it is not just buying an aircraft and using it and then the world will stop. There is a supporting infrastructure that is needed to maintain its capabilities.
To answer my question at the top, the Egyptians/ Syrians vastly outnumbered the Israelis, yet it was superior skill, planning and tactics that gave them victory.
But all things being equal the F 35 is still an expensive, over engineered, piece of unwanted shit.
Anyway Oga Freegulf the Cameroun statements were not really directed at you. Oga Oje, I’m presuming you are being serious in your write up so I will give you a serious answer. Biya is not an agent of destruction, he is an old, corrupt dictator, clinging onto power using all the same old tools dictators use. His priority is not Boko Haram or Nigeria, it is holding onto power. Boko Haram started in Nigeria, was supported by Nigerian politicians, became a majo force in Nigeria and the counter strike was messed up by Nigerians.
I have written why an invasion of Cameroun is ridiculous so will not rehash those arguments, you state I cannot use our performance against BH as a barometer and you would be partially correct if BH had not captured any towns from the NA or if the NA recaptured the towns under BH control.
Can we defeat Cameroun? The answer is yes, not sure about easily but yes we can, but then what comes next? Will it take ‘poorly armed policemen’ then no, and any suggestion of that is not ridiculous but bordering on the insane.
War is not a video game and geopolitics is not a comic book.
We need to clean up the mess n our country frst
THE GOLF ABEG NO TOO VEX O THE BLAST SMOKE DE REACH ME …. EJOOOO
hehe oga peccavi, you know our air force is vastly experienced in air operations. they would not procure any weapons system that they cant maintain. i know they would factor in cost, maintenance, flying hours and loads more before going for the acquisition if and when they are giving the funds for procurement. NAF is not half baked. they would get their training, log their hours, and hopefully, without political interference, and full availability of funds, keep their jets in the air.
the main thing is to convince the politicians about the need for a modern military. the cost, and implications of all these should be clearly stated too.
so no, i m not just singing Sukhois for the sake of them. like i mentioned, excluding the most powerful country on earth, the United States, i wouldn’t worry about the rest.
on the issue of iraq v iran. do not forget where saddam got inspiration from. first, why did saddam attack in 1980? why did this same saddam not attack during the time of the pahlavi dynasty? who was urging him and encouraging him to attack the ayatollah?
saddam invaded iran foolishly thinking the turmoil of the revolution would make iran collapse readily. the statistics then, made him look correct. 1. the ayatollahs where busy killing left right and centre anyone suspected of indifference to their theocratic rule. 2. the air force was in shambles, lots of pilots had been executed, many more thrown in prison. 3. these ayatollahs inherited the shah’s secret police, gave them a face lift, and used them to continue the suppression of dissent, but this time in a more larger scale.
saddam thought these chaos would bring the door down quickly. also, he had the USA providing him with satellite info, the USSR selling him weapons, france, britain,east and west germany, doing same. what else could he wish for. having all these rich and technological advance nation on your side, also not forgetting that he was also banking on iranian minority arabs to rise in revolt. well it didn’t pan out as planned just as iraqi shites didnt support iran but fought for their country iraq
during the shah era, iran was the most powerful country in the middle east. at least excluding nukes that the israelis posses. it was this vast military might that kept iran going throughout the bitter 8 years of war with iraq. they had F-14, F-5, F-4, AH-1, Boeing tankers, chinooks, charlie 130s and many more in huge huge quantities. the shah was really a progressive forward thinking man. shame the middle class conspired with the mullahs to turn everything upside down. now they are all teary eyed. theocracy is holding down the great persian culture from thriving.
as for the egyptian/syrian v israel, you would have to state which specific conflict you are referring to. is it the ’67 war or the ’73 or just in general ‘how the arabs got smashed by the jews’?
for the ’67 war we know how useless the arab air forces where. our NAF is not useless, we can both agree on that. the planes we couldn’t maintain had much to do with political interference and lack of funds.
the ’73 war was much different, the EAF held their own against the IAF and they still celebrate the battle of mansour as their national day. don’t forget both sides had the backing of each superpower then. so all the glories shouldn’t go to these clients states only. a good illustration is the battle for the canal, we know the significant difference the SR71 spy plane played in that israeli counter stroke. Elazar and Arik where good but so was El Shazly too.
the syrians as usual, where useless. their air force has always been their Achilles heels. they did poorly again in ’82, although their ground troops did give a good spirited action against the IDF in ’82.
the war in the sub continent. i really don’t know why you added this to the list. both sides are heavily armed as a result they try not to escalate their border skirmishes. if PAF wasn’t very well trained and armed, IAF would have swallowed them whole a long time ago. in ’65 PAF fought very well, and inflicted some stingy pains on the IAF. both ended the war bruised and claiming Pyrrhic victory.
the ’71 war caught PAF at a big disadvantage and IAF dealt them a huge blow. the war ended with india breaking pakistan in two and capturing largest POWs since WW2. in ’99 kargil war, PAF was restrained from what they saw as an army and ISI war. IAF had a field day. and thanks to israeli targetting pod and laser bombs, made those valleys a meat grinder for pak intruders. short of the nukes of both sides, the IA is still working on how to dismember pakistan in a blitzkreig type war, without provoking the use of nuclear weapons or the interference of china and the USA. pakistan has no choice that to keep spending to maintain her vigilant air force. if she lag behind too much, as she is currently doing, it would then turn into a korean peninsula situation. where the north now has to rely fully on her nukes since she cant compete dollar for dollar in conventional armament with the south.
the air force is the ultimate arm. not because you dont need the navy or the army when the shooting war starts, but because, the air force is enough to keep out any shooting war from starting.
