Page 241 - 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 241

Bissau, without the existence of an alternate or emergency airfield. The Fiat G91
plane which replaced the F-86, but only in 1967, occa sionally used the runway of
Gabu, in the East, to extend its range of action in operations in the East and Southeast
and the medium transport aircraft used regularly the air strips of Farim, Bafata and
Gabu.
The first real action of air attack occurred on April 4, 1963, as an action of dem-
onstration and intimidation, consisted in an air attack against a strip of land near a
village which the enemy had isolated. The enemy hostile act that caused such action
was the sail of the PAIGC flag and the shooting at an Auster airplane with light arma-
ment when overfly the tabanka (indigenous settlement) of Dar es Salaam. Immedi-
ately after this event a series of bombardments took place against targets that were
very precise geographical locations where there we re indications of enemy presence,
selected by the General Province Go vernment itself.
At the beginning of military operations, there was the Aerodrome Base 2 in di-
rect dependency of Cape Verde and Guinea Air Zone (ZACVG) with headquarters
at Bissau. With development of military operations, and in creased air assets, this
airfield gained the status of main operating air base, with the designation of BA No.
12, becoming the only base unit of the territory throughout the period of the war.
Farim, Bafata, Gabu, Aldeia Formosa and Cufar were air strips with a length of ap-
proximately 700 meters. The small aviation fields had a minimum length of about
400 meters.
Given the size of the territory, the conduction of air operations was fully central-
ized, and only in very specific and few circumstances, temporary advanced com-
mands as well as detachments of aircraft means were formed.
Initially, existing fleets were of T-6G and Auster, this being replaced by the DO-
27 during 1964. The evolution of the fleet was in order to stabilize (1970) in the fol-
lowing types and quantity: 21 helicopters AL III, 24 DO-27, 3 C-47, 12 Fiat G-91, 18
T-6G, 3 NORDATLAS. The average number of pilots was around 35, each qualified
in more than one type of aircraft. With this volume of means the BA 12 carried out
about 30 sorties per day, with peak values higher under conditions of high frequency
of military operations. For example it is noted that in 1969 BA 12 flew 17,751 hours
of flight time on the performance of 5812 air actions, being about 36% air transport,
28% medical evacuation, 13% of airborne command post, 11% of pre-planned inde-
pendent attack, 6% of visual reconnaissance, 3% attack in close support and 3% of
surface forces covering and protection (land columns or river convoys). The plane
that flew more was the DO 27 soon followed by AL III and T6; the Fiat G91 flew over
1200 flight hours per year ( more than 2000 sorties), with an average flight profile
of around 35 minutes. For certain periods, depending on the operational situation, a
P2V5 that was in Sal in permanent deployment was sent to Bissau for bombardment
activities, particularly night bombing.
The Base developed a remarkable capacity in terms of photographic recon mis-