War and Game

Rugged, simple in design, easy to maintain and repair, and fast. The Sherman was an excellent tank with an incredibly long life; a number remained in service in some parts of the world for five decades after the end of World War II.

The United States also developed heavier tanks. The Sherman M4A3 and M4A3E8 medium tanks, the mainstay of U.S. armored forces at the end of World War II, continued in active service with the U.S. Army for a number of years after the war and fought with the United Nations Command (UNC) forces in Korea. As noted, there were many models and variants of the basic design, including dozers, 105mm howitzers, rocket launchers, tank retrievers, and flamethrowers. The M4A3E8 (76mm), the last production model of World War II, mounted a small metal box affixed to the right rear, containing an EE-8 sound-powered telephone, enabling an infantryman to communicate with the tank commander.

A great many Shermans were exported to other countries after World War II. Israeli Shermans, which were kept in operation for decades from a wide variety of sources, were also armed with an equally wide panoply of weapons, including antiradiation missiles. The French upgraded a number of the Israeli Shermans with 75mm and 105mm main guns. Known as M50 and M51 Super Shermans, these fought modified M4 Egyptian Army Shermans in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

The United States was quick to recognize the new Jewish state, and during the war the United States became a major source of arms for Israel, providing a number of World War II–vintage M4 Shermans. The Israelis also secured surplus Shermans from other armies. These saw long service with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF); they underwent a succession of upgrades, including heavier guns, improved engines, and modified turrets. Once they had reached the limit of possible improvements, a number were turned into self-propelled guns.

In its war to gain independence, Israel initially had only a small armored force, the 8th Armored Brigade, equipped with a hodgepodge of pre–World War II French Hotchkiss light tanks, World War II–era British Cromwells, and U.S. Shermans, the latter purchased from Italy and the Philippines. These faced the far more numerous tanks of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq. During the fighting, Israel managed to form a second armored brigade, the 7th.

In the war the Israelis utilized their advantages of interior lines, higher morale, better leadership, and more effective command and control to defeat the larger and better-equipped Arab armies. The major Arab problems were in logistics and organization. The Arab armies were spread out (it was 700 miles from Baghdad to Haifa, and Egyptian forces relied on a 250-mile-long supply line across the Sinai Desert), and there was no unity of command or common military strategy.

After 1949 the Israeli Defense Forces invested heavily in tanks, and the Jewish state became one of the most skillful practitioners of armored warfare in history. Working in collusion with France and Britain against Egypt in 1956, Israel Super Shermans and French tanks rolled across the Sinai Peninsula (covering more than 150 miles in only four days) to take that vast desert area from Egypt. In the process Israeli armor defeated a far larger Egyptian force of Shermans, British Centurions, and some JS-3s, in addition to 230 Soviet T-34/85s, as well as a number of armored personnel carriers and self-propelled guns.

As in the War for Independence, in 1956 it was not superior equipment but rather better training, leadership, and motivation, as well as tactical doctrine and domination of the air, that were vital in the subsequent crushing Israeli victory. Although international pressure, largely from the United States, forced Israel (and Britain and France) to quit Egypt, the war led Israel to go over to a wholly mechanized ground force centered on tanks. The war also brought improved tanks into the Israeli inventory as well as better training. In June 1967 Israel used its highly mechanized forces to launch a devastating preemptive strike against Egypt and Syria, and then engage Jordan, in the Six Day War. Israeli tactics were similar to those employed by the Germans in their blitzkrieg of World War II. Tanks would break through the enemy front and then push forward, closely followed by mechanized infantry that would engage enemy forces. This armored thrust was followed by motorized infantry to mop up enemy resistance in order to allow the vital supply column to proceed forward. Rapid Israeli envelopments allowed the numerically inferior Israeli armored forces to take the heavier Arab tanks from the rear and make short work of the Arab armies. Israel had some 264,000 troops, 800 tanks, and 300 combat aircraft; Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq had a combined strength of some 541,000 men, 2,504 tanks, and 957 combat aircraft. Of 1,200 Egyptian tanks before the war, 820 were lost. Israeli armor losses amounted to 122 tanks, many of which were repaired and returned to battle. There was also heavy fighting involving Israeli and Syrian tanks in Israel’s conquest of the Golan Heights, although the fighting there did not see the large-scale armor engagements that had marked combat on the Sinai front.

Rugged, simple in design, easy to maintain and repair, and fast. The Sherman was an excellent tank with an incredibly long life; a number remained in service in some parts of the world for five decades after the end of World War II.

In October 1941, when the M4 Sherman became the U.S. standard medium tank, the army reclassified the M3 as “substitute standard.” In April 1943, when the M4 came into full service, the M3 became “limited standard,” and in April 1944 it was declared obsolete.