Personally, i believe that no one expects Nigeria to unjustly express its homogenous attitude over Cameroon but we should ask very pertinent questions based on facts on ground. Its so obvious we are doing so much to keep Cameroon as friends. GEJ have visited Yaounde 2 – 3 times without any reciprocity. In fact, leaders from Ghana, Chad, Benin,Niger, Ethiopia, Kenya, and others have either visited or supported us frontally. We gave them Bakassi and ever since, we continue spearheading joint commission efforts between the 2 countries. When it comes to Nigeria, Biya send his Ministers and off course information from the last meeting in Niger indicated that Cameroon were not forthcoming on sending 700 soldiers.
Militarily, NN regularly extends a hand of friendship in every multinational exercise, inviting them for naval conferences and treating them well during Ex Obangame Express. The language of the Nigerian leadership have always been thankful of our neighbors efforts if only it took France to intervene despite Nigeria’s seize-less accusations on the Cameroon front. Secretly, Cameroon have intensified war drills with Nigeria testing every possible means of weapon including releasing higher surge water reserve in their dam after giving short notice where no country on earth can mobilize for containment. THIS they did when we were hard faced in terror war. More so, Cameroon COMPLETELY refuse Nigeria use of air platforms during Obangame ex they hosted. Their treatment of NN participants were demeaning and a total shame on the African spirit. They have mobilized their media for MEDEX operation to COMPLETELY EMBARRASS Nigeria. They are acquiring weapons, communications jammers and other secret weapons not stated in most sources. Off course Cameroon is an independent state and has the right to prepare its Army or conduct drills based on perceived threats.
The last incident is a far cry of a friendly act whether Cameroon is an independent nation or not. If a man is burning everywhere in your house with fire, a neighbour should not go by the window to exchange fuel for some treasure he kept in your house. Only but 3 possibilities has taken place.
1. A possible agreement that the man can keep burning provided he gives you what you want.
2. A good opportunity to negotiate limitations of threat only within the neighbours house.
3. Violating the neighbours house under fire for advantageous purposes without his consent.
By my understanding, this is a true enemy not hiding his identities in the court of public opinion. Wisely, We should not invade any country now. There is a scheme well planted to keep the state of Nigeria busy. We should face squarely the insurgent who its sponsors are doing everything now to divert our operations. Our Ego may be a tool against us but if it becomes more evident that Cameroon continues in this way, we should suspend relations completely and engage a better war drill far more than SEADOG.
Cameroon does not see the ”constitutional” hand over of Bakassi to Cameroon as diplomatic maturity, they see it as a national victory. There is no greater danger than playing it safe, even right in our own eyes they are flaming the fires of terror, not sharing intelligence with Nigeria , they have negotiators (arms dealers) with Boko Haram where these so called ”Ransom payments” that goes into millions of dollars take place unchecked, unprotected, its nearing November and we are still where we are 5 years ago, only worse off yet some self aggrandizing egocentrics here (i wont call names, they know themselves) are using this as a medium to show us they know how to speak English or attended Ivy league colleges. By the time this cancer we are allowing spreads to the point of no return, it will be too late to do anything to save this country. Peccavi and co can of course write eulogies from their respective place of residence abroad.
Oga Oje, let me know how the invasion goes. Have fun.
Oga freegulf: the point I was making which you ably illustrated is that there are multiple factors that dictate the outcome of conflicts. Not merely having x number of a particular weapon system.
Even in NATO countries or the US, maintenance, training and availability is not 100% and in many cases not up to 50%. The difference is that they have the systems n place.
You will be the first to know Oga Peccavi, after that saboteur French Puppet Biya is taken out of power we will take back Bakassi, garrison a permanent 20,000 man army unit there, we will proffer financial and morale support to the marginalised English speaking Southern Cameroonians who want nothing more to do with a country that see them as gypsies. We will sanitize this subregion off foreign manipulations by a dead empire who refuses to realise colonialism has gone extinct. All of you laughing like this is some sick joke, i cannot wait to see your faces when this country starts acting like the regional power it should and leave politics ethnicity aside to fight for a common cause we all share.
You make some valid points…
Ok
Nobody is considering this chronic, death-defying, unquenchable disease called corruption that started all this in the first place.
Does the Canadian air force use Alpha Jets ?
http://www.strategypage.com/military_photos/20141008224632.aspx
Nope, it’s a PMC in the francophone side of the country that owns them not RCAF, guys once proposed to them to give the men air cover in Iraq with Alphas from the anglophone base. Whole idea was an unusual deal and was screwed. T & C was not agreeable, then some government policy/legal issues, plus ego about yank won’t bow to canuk.
I dont understand, does Canada have two air forces? one Franco one Anglo?
Canada has only one air force RCAF, but the country has a francophone province and all other provinces are anglophone. Discovery Air is a PMC that owns the Alphas, their HQ is in the francophone province, the jets are based in both the franco and anglo side, split for business reasons. The PMC that wanted the air cover deal is yankee but has business in Canada, some other yankee hard liners did not like the idea of getting help from a ‘weaker’ canuk nation, plus government issues about the plan, deal didn’t work out. The PMC is so good that they even train RCAF pilots in some aspects of combat.
