Chapter 758： 331 Division

Chapter 758 331st Division

Kinshasa.

The 331st Division of the East African National Defense Force is responsible for military operations in the region. The 331st Division of the National Defense Force is affiliated to the Nile Military Region and is the ace unit of the military region. In the early years, the 331st Division was one of the elite units in East Africa.

The 331st Division focuses on training in various dangerous environments such as rainforests and mountains. It is stationed in the western part of the Nile Military Region. Before the expansion of the East African army, the 331st Division was one of the five fully staffed divisions in East Africa, excluding the Guards Division.

The division headquarters is located in Bangui, the capital of Azande Province. Therefore, when the division goes south to support Kinshasa, it mainly passes through the Ubangi River and then turns to the main road of the Congo River. The transportation is very convenient.

To the north of the 331st Division is the royal territory of Sigmaringen, and to the west is the Belgian Congo colony. Currently, the two countries have good relations with East Africa, so the military pressure is relatively small. This provides conditions for the 331st Division to go south to support the Angola battlefield.

With the beginning of the counterattack on the western front, the 331st Division has successfully defeated the Portuguese army outside Kinshasa and took over the city defense of Kinshasa.

With the crisis in Kinshasa lifted, the 331st Division also plans to achieve greater success in the war, and attacking the hinterland of Angola's colony, that is, the Atlantic coast of western Angola, is undoubtedly the key to ending this war as quickly as possible.

Following this, the city of Kinshasa became the temporary command post of the 331st Division Headquarters.

Lieutenant General Custer, commander of the 331st Division, is formulating a strategy against Portugal. With the expansion of the army, although the 331st Division is not as big as other units, it still reaches more than 13,000 people.

With the support of this powerful military force, Custer's ambitions are also greater. Although Portugal has nearly 200,000 troops in Angola, there are probably less than 10,000 that can be used in the north.

"Of course, this has little to do with our war. Our army's initial goal is to directly capture the Portuguese cities of Cabinda and Soyo in the lower reaches of the Congo River along the river, and then go south along the coastline to threaten the Portuguese capital of Angola, Roga. Anda, in the end, if possible, we will control Benguela."

“In this way, the main ports in Angola will be basically controlled by our army, and the Portuguese army fighting our army inland will collapse without a fight if it cannot obtain external resources.”

Custer's strategy was to cut off the connection between Angola and the Portuguese mainland. However, the East African navy was weak in the South Atlantic, so this could only be accomplished by the army.

Custer took a pencil and marked on the map on the table while telling the senior officers of the 331st Division: "This is Cabinda, which is the area controlled by the Portuguese Kingdom on the north bank of the Congo River. It is one of the important strongholds in Angola. , crossing the Congo River to the south is Soyo, these two places control the outlet of the Congo River, so if we in East Africa want to control the Congo River Basin in the future, these two areas are indispensable."

This also made Custer want to formulate more radical plans to achieve the goal of ending the war quickly.

At this time, it can be said that the 331st Division is in an absolute advantage in the north.

According to Custer's vision, most of Angola's material supplies come from local sources, and the three excellent ports that Angola can use are Cabinda, Luanda, and Benguela.

As long as these three ports are cut off, the Portuguese army will inevitably have a big supply problem. Food may still be solved by looking at local products, but medicines, guns and other supplies will basically be cut off.

Staff officer Hans Griffin agreed with Custer's war vision, but he also directly raised the difficulties of this strategy. Hans Griffin pointed to the waterfalls marked with red lines in the lower reaches and said: "After the lower reaches of the Congo River passes through the Kinshasa section, it is not navigable due to the waterfalls and terrain differences, which means that the rest of the journey is difficult. We can only rely on our feet, and it is difficult for our heavy weapons to be sent to the front line to support the battlefield."

As an elite unit of the East African National Defense Force, the 331st Division is equipped with a large number of light and heavy weapons. Although compared to other main divisions, the 331st Division focuses more on mountain and jungle operations, so its heavy weapons are no worse than ordinary troops.

So if you want to attack the core area of ​​Angola, it is still very challenging for the 331st Division.

Hans Griffin continued: "The road condition in Portuguese Angola can be described as a mess. The south may be better, but the north is the original indigenous country - the Kingdom of Congo. According to the level of black civilization we have seen , the Swahili region, the Somali region, and the Great Lakes region have the highest level of black civilization, but even these three civilizations are very poor in infrastructure construction, so don’t have any expectations for indigenous countries like the Kingdom of Congo Too much hope.”

In fact, so far, East Africa has encountered the most civilized indigenous civilization in Africa, which is the Abyssinian Empire. However, the Abyssinian Empire, like Madagascar, is a semi-mixed race, so it cannot be compared with the pure Bantu Black people are compared.

Custer: "What you said makes sense, but no matter what the road conditions in the former Kingdom of Congo are, it cannot hinder our way forward. We now organize engineers and soldiers to deal with various factors ahead that may be detrimental to the march of the troops."

Speaking of this, Custer suddenly became confused, how did the Portuguese solve this problem?

He asked: “How did the Portuguese attack Kinshasa in the first place?”

"Although the Portuguese led a large number of men, they basically used rifles and did not have heavy fire support. Therefore, they besieged Kinshasa for three months without success. Moreover, their troops were obviously inefficient, otherwise Kinshasa would not be in such a state now. It has always been in the hands of our army." Kors, the military commander of Kinshasa City, explained directly.

"In other words, we may not need to think too much about heavy weapons. After all, the Portuguese's equipment level is also very poor." Hans Griffin thought while holding his chin.

Castel denied: "It's still different. If it's areas like Cabinda and Soyo, the Portuguese haven't built any decent fortifications. They may be able to easily seize local control without artillery support, but Luanda can't Similarly, Luanda has solid military fortresses and fortresses. The Portuguese have been running them for hundreds of years, and they are probably as good as some fortresses in Europe. Therefore, if you want to remove the nail in Luanda, you must have heavy firepower support.

Furthermore, Luanda, as the capital of the Portuguese colony of Angola, is probably not comparable to the miscellaneous troops we encountered before in terms of weapons, equipment and personnel composition, so we still cannot take it lightly. "

Much of Custer's intelligence came from public sources. Of course, the East African Defense Force's Military Intelligence Office actually did not make much effort in Angola, and basically obtained most of the Portuguese's intelligence.

Because the Portuguese in Angola have a very poor sense of confidentiality and the army is concentrated at several fixed locations along the coast, this is simply an open-book examination for the Military Intelligence Department.

So the confidence that East Africa dared to solve the Angolan colony first also comes from the victory in intelligence. That is, the more it understands the current situation of the Portuguese army, the higher the East African side's confidence in victory.

So far, the Portuguese have not disappointed East Africa. Their performance is only better than that of blacks and Indians among the coalition forces, ranking behind the British and Boers. As for the Indian army's ability to grind foreign workers, it is indeed the strongest among the coalition forces.

(End of this chapter)