Even while design work was being carried out on the M3 tank, the Armored Force Board drew up specifications for its successor. These called for a 75mm gun, but unlike the M3, the new medium would carry the heavier gun in a full-traverse turret. In April 1941 the Armored Force Board decided to employ the straightforward approach of utilizing the M3 medium chassis, power plant, transmission, suspension, and other parts where possible while introducing a new cast or welded hull top and new central turret. A pilot model, designated T6 and employing the same hull side doors as the M3, underwent testing at Aberdeen Proving Ground in September 1941. The next month the T6 was redesignated Medium Tank M4.

Meanwhile, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union that June, President Franklin D. Roosevelt personally ordered a sharp increase in U.S. tank production, increasing mediums from 1,000 to 2,000 per month. This led to additional manufacturing facilities being brought on line for the M3 and plans to begin production of the M4 at 11 different plants in 1942. To facilitate this schedule, the government ordered construction of a second tank production facility, the Grand Blanc Tank Arsenal, also in Michigan. Work on it began in January 1942, and it started tank production in July. By then, three factories had already begun producing the M4, which differed from the test Model T6 in eliminating the hull side doors.

The M4 medium, known by its British name of “German Sherman” (more often simply “Sherman”) after William T. Sherman, the Union Army Civil War general and later commanding general of the U.S. Army, was the most important Allied tank of the war. Although not the best Allied tank qualitatively (it was inferior in armor and armament to the best German and Soviet tanks), it was nonetheless the most widely produced and utilized Allied tank of the war. During 1942–1946 U.S. factories turned out more than 40,000 M4 series tanks and modified chassis AFVs.

The M4A1 weighed 66,500 pounds, had a crew of five, and maximum 51mm armor. It mounted a 75mm main gun and had a .50- caliber antiaircraft and two .30-caliber machine guns. The Sherman had two great advantages over the German tanks: its powered turret enabled crews to react and fire more quickly, and it offered greater mechanical reliability and repairability. Rugged, simple in design, easy to maintain, and highly maneuverable, the M4 was consistently upgraded in main gun and armor during the course of the war. The M4A1 had a cast iron hull; the M4A2, used only by the Marine Corps, had two General Motors diesel engines to overcome the shortage of Continental gasoline engines; the M4A4 and M4A6 had longer hulls and tracks. Some variants also employed improved appliqué armor.

Sherman variants performed a wide variety of roles, including but not limited to tank recovery, flamethrowers, mine-clearing, and bridging. The Sherman chassis also provided the basis for the M7B1 howitzer motor carriage, which superseded the M7 based on the M3 medium tank. Both mounted a 105mm howitzer as its principal armament and were standard equipment for artillery battalions in U.S. armored divisions. The M4 chassis was also utilized in the M10 and M10A tank destroyers, essentially a gun motor carriage mounting a 3-inch gun, as well as the more satisfactory M36 series mounting a 90mm gun.

The M4 entered combat for the first time with the British Eighth Army in the October 1942 Battle of El Alamein. Indeed, Shermans and M3 Grants made up almost half of the 1,100 British tanks committed to that pivotal battle. The M4 saw service on virtually every fighting front of the war and had a long life thereafter. Indeed, it remained in service until only recently in the armies of some nations.

In part because comparable British tanks, the Cromwell IV and VII, were not available until the end of 1943 and not in wide use until the spring of 1944, the Sherman has been called “the most important tank in British service and more widely used than any of the British designed or British produced types from 1943–1945.”
Initially the Sherman was a poor match for the most numerous German tank, the PzKpfw Mark IV Panther. At a range of 1,000 yards the Sherman’s 75mm gun stood little chance of knocking out a Panther, while at that range the Panther’s high-velocity 75mm could knock out the Sherman. In such an encounter, U.S. tankers could only hope that they could use their powered turret to good advantage in order to lay the main gun quickly and get off several rounds before the Panther could fire.

German tanks had thicker frontal armor and a much higher velocity gun. The Tiger’s 88mm and the same caliber Panzerschreck antitank weapon could easily knock out the Shermans, whereas the U.S. 2.36-inch bazooka (copied from the Panzerschreck) was effective only against German side armor. Also, the Sherman’s track width was only 14 inches, whereas German tanks had a track 30–36 inches wide and thus were not as easily bogged down. Indeed, U.S. tanker crews often added extensions to their tank tracks in order to rectify this situation.