Where is Oga Beeg?
Likely thinking about the NAF Flankers, Thunders, Tucanos, he would love to get photos I guess.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/08/world/europe/uk-us-military-aircraft-crash-urgent-1/index.html?hpt=wo_bn6
In less than six weeks the U.S. who arguably have the most experienced pilots inthe world have lost three planes. We in Nigeria or in America did not question the competency of the pilots or the airframes. This begets one thing is it because the Nigerian pilots are flying more missions than at anytime since the ECOMOG WARS ? or is it something els?. The same benefit of doubt we give other nations AIR FORCES Let us give Nigerian Air force pilots the same consideration of benefit of doubt.
This is what we have said many times here. Our crashes to sorties ratio is one of the lowest in wartime compared with other conflicts. This is partly because we are engaged in a local LIC and partly because we are mainly using one platform, the Alpha jets for the bulk of the work which also has an engine maintenance facility in country.
Generally speaking, very few African countries can maintain that ratio.
Hey guys, We can Find alternatives than Military Response….Economic Pressure on Cameroon will force them to comply, its dat simple
Economic pressure means nothing when France can offer them economic assistance. We cannot hold them hostage with threats of economic sanctions.
I think some bloggers are intentionnaly diverting the discussion.
Let me phrase it simply:
In a final winning strategy to end boko haram, must there be an agressive crossing of the border into cameroon ?
It seems to me that our priority is to win and not to show love to cameroon nor to hold any moral standards that no other country on earth holds on to.
So if I may rephrase the question: Is there a winning strategy which doesn’t imply crossing the border with cameroon agressively.
By the way, it seems to me that the sambisa forest thing is more about hide and seek while yaoundé is a known fixed location.
Personally i would prefer not having to cross the border agressively, but if necessary then …
( I think the officers in DHQ study all this while making strategy )
It is true although that we have a part of our territory which we need to sensitize as well, but that doesn’t exclude the fact that if biya is arming and paying boko haram then we need to take care of biya.
There is no need burying our heads in the sand and wishing the problem away, we will still bring out ourhead and see met the problem right where we left it.,
Fact : Boko Haram would have been defeated by now if the proposed Nigerian,Chadian and Cameroon agreement to fight terror has been genuine. Boko Haram is not strong enough to outfox the militaries of three countries determined to wipe it out. The proposal was a French Mirage for manipulation.
Fact: France and Cameroon is using ”ransom payments” to terrorists as a means to keep Nigeria busy. The recent victories Nigeria has recorded these past couple of weeks has not been created with great enthusiasm, with their plans going awry and off script they conveniently decide, of all time to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars, they did not do this when Nigerian troops were losing ground, they did not do this when close to a thousand Nigerian troops fled into Cameroon, they conveniently choose to do it now, at a time when if the Trilateral talks for joint military operations against Boko Haram had any substance this would have been the perfect opportunity to end this savage war, working together would have finished them off with virtually no place to escape to. Instead they choose to pay half a million dollars (unofficially should be 5 times that amount) to the terrorists without regard or consultation with the Nigerian government.
Fact: there are dozens if not hundreds of French, Cameroonian and maybe American SPOOKS in Nigeria, running field operations to make sure violence and chaos are the order of the day.
Solution;
Launch a 50,000 man military exercise in Calabar. Cameroon at best can field maybe 15,000 troops, i would like to believe that at least half of these troops are already garrisoned in the North, that will leave them with maybe 7,000 troops or lest to defend their Southern Flank. A military exercise involving 50,000 troops near the border in full view of Binoculars wielding Cameroonian Generals will terrify the shit out of them. This should include the airborne and artillery unit of the 82nd Division complemented with soldiers garrisoned in Port Harcourt, Calabar and 50 or 60 Tanks and 20 Palmaria long range artillery guns. The Palmaria has a range of about 300 miles, they can hit targets deep inside Cameroon.Forget cheap propaganda and deceptive videos, there is no Bravado when it comes to a one and one conventional military confrontation with the Nigerian army.
The 2 ATR surveillance plane which is the only one of its kind in Africa can take shifts running aerial surveillance and relaying positions of Cameroonian forces. If we have the capability our satellites in Space can be integrated into our battle field surveillance systems. While this is going on men of the Special Boat Service practise littoral drills with the NNS Thunder, NNS Andonni, 2 Shaldag patrol vessels and two stealth OPV’s 10 miles off the coast of Cameroon.
Of course Cameroon will run to France and make complaints. It will take a minimum of one to two weeks for France to mobilise IF indeed the French public allows such a move. If there are credible intel France might respond militarily we quickly seize Bakassi and dig in deep. We could align ourselves with Russia. The Russians are still pissed that France refused to deliver the Mistral Class they paid for because of the Ukranian issue. Putin needs a credible ally and a rich one at that.. this is were we go East and never look back.
Of course did is just a pipe dream, but in this hypothetical scenario with such show of force Cameroon will sit down and think deeply if Boko Haram or French destabilisation interest is worth going to war with Nigeria with.
” they did not do this when close to a thousand Nigerian troops fled into Cameroon”,
mind your tong, please.
Nigerian soldiers don’t flee. So please mind your words.
If you are talking about the 480 Nigerian soldiers who crossed the border then I shall remind you than 480 is closer to 500 than to 1000 and that they were taking orders, not deserting.
why do you keep exagerating numbers ?
