Page 239 - Airpower in 20th Century - Doctrines and Employment

doCtrine, CapaCities, teCHnology and operational environment on tHe employment of tHe air power; tHe Case of guerrilla warfare 239

eastward, nearly five years after the initial operations in the North, forcing the crea-
tion by the Portuguese authorities of the Eastern Intervention Zone (ZIL) covering
the districts of Lunda and Moxico. After 1966 the Portuguese forces began to con-
front the three movements in this ZIL, which required a redirection of effort. AB 4
was reinforced with six PV2, two of which were deployed permanently in Luso, and
in 1968 it already had a Beechcraft 45 plane, 11 T-6G and 11 DO27 flying about 300
hours per month in total. The total air resources in Angola were roughly maintained,
being some of them redirected to the East.
The fleet of helicopters Allouette III, which arrived in 1963, reached in 1972 its
maximum number of 29 units which conducted about 4,500 flight hours per year,
always attributed to BA 9 organically, but with detachments on several bases in the
theatre of operations in transport actions of assault, fire support and medical evacu-
ation.
In 1970, 5 SA-330 helicopters, PUMA, came to the theatre of operations, inte-
grated in Squadron 94 but operating in the East; the year after the fleet is enhanced
with another helicopter of this type. Until the end of 1973 they conducted on average
about 1,200 flight hours per year. These helicopters were deployed in Mozambique,
at AB 7, in a total of three in 1973 and five in 1974. This means a transfer of war
effort along the time.
Between 1963 and 1966 a P2V5 airplane was deployed to BA 9 for air patrol,
and carried out 1064 flight hours in 508 missions in the first year, 1083 flight hours
in 162 missions the following year, and 200 flight hours and 39 missions in the last
year of deployment (1966).
A major effort on the East front, with aircrafts diverting from other units, the
introduction of the fleet of B26, in numbers of four aircraft in October 1972 and the
inactivation of the F-84 the following November were the biggest differences from
the start up of the theatre of operations.
The tactical airfield of Luso becomes the centre of air operations with PV2, T-6,
DO27 and ALL III, stationed there or based on AB 4. The operations assumed a
character of routine and the Portuguese armed forces tried to disconnect the enemy
organization, which suffered many difficulties of various kinds on the ground - the
first of which was the lack of unity among the three movements. The battle for de-
velopment continued throughout the province, now that the necessary security meas-
ures were reached.

The war in Guinea
The war in Guinea had very different characteristics from the war in Angola,
namely in the way it was initiated, in the organization of the guerrilla and in the
geographical characteristics of the territory. The evidence of the existence of a rebel
movement was also given by a relatively spectacular fact that was the vandalizing of
the touristic infrastructure on the beach of Ponta Varela, up North, which led to the