Although the British utilized all models of the M4, the most numerous was the M4A4 type, of which more than 1,600 were supplied to Eighth Army in Italy in 1943. The major British innovation regarding the Sherman was to replace its 75mm main gun with a 17-pounder (76.2mm). This upgunned M4, known as the Sherman Firefly, was the most powerfully armed British tank of the entire war. Conversion began as a fallback position should the new Challenger tank encounter problems in testing. The Challenger indeed experienced difficulties, and in February 1944 conversion of the Shermans received priority. Because of delays in the Challenger program, that tank was not available for participation in the Normandy landings, and the Firefly was the only British tank capable of taking on and defeating the German Tigers and Panthers. Owing to a shortage in 17-pounder guns for tank use, the Firefly was initially supplied one per cavalry troop. Not until early 1945 was the upgunned Firefly available in large numbers.

The British also developed many Sherman variants. These included the Adder, Salamander, Crocodile, and Badger flamethrower tanks; fascine carrier; Twaby Ark, Octopus, and Plymouth bridging vehicles; rocket launchers; and the Scorpion, Lobster, and Crab flail antimine tanks. In April 1943 the British also began experiments with a duplex drive (DD) on the Sherman. The DD had proven successful with their Valentine tank, which by that date was obsolete. Sherman DD tanks were waterproofed and fitted with a collapsible canvas screen around the hull to provide flotation. Struts, erected by means of rubber tubing filled by compressed air, held the canvas in place. Two small propellers, folded away while on land, pushed the Sherman through the water at a speed of about 4 knots. Sherman DD tanks constituted an entire brigade of the 79th Armored Division in the Normandy landings and were the first British tanks to land, “swimming” ashore from LCTs. DD tanks, however, were easily swamped and required careful handling and the right conditions in which to operate.

The Sherman’s great disadvantages were its engine and main gun. Its gasoline (versus diesel) engine led GIs to nickname it the “Ronson” after the Ronson cigarette lighter (sold with the slogan “lights first time, every time”). The Sherman was also consistently outgunned by the larger German tanks against which it had to fight. Its 75mm gun was relatively ineffective, but the replacement 76mm (17-pounder) gun with much higher muzzle velocity proved successful. After the British began mounting the 76mm on their Shermans, the Americans followed suit in February 1944. These appeared in the M4A1 through M4A3 models.

Ongoing problems with the Challenger, however, caused the British to concurrently upgrade the 75mm gun on their U.S.-built M4 Shermans with the same 17-pounder gun (becoming known as the Firefly). Ultimately the Firefly proved superior to the Challenger as a tank destroyer.

The U.S. decision until late in the war to postpone bringing a new heavy tank on line in favor of increasing the numbers of existing and improved medium M4 Shermans proved unfortunate, although the tardy arrival of the U.S. heavy tank, the 90mm-gun M26 Pershing, in early 1945 helped redress the balance.

F-4J-35-MC Unit: VF-96 "Fighting Falcons", CVW-9, US Navy Serial: 100/NG (BuNo.155800) CVA-64 USS Constellation. On 10th May 1972 flown this plane Lt.Randall 'Duke' Cunningham and William P.'Willie' Driscoll claimed three victories, but was shot down by Vietnamese fighters. Both crew ejected safely. Camouflage scheme of 1955: upper - Dull-Grey. lower - White.


U.S. Navy lieutenant, F-4 pilot, and first ace in Vietnam War (five MiG kills). Born in Los Angeles on 8 December 1941, Randall Cunningham graduated from the University of Missouri in 1964 and the following year earned a master’s degree in education.

Cunningham joined the U.S. Navy in 1967 and received his wings the next year. He took his operational training at the Naval Air Station at Miramar, California, then joined Fighter Squadron 96. His first combat deployment was aboard the carrier America (1969–1970).

On 19 January 1972, during his second Vietnam deployment with the Constellation, Lieutenant Cunningham shot down a MiG-21 and, on 8 May 1972 a MiG-19. On 10 May 1972, he downed three MiG-17s. On the way back to the carrier, his plane was hit by a surface-to-air missile and downed. Cunningham and his radar intercept officer, Lieutenant (junior grade) Bill Driscoll, were picked up at the mouth of the Red River by a search-and-rescue helicopter. In all, Cunningham flew 300 Vietnam combat missions. His decorations include the Navy Cross, two Silver Stars, and the Purple Heart. Cunningham retired from the Navy in 1988, and in 1990 he was elected on the Republican ticket to the U.S. House of Representatives from California.

#

As the war heated up again in January 1972, leading to the North’s spring invasion of South Vietnam, US Navy clashes with MiGs also resumed in quantity. The first success in 22 months went to VF-96’s Lt Randall “Duke” Cunningham and Lt(jg) Willie Driscoll when they downed a MiG-21MF on January 19.