Lol the range of palmaria is less than 30 km
The Alpha Jet isnt really a bad airframe afterall. Perhaps if retrofitted with the latest avionics and armament they can still be a pretty potent fighter.
Igbi keep quiet. 500 Nigerian troops FLED into Cameroon and for good reason,would you rather have us loose hundreds of soldiers? do you know how long it takes to train just one soldier. Running to fight another day is what has gradually turned the tide look i don’t belong to your ”sugar coating lets not bring out our dirty laundry” kind of group. If you are not matured enough to be honest about the truth thats your business.
Do you know the word retreat ?
I think perhaps you are not that familiar with the engliish language.
i am not disputing the fact that 480 soldiers crossed the border, but what you are not able to process is that they were ordered to do so by their superiors !
Perhaps they were surrounded by a much larger ennemy force, perhaps they lacked ammo or they had other shortcomings.
But saying that they fled doesn’t make any sense ! The were given thhe order to relocate.
480 fled first, the next week another 400 fled. Do the maths. This is not CCTV or a Communist China Propaganda Blog. If we are to learn from our mistakes we should be able to take constructive criticism.
I think you should stop believing all you read, only 480 soldiers crossed the border.
And try and talk in a disciplinned manner.
And they were not fleeing they were ordered to retreat.
Retreat is a misnomer for fled in that situation. You dont ”retreat” with millions of naira of military hardware including artillery peaces, Tanks, RPG’s , that was a hasty retreat. Why are you pin pointing on that part of what i said and making this an issue?
I don’t want to be insultif but your broought no argument and all that I can see from your wrighting is that you must defend what you said at all cost. It is funny that you are preaching about recognizing our mistakes while you deny yours at all cost. The soldiers where given the order to retreat across the border and they followed their order. It is war after all, shortages happen, being surrounded by a much bigger enney force happens as well. In the military fleeing is synonymous with deserting and is punishable by death. I don’t know of many deserters who are very eager to come back to the barracks.
The soldiers strategically retreated after being ordered to do so.
I am making this an issue because this is a defsec blog and those writing here should know better. Journalists come here for guidance, so I think being accurate here is the least we can do. And this iis not the first time you make a terrible gaff.
You are too gullible to speak as a “guide”.
Try disciplinned thinking and work.
What are you all about? Do you think you are half as patriotic as i am?
Come on we are not in kindergarten.
Oga Igbi, this is Beegeagles Blog not the official blog of the Nigerian military. This also not a train ing camp for journalists? Why do you always adopt the “Nigeria’s military is perfevt” mentality? If everything is as perfect as you espouse it is why are we in this mess? Our Intelligence failure is all to glaring to see. In the face of approaching ISIS militants the Iraqi army ran leaving behind nearly a billion dollars worth of American equipments, this included dozens of M1 Abram Tanks. The Iraqi military did no call it “tactical retreat”, they called a spade a spade they were outnumbered by a ratio 3 to 1 and intelligence negligence on their path meant they had no idea the size of the militants coming until it was too late. Why do you enjoy lying to yourself just so you can make yourself feel better? You do not support my motion for military intervention in Cameroon, you do not agree with my assertion that Boko Haram is being funded by Cameroon and France to some degree, you do not proffer your own solution yet you deem it rational to pick items from what I propose and turn this into a turkey fight. .
I guess the main difference in iraq is that their soldiers did flee.
No order to retreat in iraq, just a bunch of people fleeing in all directions, taking off their uniforms, and their foe had a smaller force. The iraqians showed wat the dictionary calls cowardice. Ask yourself where those fleeing iraqi are right now ! Certainly not in the barraks, they are now ordinary civilians (like thhey always were).
Now, I am gettingg tired with the lack of focuss which makes people to confuse different situations in different places. Take off your iraqi lenses and look at Nigeria with objectivity, it is not becuse something happened in iraq that it must have been the same in Nigeria. Nigerian soldiers got the order to retreat !
The soldiers are still prosecuting this war as we speak.
I am not saying that the army is perfect, there have been some setbacks.
I find it amazing how you don’t practice what you preach.
Your own ego is way too heavy. You were wrong, jjust take it and stop your exagerations.
There is absolutely no accuracy in the things you keep saying.
I think I have responded you more than enough.
You are not the type of persons who admits his mistakes.
I have students like you. Perhaps you need to open your eyes and see that you are far from perfect. Most of what you write ( all the ones I have read so far) lack accuracy, most times numbers are grossly exagerated and facts are distorted.