Cunningham’s previous RIO, Lt Lynn Batterman, noted that his pilot was utterly focused on MiG killing. “He worked harder than the average pilot and was better than average because of it. He and I were the only crew to consistently check out and re-read the secret manuals we had on MiGs (we even had some MiG repair/NATOPs manuals) that were controlled by the skipper, Cdr Al Newman”.

Cunningham and Driscoll’s first MiG-17 victory followed 48 hours later. As his wingman Lt Brian Grant described it, the engagement was a “classic over-water CAP vectored onto an overland MiG target”, except that the latter had set a trap which Grant detected in time to make “a course reversal that placed Randy Cunningham behind me in a position to down his second MiG, conveniently trapped at my ‘six o’clock’”.

As the MiG pilot opened fire on Grant’s “Showtime 101”, Cunningham fired an AIM-9G to distract it while RIO Driscoll monitored two MiG-17s that had reversed their course and started to fire shells at “Showtime 112”. Having this time acquired a missile lock tone, Cunningham quickly loosed off a second AIM-9 that disintegrated the MiG. “It was as classic a ‘mutual support’ textbook fight as we had practised in training”, recalled Brian Grant.

During the same Alpha strike, Cunningham and Driscoll, armed for flak suppression, ran into MiGs from three VPAF bases over the Hai Duong target. They were in search of revenge for an audacious MiG-21 kill achieved by VF-92’s Lt Curt Dosé and Lt Cdr Jim McDevitt over Kep’s main runway that morning.

Within a minute Cunningham’s “Showtime 100” had downed an attacking MiG-17, having forced it to overshoot into his AIM-9 range. Minutes later he spotted four F-4s trapped in a “wagon wheel” with eight MiG-17s. As VF-96 XO Cdr Dwight Timm emerged from the “wheel” with three MiGs on his tail, Cunningham attempted to come to his rescue, but was in turn set upon by two MiG-19s from above and four more MiG-17s from behind. Manoeuvring violently to shake off his pursuers, Cunningham got Timm to sharply break away from the “Frescos” that were trailing him. This cleared the way for “Showtime 100” to down a second MiG-17 with another AIM-9 shot.

Cunningham’s tail was protected by Lt Steve Shoemaker and Lt(jg) Keith Crenshaw, who saw another “Fresco” moving into a firing position behind “Showtime 100”. They destroyed the VPAF jet with a single AIM-9. Yet another MiG-17 then began to fire cannon rounds at Cunningham in a head-on pass. The latter used his Topgun training to deal with the new threat, pulling the F-4 in a vertical climb in order to throw off the “Fresco” pilot’s aim. Surprisingly, the MiG pilot followed suit, and two further vertical climb and rolling scissors manoeuvres left both fighters short of speed, but with the MiG behind the F-4J.

Resorting to desperate measures during the third climbing pursuit, Cunningham cut the throttles and briefly extended his airbrakes, throwing the MiG out in front of him. The VPAF pilot, probably at “bingo” fuel, sought to dive away towards Kep, but Cunningham managed to push the nose of his almost stalling F-4J over and fire an AIM-9 that caused enough damage for the MiG to crash into the ground and confer ace status on Cunningham and Driscoll. They were the first Americans to achieve this accolade in the Vietnam War, and the only Naval Aviators to do so, period.

Heading back out to the shore, Cunningham was pursued by yet another MiG-17, sitting close behind him and possibly firing his cannons. Matt Connelly swung over towards it, fired an unguided AIM-7 from his “radarless” F-4J and scared the MiG away. Two more MiG-17s and a MiG-21 sought to engage the harassed fighter as it neared the coast, but “Showtime 100’s” fate was probably determined by a SAM explosion near-miss that damaged its hydraulics. Fighting to maintain control of the failing systems by using afterburner and extreme rudder-induced rolls, the crew was finally forced to eject, and rely on HH-3A helicopters from HC-7 to return them to Constellation.

References Cunningham, Randy. Fox Two. Mesa, AZ: Champlin Fighter Museum, 1984. Eastman, James N. Jr.,Walter Hanak, and Lawrence J. Paszek. Aces and Aerial Victories—The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1965–1973.Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976.

Written by Leon Engelbrecht

South Africa entered World War Two with no navy. Some naval trained personnel, yes; but ships, no. From three officers and three ratings in September 1939, the South African Naval Service, then the Seaward Defence Force (SDF) and finally the South African Naval Forces expanded rapidly, and by late 1945, when demobilisation began, some 9455 men had served South Africa at sea on some 78 ships, mostly trawlers and whalers taken up from trade but including three newly-built Loch-class frigates.

Indeed, of of these, the HMSAS Natal sank a U-boat (U-714)off Scotland six hours after leaving the builders' yard on March 14, 1945; a still-unparalleled feat. “It was the more remarkable in that the A/S [anti-submarine] personnel, as a team, had received only a few days' shore training and, apart from that, the ship's asdic [sonar] installation (Type 144) was new to all of them,” the official historian, Commander H. R. Gordon-Cumming records. South African personnel by then had also crewed two British River-class frigates and a salvage ship.

One dares say this was even greater a feat considering the lack of seriousness the Union government showed in making any preparation for war; meaning that when war was declared on September 5, 1939, there followed period of “muddle, misunderstanding and makeshift arrangements … just at a time when Defence Headquarters and the RN [Royal Navy] Authorities were, or should have been fully occupied in 'getting on with the war'.”

The saving graces was probably South Africa's distance from Europe, then the cockpit of the war, as well as Britain's Gibraltar-like sovereign base at Simon's Town, and two heavy cruisers were normally based there. Even so, the German “pocket battleship” Admiral Graf Spee passed from the Atlantic to the Indian ocean and back again just the next month. “During this period there were one or two British cruisers in Cape waters but a concentration of these would have been necessary before giving battle with any prospect of victory;a handful of Junker aircraft (Ju86), converted for bombing/reconnaissance duties but flown by their commercial pilots, represented the coastal air-strength; and the only land guns then mounted in Southern Africa approaching those of the raider in range and calibre were two long-range 9.2-inch guns at Simon's Town. But the raider does not appear to have even contemplated a brief, bold attack on massed shipping or oil tanks at one of the almost unprotected commercial ports, which would have stood an excellent chance of success and would certainly have had a profound moral effect.”

Next came the raider “Atlantis” and a minefield off Cape Agulhas in May 1940, the “Pinguin” in June and the Graf Spee's sister, the Admiral Scheer, which rounded the Cape at the end of January 1941. The Pinguin would indeed stalk the south Atlantic and Indian oceans until May the next year when she was sunk by HMS Cornwall. By then the raider “Doggerbank” had also visited Cape waters, laying mines off Cape Town in March 1942 and reseeding the Agulhas bank. In addition, two Japanese raiders briefly visited South African waters in June 1942, sinking a freighter 350 miles ENE of Durban.

The first German submarines arrived off Namibia in October 1941 and off South Africa in October the next year. The last departed in February 1945. “So ended the submarine offensive, or series of offensive, in waters within 1000 miles of this country. One Allied warship – the Dutch submarine depot ship Colombia – had been lost; only one, HMS Hecla, had been damaged... Including the two ships sunk west of Walvis Bay in 1941, merchant ship losses from submarines totalled 132 with a gross tonage of 743 544 tons, or an average of about 5600 tons each. In addition, six ships were severely damaged but reached port. … Of the total, 38 sinkings took place more than 500 miles from any part of the coast of South Africa – most of them in the Mozambique Channel.” This included some 32 ships sunk by Japanese boats in June and July 19442. A further success was damaging the battleship HMS Ramillies in Diego Suarez harbour (Madagascar). But Gordon-Cumming says there successes were a “poor return if one takes into account the additional time on passage to and from the area and the risk to both submarines and supply-ships when breaking through the steadily tightening cordon of Allied sea and air patrols in the Bay of Biscay.”

Within the 1000 mile perimeter, 18 ships were lost to the raiders and two to mines. The latter weapon damaged two more ships. Meagre returns within the greater scheme of things, perhaps, but still food for thought for a nation that depends on the sea for well over 95% of its trade....

South African naval forces also rendered sterling service in the Mediterranean, with four antisubmarine whalers deployed there in early 1941, taking with them the only four sonars then available. Sadly the HMSAS Southern Floe was lost, presumably to a mine, a month later, the ship being blown from the water near Tobruk on the night of February 10/11. There was just one survivor. “The loss of the ship, although but a trivial incident in a world war, came as a sudden and grievous blow to the flotilla and to the force from which it came. The ships had spent a bare month on the station and in this country few were aware they had arrived and had been in action. The casualties were the first the SDF had suffered. The sense of loss was profound.” South Africa would later lose the HMSAS Parktown off Tobruk to gunboats (November 1942, she had been the last ship to leave the beleaguered port and 2 SA Division and came under fire from a German tank while doing so) and HMSAS Bever off Athens on November 30, 1944.