If you rule Nigeria for one week, with your kind of delusions, Boko Haram would be in Abuja at the End of that week. No Pun intended
You are lying to your self and you are beginning to believe your own lies. We’re you the one that gave the orders to repeat? The the commander call to tel you he ordered hi men to leeAve tanks, artillery, mortars behind and retreat to Cameroon? Or are you gong by the official statement given by the DHL. There are dozens of report citing desertion, mutiny and cowardice. 3 days ago an army commander and his platoon were arrested, what for? Official statement was dereliction of duty, desertion and cowardice. That platoon upon getting reports Boko Haram figates were en rout took off their cloths, burnt the tanks and APC’S and ran into the bush. This one is not dem say, this is coming from the DHQ, what bout those sentenced for mutiny. Soldiers like this have no place in the army. You saw the youtube video of rag tagged boys shooting after fleeing solders, why? Because the numerical imbalance was ridiculous. You want to romantisize the conflict but the truth is you don’t even know jack shit about anything. If I exaggerate numbers can you please itemise the exaggerated figures and show me the true picture. People like you will sit in your room doing cheerleader, anyone who says something negative is branded a misinformed ignoramus, oya Mr I know it all who gave the order to retreat? Any citations? Since when is it in our military doctrine that you are allowed to retreat leaving behind all the heavy weapons to the terrorists that will invariably be used against them. If they don’t have satchel charges don’t they have fuel or any means to scuttle those weapons rather than let I fall into the wrong hands? You place less emphasis on the word “setback”, how is it up until now there are at lead up to a dozen villages still under Boko Haram? If it’s not gross incompetence or wilful negligence that at this time we still choose to wait for Boko Haram to act before action is taken? Is the Nigerian army a reaction force? How can $400,000 be paid to the terrorists that has claim 13,000 innocent lives and hundreds of soldiers killed, pilots lost yet our government cannot even utter verbal condemnation or summon the Cameroonian an French embassy officials to explain this actions that goes against our national interest. Despite the media attention on suchat a sensitive issue the Nigerian government refused to negotiate with terrorist or trade the girls for their commanders, yet right in our own backyard hard currency is changing hands between two of our sworn enemies. You don’t even see the implications of this and how stupid our war effort is becoming. All you are good at is to sit down in the relative safety of your house eating pop corn and doing chief cheerleader because na you patriotic pass.
Indeed the enemy of my enemy is my friend, this holds true. It just did not cross my mind until now
*Sits back, gets groundnut and popcorn…….
lol…i don bring my armchair. *2 bottles star + nkwobi* dey my side….
lol
Guess I just sat down and ordered “point and kill catfish, with ice cold Fanta lol”OGA PECCAVI OGA RUGGED make una join me plenty space dey for beer palor
invade Cameroon ! the guys in my unit are enjoying this.Lol
Gentlemen what you are watching is an argument between two opposing bloggers.
One says that Nigeria should invade our neighbour to the East, occupy the northern part of that country to systematically root out BH, launch a commando operation to kidnap the ageing leader of that country as punishment for paying ransom to BH and lock him up at the Kirikiri Maximum prisons. With the recent jail break at Kirikiri,mwe shall amend that a bit and change the his terminal point of existence to Gashua Prisons.
The other viewpoint says the best way to handle things is to re arm the Nigeria military massively and comprehensively. Deploy effectively to the border areas and launch a NUMBER of massive military exercises involving something of the order of 50000men of the NA, NAF and NN that will showcase newly acquired capabilities and scare the neighbour compelling actions by them against BH in order to avoid the disgrace that unilateral actions on our part within their territory would bring.
So we are still waiting for more points for and against. I already know whose arguments makes sense but we are still watching.
What you are watching is the internet equivalent of kids playing soldier. Pointing sticks at each other and shouting ‘Na me shoot you first’.
Invade Cameroon? Do that and expect French Mirage airstrikes on key oil installations..Believe it or not,the notorious France’Afrique ideology is here to stay…Are we going to engage in beer-parlor discussions on this blog? Taking back Bakassi will restore National Pride, no doubt, but are we forgetting the Argentine fiasco of ’82? We simply do not have a military that can undertake such a massive military operation..Simple..When french Rafales decide to pay us a visit, will our F7s put up a fight? Jets with no BVR capability? Who will defend our Naval assets from being sitting ducks? The NN is expanding at an impressive rate..but right now, it is more of a coast guard than an actual Navy..Zero offensive capability…What we need now is to focus on large scale acqusitions of assets for the NAF..acquiring both JF-17s and Su-27s will be a logistic nightmare should we engage in any conventional confrontation with the french…why not go for JF-17s…though not combat tested, our good relations with the Paks will ensure the Jaguar debacle never repeats itself..also, PL-9 short range AAM can be swapped at will with the F7s..while acquiring the PL-12 BVRAAMs in large quatity…35-50 units will ensure that the french think twice about open confrontations with the NAF..Also, giving up on the F7 jets will be a naïve move..The Paks have fitted thiers with modern avionics that will take on any 3.5G Fighter jet as long as its being crewed by well trained pilots..The Bangladeshis have F7BGs…a Mach 2.0 version with BVR capability..Will it not be more economical to acquire these air frames as interceptors? Instead of all the “Let’s dump the F7s” i keep reading here all the time? Pairing these 2 airframes..(JF-17s and F7s) in the right quantity will be a huge boost to the NAF’s capabilities..link that with proper pilot training, we can create the N.A’s Air corps and equipp it with Super Tucanos and our Russian gunships..when wll this is done, taking back our rightful territory from the cameroonians will be a piece of cake…Today, countries build air forces as diplomatic weapons not just for air shows…Sorry to digresss now, but imagine the increased regional significance this country will have if the General takes the reins of power come 2015? Have we forgotten his role in the Chadian incident of ’83? If the General gets in, expect an unprecedented increase in military acquisitions for the Armed Forces…mark my words.
Oga tobey u destroyed ur insightful.post with that junk
Oga Tobey.
Your suggestion that we abandon air superiority in favour of area denial is not bad(as a first step).
I believe that it will require an iron clad radar/SAM networks with multiple squadrons of JF-17s’.
A Jf -17 configured in a maritime strike role armed with 2, C802 AshM, or even MAR-1 anti-radiation missiles with KG-300 ECM pod locking in on Navigation/search radar would be a worry indeed for Frigates.