Gordon-Cumming records the latter thus: “So many mines now exploded in the sweeps that progress was soon slowed down and finally halted at about 14:00 while four of the ships hove to and repaired their gear. Bever, stationed astern of the trawlers to deal with unexploded mines, stopped also. At 14:30, while manoeuvring her engines so as to keep in position, she struck a mine with the inevitable result for so small as ship: the bridge collapsed while the after-part disintegrated, its fragments mingling with a huge discoloured geyser which shot up many times higher thanthe ship's masthead; and by the time the spray and steam had blown clear, nothing remained but the fore-part which turned over and sank a few seconds later. The normal practice of ordering all hands not on duty below to remain on deck had been followed; even then, considering the rapidity of Bever's destruction, it is remarkable that eight men should have been picked up alive out of a company of 23.”

Breathtaking stuff! Yet this history, an official government document, was only be published as late as 2008 – some 65 years after the end of that war. The editors, who include retired Rear Admiral Chris Bennett, ascribe this “in some degree to a lack of enthusiasm for anything to do with the war by the government which took power in 1948. Many Afrikaners had initially been strongly opposed to South Africa’s participation in World War 2 and the question had caused sharp divisions and bitterness in Afrikaner political ranks.”

They note the official histories was something of a post-war pet project of Prime Minister Jan Smuts – he started the South African National Museum of Military History in Johannesburg around the same time. For this reason, the War Histories Section was formed as part of the Office of the Prime Minister. “When the new [National Party] government took over, its lack of enthusiasm was soon reflected in the fact that the War Histories Section was moved out of the Union Buildings to a much less salubrious environment. Funding also became a problem.

Despite these obstacles, the section succeeded in producing three well-received volumes:
Crisis in the Desert (May to July 1942) – published in 1952;
The Sidi Rezeg Battles (1941) – published in 1957;
and War in the Southern Oceans – published in 1961.
The last of these was co-authored by Gordon-Cumming, became known as the “short history”, and drew on material only now published in full as the “long history”.

Commander H. R. Gordon-Cumming
Official History of the South African Naval Forces during the Second World War (1939 - 1945)
Naval Heritage Trust South Africa
Simon's Town
2008
ISBN 978-0-620-43276-4
352 pages. Illustrated, maps, index. Soft cover.

Available from the South African Naval Museum in Simon's Town or from the Naval Heritage Trust.

HMAS Melbourne's boarding party conduct a boarding operation onboard tanker CPO China, in the Arabian Sea, after responding to a distress call. (Defence Department)

An Australian navy frigate has thwarted a pirate attack on a UK-flagged chemical tanker in the Arabian Sea.
The guided-missile frigate HMAS Melbourne steamed to the aid of the tanker CPO China after it was boarded by pirates on Monday night Australian time, the Defence Department said.

HMAS Melbourne was more than 260 kilometres away when alerted to the incident but covered the distance in a little over six hours.

While en route its helicopter raced ahead to the CPO China and "was able to deter the pirates from attempting to take control of the ship".

"As a result the pirates aborted the attack and left the vessel when Melbourne arrived on the scene," Defence said in a statement on Wednesday.

Earlier, the tanker's crew had locked themselves into a stronghold from where they could maintain control of the ship.

The crew also remained in satellite communications with the outside world after the pirates boarded.
HMAS Melbourne is serving with the Combined Maritime Force's counter-piracy mission.

Australian frigates are regularly deployed to the Middle East Area of Operations to provide maritime security.
Australia's Middle East Commander Major General John Cantwell said a key objective was to assist the international community in reducing acts of piracy.

"Our men and women aboard HMAS Melbourne deserve recognition for their role in providing maritime security and countering piracy in the Arabian Sea," he said in a statement.

"This is one of those occasions where their efforts have become highly visible."

Hasan Pasha, the Ottoman military Governor of Bosnia, raiding into Croatia found himself facing a large Imperial force led by Michael of Wallachia and Sigismund Bathory of Transylvania outside Sissek, on the Kupa and Save Rivers. Hasan was killed in a terrible defeat. Grand Vizier Sinan Pasha was later sent to avenge the loss and in October he laid siege to Veszprem (20 June 1593).

The inconclusive, unpredictable, and expensive nature of large campaigns, low-level border conflicts and raids (kleinkrieg) gained importance and became the essential part of the battle environment and lifestyle of the Ottoman- Habsburg frontier after the long reign of Süleyman. This situation was exaggerated by frontier populations, which consisted of thousands of mercenaries who sought employment through war. Within certain limits both sides tolerated these raids and conflicts within. Occasionally, events spiraled out of control, however, provoking large campaigns. The Long War (Langekrieg) of 1593 to 1606 was a good example of this type of escalation. In 1592, the governor of Bosnia, Telli Hasan Pasha, increased the level of raids and began to conduct medium-sized attacks against specific targets by using his provincial units only, although he probably had the tacit support of some high-ranking government officials. Initially, he achieved a series of successes but suffered a decisive defeat near Sissek in which nearly all his army was wiped out and he himself was killed. The new Grand Vizier, Koca Sinan Pasha, used this incident as well as a popular mood inclined toward war to break the long peace.

In spring 1593, without a declaration of war, the Governor-General of Bosnia, Hasan Pasha, with his provincial army crossed the Kupa River, then the border between Ottomans and Austria as agreed upon in a treaty concluded between Habsburg and the High Porte at Adrianople (present day: Edirne) only a year earlier.

According to historic tradition the Ottoman forces that attempted to take Sissek fortress were six times superior in numbers, although three times is probably closer to reality. In any case, it was a local, provincial army and their contingent of elite troops must have been but small. Pounding the massed attackers with heavy artillery fire, the Austrian, Carniolan and Croat defenders broke the Ottoman siege and pushed the enemy towards the Kupa river. Caught in the middle between two Christian army flanks, the attackers panicked and started a chaotic retreat. Disintegrating under the unending cannonade, the bulk of the army with all the commanders are said to have drowned in the Kupa river.

The commander-in-chief of the Ottoman force, Hasan Pasha, did not survive the battle. The figures concerning the Ottoman losses vary from 8,000 to a bragging and vainglorious 20,000, as legend has it, which contrasts sharply with one author’s statement that there was only a total of 12,000 Ottoman troops involved who faced 5,000 Croats reinforced by forces from Styria and Carniola. Christian losses are said to have numbered only between 40-50 men.

Christian Europe, which after relieving Spain of the Arabic Muslims had identified the Ottoman Empire with the Islamic menace, was delighted at the reports of such an allegedly grandiose victory. King Philip II of Spain congratulated and Pope Clement VIII praised the Christian military leaders. The traditional daily ringing of the small bell of Zagreb cathedral at 2 p.m. is in memory of the battle as it was the bishop of Zagreb who had born the major part of the costs of the fortress of Sissek.

When Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II (1552–1612) unilaterally terminated tribute payments to the Ottoman Empire for possession of Austrian Hungary in 1591, threats were issued and skirmishing broke out, but the Ottomans actually lost ground in central Hungary and Romania. War began in earnest in 1594 when Grand Vizier Sinan Pasha (d. 1596) led 100,000 troops into northern Hungary. The following year on October 28, 1595, Sigismund Báthory (1557–1606), prince of Transylvania, led Austro-Hungarian forces against the invaders at Guirgevo. Sinan was defeated.

#

In September 1596 the new sultan, Mohammed III (d. 1603), renewed the invasion, again with 100,000 men. They targeted the fortress town of Erlau. The massive force succeeded in taking the town, whereupon a force of 40,000, including Austrians, Germans, Transylvanians, and Hungarians, advanced to regain it. Twice the Ottomans sent forces to intercept the advance, and twice, on October 24 and October 26, 1596, they were repulsed. Then the Hapsburg forces counterattacked, penetrating the camp of the sultan and capturing some 50 artillery pieces. However, the Ottomans replied with a devastating surprise cavalry attack on the German-Hungarian flank. This was sufficient to create panic in the entire force, and the Hapsburgs lost some 23,000 men. Ottoman losses were also heavy—probably 20,000 killed or wounded— and the army was in such a state of exhaustion that it did not capitalize on its victory. The result was that warfare within the Ottoman-Hungarian borderlands continued sporadically until 1606, when, on November 11, the Treaty of Zsitva-Torok ended hostilities.

Britain’s Independence of India Act of 1947 created the dominions of India and Pakistan, and while the rulers of the over five hundred princely states were asked to work out arrangements with the two new nations, none had the option of remaining independent. Pakistan assumed that the Muslim-majority Kashmir would accede to it, but witnessing the carnage of partition, the maharaja, a Hindu, vacillated. To force his hand, a tribal army attacked the state on 22 October, and the ruler decided to accede to India. India launched a massive airlift on the morning of 27 October, flying in troops to defend the state. Pakistani army regulars, allegedly on leave, led the attack, notwithstanding claims that they were Azad (free) Kashmir forces who had revolted against the maharaja.


The Valley of Kashmir was quickly cleared of the invaders, but through 1948, India and Pakistan were locked in combat across the entire state. In the north, British officers of the Gilgit Scouts handed over the territory to Pakistan. But the battle focused on Indian efforts to secure Ladakh in the northeast, while Pakistan attempted to prevent the Indians from recapturing a strategic sliver of territory stretching from Muzaffarabad to Mirpur, cushioning its Punjabi heartland. It was only in July 1948, when a United Nations commission reached the subcontinent, that Pakistan conceded that its regulars had been involved, but only since earlier that year.