Coupled with Z9-C helicopters armed with torpedoes and our ATR42s’ the air-force can cover the Navy “GAP” for a while. A pair of IL76 &78 would be ideal.
However,this would mean we can’t take the fight to the enemy territory.
There would be much a foreboding going up against a rafael in a JF-17 in enemy air-space.
On the F-7, the much talked about attrition rate is a negative,how many expensive to train fighter pilots are you prepared to lose to accidents?
You did indeed digress and personally i would not put up politics for debate.
On the issue of the F-7s, yes we lost 3 to crashes, but the Paks have fixed that for us…the crashes led to an entire grounding of the F7 fleet, but after the liason with the Paks, we have 12 fully operational F7s..some of which took part in the famed “Battle of Konduga”….The problem perhaps was the scrap metal NI variant we got from the chineese…The Bangladeshis operate BVR-capable F-7BGs…..why don’t we hear of crashes? Our Mig-21s are gathering dust at Makurdi while the Indians got thiers to Bison standard and equipped them with Phazotron radars(Spear) with the ability to track multiple targets..the final icing on the cake was R-77 BVR AAMs..Now they will serve till 2025..the smart thing, was to acquire the upgrades in large quantity to “compensate”….The same for the Jaguars..we dumped them, guess what? Its the Indian frontline nuclear-strike asset…had we pressured the Brits, the Jaguars would be all ove the N.E by now, dishing out cluster munitions…Retire the F7s? Hell no!
It would be wrong to even think about retiring our F-7NI Air guard fighter jets prematurely,it would not be strategically and economically viable to reactivate the MiG-21BIS fighter jets,that money would be put to better use by purchasing more JF-17 or SU-27/30 fighter jets.
Our journalist do not want to build their knowledge about military affairs at all,how can they mistake the Czech ISR aircrafts meant for the Immigration Service to be the L-159 Trainer jet for the NAF?
By the way, the Yak-130 Advanced Trainer jet is better than any advanced trainer jet that is operational in the air forces around the globe, correct me if I’m wrong!
The Jaguar jets may still fly,if the NAF and our political leaders want them back into service.
Oga gbash10, any heart warming gist from your side?
Honestly, from what I know about the NAF, acquiring another jet trainer will only lead to a repeat of the Alpha Jet episode…we would gradually turn them to frontline combat assets…No trainers again please…We get Yak-130s, Badeh goes on air to “proclaim the return of the NAF!”. We need a real Air Force…its bad enough that most of our airworthy assets are VIP transport aircrafts…Trainers again? Please no..we have more than enough already..will trainers go up against real fighter jets and not get blown away in seconds? The L-39s and MB-339s are good enough..I really find is suprising that we have a blog like this in this country and we are still crawling to get hardware for our military..In conclusion, let’s forget about anything with trainer on it..imagine NAF pilots transitioning from Alpha Jets and L-39s at pilot training at Kainji to JF-17 and F-7 squadrons…how glorious that will be!…As for the Jaguars, The Brits are just terrible…France has done a lot for its former colonies than the Brits will ever do…So irresponsible..First it was scrap Vickers tanks, then allowing our Jaguars to rot…
Oga Tobe,
I have no problem with us using our current F-7,but i oppose inducting more without prioritising on the SU30 and JF-17.
Lets look briefly at nations with the same natural assets as we.
Approximate numbers of fighter aircraft.
OPEC MEMBERS:
Saudi Arabia: No comment.check for yourself.
Iran: Ex. Iraqi jets and old jets due to sanctions.
Iraq: Re-equiping.
Kuwait: F-18 Hornets.35
Venezuela(despite sanctions):24. SU30MK2, 20. F-16’s, 21. K-8, and 24. L-15 on order.
Ecuador: 13 KFIR and 12 Atlas cheetah.
Gabon: 6. Mirage F1
Algeria: 30 Mig29,and 28. SU30
Libya: 12.Mirage F1
UAE: 79 F.16s and 68.mirage 2000.
Angola: 7.SU27 and 12 SU30’s on order
Indonesia: 12.F16, 16.SU30/27.
Nigeria: 10.Chinese improved Mig 21
You can see that amongst OPEC and ex.OPEC members our air force fighter capability rank very low,amongst the nations either sanctioned on near collapse.
Whichever way you cut it,by GDP or OPEC our air-force capability is poor with a non existent air-defence.Going for more Mig 21s’ is a no no without acquiring first,much better platforms.
THe Jaguars have been improperly stoed, they are no longer airworthy in my opinion, bringing them up to standard would in essence mean rebuilding them.
Personally there iss nothing wrong with jet trainers, not only are the useful for training, ffor combatting the kind of light, mobile enemies we will face they are useful.
The Zimbabweans used their Hawk trainers very successfully against the Rwandans, who used similar light, mobile tactics.
The Yak 130, like the Alphajet, Hawk etc would be a good airframe for a light close air support jet.
As I have said we need to identify our combat aircraft requirements. If we say we need air superiority, deep strike and close air support then, we ‘d be looking at Su 27s, Mig 29s, Tucanos and Yak 130s or aircraft of those types. the 2nd key question is in what numbers?
but I agree with Oga Tobey (if understand him correctly) in a conflict ith a first world power we would lose in air to air combat. Ground to air combat would deter and attrite the enemy.
Meanwhile whats wrong with the Vickers?
Almost everything…The Vickers was a poor buy from day 1…absolutely umimpressive…Even the Brits never employed them…This is 2014..our frontline Tank is a 105mm? C’mon…Also the fact that Vickers doesn’t exist independently anymore, means that upgrades on our MK3s is practically NEVER going to happen…Why can’t we just offload them to any of our regional neighbors for free? That will keep us in their good books for sometime to come…Right now, The Armoured Corps needs REAL tanks..the MK3 is just scrap..even upgraded T-55s will outmatch it anyday..Without Thermal sights, ERA? Is that a tank?
Oga Tobey,
Why do you want to give your Vickers tanks away when the Nigerian Army reserves have no tanks?
Even if/when we buy new tanks, are we going to buy enough to re-equip all the armoured units as well as infantry support roles?
We must retain what we have – Fix the Vickers. Fix the T-55s.
If we then have an overflow of tanks, stand up the Army reserves and let them practice and exercise with our older equipment – the marines fought the 1st gulf war with M-60 tanks!
If it’s up to me, we would revive the MiG-21s and also upgrade all the jet trainers that we have so that they can carry out strikes if/when needed. A 250lb bomb is devastating, regardless of the platform that drops it.
Sustainable combat power is about numbers!
I meant after getting our MBTs of course…T90s will just be ok…we do not need more than one MBT…allows ease of training if you ask me…The T90 tank is just what we need…The Algerians operate over 300units..all with ERA..better than the ‘naked’ M1A1s the Egyptians got..eheheh! 125mm cannon, ATGM capability, Thermal sights, amongst other juicy packages..If the Algerians could get them, we can too…Maybe we can then upgrade our T-55s to Al-Zarrar standard like the Paks did..Word is, they are offering 300 units to the Bangladeshis..Right now, MK3 tanks are nowhere to be found..As for the Mig-21s, forget them…from the few pics I saw, they will never leave Makurdi again..let’s focus on our F-7s..BVR PL-12 AAMs will mean only one thing…Low cost interceptors!…time to start piling up the F-7s..The chineese will soon get rid of them all..
Sorry Oga Tobey but that makes no sense.
A 105mm gun will destroy most vehicles including MBTs. The Indians made over 2000 Vickers and used them successfully to this day.
essentially it was the a design based on the export variant of the Centurion which the Israelis used very successfully against the Syrians and Egyptians, the Jordanians used it successfully against the Syrians and Israelis, the South Africans used the Centurion (Olifant) as well. All with 105mm guns.
It is a relatively light, cheap MBT with a weapon that is sufficient for our needs. What most countries do is upgrade the weapon system, electronics, fire control, power pack, gears etc as wear and tear progresses.
There is nothing wrong with the Vickers, Nigeria bought it with out eyes open and it was (to my mind) a good MBT for our needs, far more advanced than anything except maybe what the South Africans had at the time.
And trust me if you think a T55 upgraded or uparmoured is better than a Vickers then you are either joking or unsure as to how tanks work. But off course I would be happy to be proven incorrect
@ Peccavi’s comment ”What you are watching is the internet equivalent of kids playing soldier. Pointing sticks at each other and shouting ‘Na me shoot you first”
What you just write is indicative of your fucked up self aggrandizing and egocentric ”i am a better than you attitude. Going by the crap you post on here the education you are getting where ever you are now outside Nigeria is a waste of money.Oga Beeg who is light years ahead of you in intellectual capacity and through whose ingenuity has afforded us the opportunity to discuss on this platform on ways of moving forward has never ever to anybody’s posts here as ” kids playing soldiers pointing sticks”. I might not agree with Igbi on some occasion but compared to the crap you write he is a professor. You and your stupid pride is part of the reason why instead of people genuinely bringing ideas and discussing on matters concerning the Nigerian state they now turn this blog into boiling soup people trying to wow others by posting 10 pages of big brammer and unintelligible crap that makes no sense except to show us you know how to write in English. Abeg Oga Peccavi Swallow your pride occasionally, it’s non fattening!
Finishes popcorn reaches for kuli kuli………
I beg to differ…The rifled 105mm has its perks, no doubt, but the 120mm variants became necessary as the 105s could not penetrate the frontal armour of later era Soviet Tanks..As for the indian example you gave, the Vijayanta was phased out due to age amd mechanical problems..back in 2008..ill still insist that the Vickers was a poor buy…Other countries got Challenger 1s..during that same period!(Mid 80s)…acquiring an export only tank was pretty naïve if you ask me…And on the T55 issue…Believe it or not, the Al-Zarrar is more impressive than you think..ill rather sit in one than go into battle in the old Vickers…The Vickers are currently seeing action in Somalia..even though its performance is not known..The T-55s has HUGE upgrade packages available..depending on needed specifications..the Vickers? NADA…And yes, I do know quite a lot about tanks..enough to know that no serious army should field Vickers tanks..
Well the Indian Army is a fairly serious and extensively combat experienced Army so that’s a fairly strange statement, and used the Vickers in combat and still uses an upgraded version till today so that’s a fairly strange statement.
I would like to now what you think makes the T55 or Al Zarrar superior to the Vickers? Ergonomically it is inferior, its armour is inferior, It does not have the same range or even weapons system.
There is not a single conflict in which the T 55 has been used against another tank successfully deciding the conflict.
The Challenger is an interesting example. It is exactly like the Vickers, an export variant tank made for Imperial Iran, after the revolution, Britain took the tank on as a replacement for the Chieftain. It is currently one of the finest tanks in the world (after several upgrades).