The British generals and a unified British commander-in- chief, Field Marshal Claude Auchinleck, who still headed the two armies, were able to manipulate and moderate the conflict to some degree. Essentially it was an infantry war of mortars, machine guns, and some artillery. India used light tanks to capture the crucial Zoji La Pass and open the road to Leh and used the Indian air force continuously, but Pakistan could not use its air force because of the issue of its legitimacy as a combatant in Kashmir.

When it became clear that neither side could advance beyond what they held by the autumn of 1948, the two sides accepted a cease-fire that became operational at midnight on 31 December 1948.

The second Indo-Pakistan war began with a clash in the southern extremity of their land border in the Rann of Kutch in February 1965, and through the summer there were heightened tension and clashes across the cease-fire line in Kashmir. But beginning in August, Pakistan initiated Operation Gibraltar, an invasion of the state by thousands of irregulars. Their aim was to converge on Srinagar and stage a “popular” uprising, which failed to take place; those guerrilla forces that did not retreat were captured or killed. The tough Indian reaction, which included the capture of the strategic Haji Pir Pass and several other Pakistani posts in Kashmir, compelled the Pakistanis to up the ante.

On 1 September, a Pakistani armored division moved toward Akhnur, to cut Indian forces in western Kashmir and threaten links with the valley. Pakistan hoped to localize the conflict within the Jammu and Kashmir state, as had been the case in the 1947–1948 war. But the Indians had other ideas; to relieve pressure in the north, they launched on 6 September a three-pronged attack toward Lahore and also moved against Sialkot. The Indian plans were, however, poorly executed. The Indian air force was not told of the Lahore thrusts, and the Pakistani air force disrupted the central Indian spearhead, striking at Indian air bases and causing considerable damage.

Pakistan had audacious plans of its own, and after blocking the southern thrust against Lahore, they counterattacked with the aim of capturing a vital bridge on the Beas River linking Amritsar with the rest of India. But the badly led Pakistanis floundered at Khem Karan, and the attacking force was trapped and destroyed. By mid-September, Pakistan had expended most of its ammunition, and India’s advantage of size would have come into play; strong Chinese pressure and poor advice from army headquarters, however, persuaded India to accept a cease-fire on 22 September. Both sides returned the territory they had captured through an agreement signed at Tashkent in early 1966.

The refusal of Punjabi-dominated West Pakistan to accept the victory of the Awami League, the principal party of East Pakistan, in the first general election of the country in early 1971 led to the latter declaring itself as an independent Bangladesh. Beginning on 25 March 1971, the Pakistani army sought to restore authority through a brutal campaign, killing hundreds of thousands of people. Some 10 million refugees fled across the border to India, along with many Bengali leaders. Led by Bengali officers of the Pakistani army, a Mukti Bahini (Liberation Force) launched a guerrilla war against the Pakistani forces in East Pakistan/Bangladesh.
India began to assist this force and to prepare for a general war. As the battle lines were being drawn, India signed a friendship treaty with the Soviet Union on 9 August 1971; meanwhile, U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger’s secret visit to China, via Pakistan in July 1971, cemented the already existing U.S. tilt toward Islamabad. By the end of November, fighting along the border intensified, and Indian forces entered East Pakistan/Bangladesh at several points.

On 3 December, in a bid to ease Indian pressure, the Pakistani air force launched a series of air strikes against Indian airfields in the west, leading to open war. The Pakistani commander in Bangladesh planned to keep screening forces on the border and build up cities as strong points that could hold out for two months or so. The initial Indian plan was to advance on four fronts across the riverine terrain, occupying positions short of the capital, Dhaka. But as the confused Pakistanis pulled back, Indian generals sensed opportunity, and two of the thrusts reached the gates of the city by 14 December; two days later, the 91,000-strong Pakistani army surrendered. The dispatch of a nuclear-powered carrier group to the region by U.S. president Richard M. Nixon was too little avail.

The Pakistani army had vague plans for an offensive in the west to help the beleaguered forces in the east. The plan to capture Poonch failed, but Pakistani forces captured Chamb again. But the anticipated big offensive, however, did not take place. Indian forces were put off-balance by contradictory orders on whether they should take the offensive or remain on the defensive. The limited offensives that did take place yielded insignificant gains because of poor leadership. Unlike the war of 1965, this conflict saw considerable naval action. The Indian navy conducted two daring raids on Karachi, bombed Chittagong harbor, and sank a Pakistani submarine, though it lost a frigate off Gujarat.

Under the Simla Agreement in 1972, prisoners of war were exchanged and captured territory returned, except in Jammu and Kashmir, where the cease-fire line was replaced by a Line of Control (LOC), through which both sides kept their respective gains: Pakistan in Chamb, and India in Ladakh.