So my point is that the Vickers is not the best MBT in the world, but for out purposes is more than adequate. It is almost certainly due for an upgrade in armament, power pack, fire control, optics etc but is still a good weapon system.
Oga Oje..pls take it easy…abeg.
My point exactly…there are simply no available upgrades for the MK3 anymore…Vickers was splintered and merged with the BAE..As for the Indian example, India has retired the Centurion..as far back as 2008…The Al-zarrars might not be superior to the Vickers MK3, given the fact that the Al-Zarrar is just a light tank, but during a Pakistan Army operation in the Swat Valley, an Al-Zarrar was hit several times by RPG-7s..it stayed fighting on till the crew manged to escape when the Tank began to implode..the crew was safe…Thanks to its ERA..a 730HP engine is not bad if you ask me…Do we have any idea about the Vickers? I am not advocating upgraded T-55s as our primary MBT, of course not, but the T-55 has some juicy upgrades available..
There is no tank that can’t be upgraded, you just specify your requirements and derive a solution. If you want a 120mm gun on the Vickers it si doable worst comes to worse modify the turret.
Any halfway competent tank manufacturer can design this.
I’m not sure what condition our Vickers are in but I would presume they are due for an upgrade now.
Personally would focus on upgrading the engines, fire control and anything else that might be obsolete and using them as the basis for another armoured decision while 3 Div upgrades to T 72s or the equivalent
I am not sure Britain is ready to help Nigeria upgrade or maintain our Vickers tank, most of them look poorly maintained in photos in the NE. Help may have to come from India to upgrade. Vickers tank weakness is the side and rear armour that can easily be penetrated by HEAT RPG, the world has gone to 3rd generation MBTs and most have Compsite armour impenetrable to HEAT shells and ATGM.
T-84 Oplot tank will slice through the defenses of most armies of Africa without much damage.
You want to upgrade Vickers ‘Vijayanta’ tank? And to what grade? A full upgrade of gun, armour, fcs, power and transmission is as good as buying new tank.
Yes that’s true but you do not have the training, mainrenance and logistics capital and recurrent outlay of a new tank.
For the record I’m not advocating the Vickers in any variant. All I’m saying is that it was an excellent tan for our needs when brought and currently with a sensible upgrade programme (not sure of the problems so cant recommend what to upgrade, it is a useful second line MBT. With well trained crews and well handled it would still defeat most sub Saharan African Armies
Oga Bharat, I agree it can be very expensive. I will rather buy 50 units T-84 Oplot tanks for $200 million and I can have confidence in any battle, safe from enemy anti-tank weapons, better than 136 Vickers tanks will be we ripped into pieces by terrorists HEAT RPG. I will rather sell 136 Vickers for $1 million each and use the money for new T-84 Oplots. One single T-84 Oplot tank will destroy 50 Vickers tanks in a few hours of battle with ease.
Oga Peccavi, Cameroon alone will destroy ALL Nigeria’s 136 units of Vickers tanks in only one hour using hundreds of Cameroonian anti-tank missiles with ease. The T-84 Oplot tank is immune to most anti-tank missiles especially those of Cameroon. Many African countries have ATGM to wipe out all Nigerian Vickers tanks with ease. Giants dont’t drive around in battle with Vickers tanks in modern wars.
Oga Augustine, no tank is immune to ATGWs.
The most highly protected tank is the Merkava and they were taken out by Kornets. They’ve been further upgraded with a counter measure but again its highly expensive and it is only a matter of time before it is defeated.
How much ammunition does an T 84 carry that it will destroy 50 Vickers like its a video game.
Abeg, relax. If Cameroun destroys all our tanks in an hour then we have useless tank commanders
Oplot, Oplot, Oplot…even the Ukranians don’t have substantial units for its own military…It will take some time before we can get the right amount for the Armoured Corps..The T90 is a better option..Its a relatively cheap but deadly tank..I still can’t understand why we are not alreading shipping them in.
Many videos on yt of consecutive visits by high ranking Ukrainian officials visiting those tank manufacturing plants, from Poroshenko to Generals. The latest was an Oplot tank showcase visited by their PM. In other words, let’s guess the probability of sending just a few to Nigeria when a stronger neighbour is backing separatists threatening to carve up their country.
I’ve grown tired here, how many billions later yet we are still asking what and how many they bought.
Ukraine will NEVER be able to defeat Russia, so they better go settle their differences and sell weapons to Nigeria to make money for their economy.
@Augustine, nice one. I don’t see Ukraine doing so either. Besides, Russia is their neighbour and they have to ‘live’ side-by-side whether they like it or not, lol
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/10/ensure-professionalism-fg-charges-bloggers-social-media-enthusiasts/ This only helps us to understand what beeg have warned seizelessly.
This is a democracy…only corrupt governments muzzle up the press..
its just a suggestion or plea by the FG, lets hope they dont take it further.
Nigerian paratroopers Night exercise.
Did.u say night opps for paratroopers..
Hmmmmmmm somebody did read my suggesion.
Old history.
Talking of invading Cameroon, it’s not impossible you know. We can accomplish it if we re-arm accordingly.
Can the present NN effectively blockade Cameroon? And can NAF deal with any French intervention?
Gentlemen officers, the CoAS at UI gives details of sorties flown by his pilots against BH so far…
http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/news/national-news/184050-military-response-alone-cannot-stop-boko-haram-says-chief-of-air-staff