page_title: South African Army
section_title: Post-1994
hierarchical_section_title: South African Army / History / Post-1994
caption_attribution_description: 2013_07_24_ DRC North Kivu Province Goma ASG Field support visit FIB site in Sake about 10 km from Goma. MONUSCO/ Photo Myriam Asmani
context_page_description: The South African Army is the ground warfare branch of South African National Defence Force. Its roots can be traced to its formation after the Union of South Africa was created in 1910. The South African military evolved within the tradition of frontier warfare fought by Boer Commando forces, reinforced by the Afrikaners' historical distrust of large standing armies. It then fought as part of the wider British effort in World War II, but afterwards was cut off from its long-standing Commonwealth ties with the ascension to power of the National Party in South Africa in 1948. The army was involved in a long and bitter counter-insurgency campaign in Namibia from 1966 to 1990. It also played a key role in controlling sectarian political violence inside South Africa during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
  The role of the Army was fundamentally changed by the upheavals of the early 1990s and after 1994 the Army became part of the new SANDF. It is now becoming increasingly involved in peacekeeping efforts in southern Africa, often as part of wider African Union operations. The Army is composed of roughly 40,100 regular uniformed personnel, augmented by 12,300 reserve force personnel.
context_section_description: From the early 1990s (after 1992) to 1 April 1997, the SA Army maintained three 'small' divisions, the 7th (HQ Johannesburg), 8th (HQ Durban) and 9th (HQ Cape Town). They consisted of a reconnaissance battalion, two anti-aircraft defence battalions (AA guns), two battalions of artillery (G-5s and G-6s), a battalion of 127 mm MRLs, an engineer battalion, two battalions of Olifant MBTs, two battalions mounted in Ratel ICVs, and finally two battalions mounted in Buffel APCs. They were all amalgamated into the 7th South African Division on 1 April 1997, and became the 73rd, 74th and 75th Brigades respectively.
  On 1 April 1997 Regiment Louw Wepener (Bethlehem), Regiment De Wet (Kroonstad) and Regiment Dan Pienaar (Bloemfontein) were absorbed into Regiment Bloemspruit.
  7th Division was disbanded on 1 April 1999 and all army battalions were assigned to 'type' formations, in accordance with the recommendations of the South African Defence Review 1998. The 'type' formation force structure was implemented in accordance with the recommendations of auditing firm Deloitte and Touche, who were contracted to draw up a plan to make the SA Army more economically efficient. The Deloitte and Touche plan had the army separate its combat forces into 'silo' style formations for armour, infantry, artillery, and engineers. Deane-Peter Baker of the South African Institute for Security Studies said that the D&T plan, while alleviating, to an extent, the mistrust of the new South African leadership of the remaining apartheid-era South African Defence Force personnel in middle management positions, reduced the combat effectiveness of the Army, and was seen by 2011 as a mistake. Another mistaken decision was the decision to limit the force design of the SANDF to rely on short logistic lines for highly mechanised mobile forces in defence of national territory, as it causes many supply issues during modern foreign deployments. This is one of the major problems of the army and various solutions are being considered by the government to better equip forces deployed in out-of-area force projection operations.
  Though non-white personnel did serve as unarmed labourers with the army in both World Wars, a number of non-whites were employed in segregated units during the Border War, and a number of units were completely desegregated, it was not until 1994 – when South Africa achieved full democracy – that the army as a whole was made open to all races. Today the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) has racial quotas to make sure that White, Black, Coloured, and Indian South Africans are proportionately represented in the armed forces.
  During 2006 the Army released its ARMY VISION 2020 guidelines document, in a fresh attempt to reassess the 1998 structures which had proved wanting. The army planned a return to a division based structure, from the previous structure where units are simply provided as needed to the two active brigades. In many respects the plan was an attempt to undo the effects of the Deloitte and Touche-inspired force design that came into effect in 2001. The new plan was to create two divisions and a special operations brigade to conduct mountain, jungle, airborne and amphibious operations. Specialised training would have had to be carried out, as and when funds become available. A works regiment was also to have been created, to help with the maintenance of army and Defence Force buildings and infrastructure. However the plan was not implemented, and appeared to stall until the issue of the 2014 South African Defence Review. With the release of that review in mid-2014 it appears possible that the 2006 planning may be reinvigorated.
  Concerns have been raised as to the operational capabilities of the army given the high proportion of the army's budget spent on salaries (around 80%) and low amounts budgeted for capital (5%) and operational (15%) capacity. In addition to the large ratio of officers to soldiers, critical skills shortages, high average age of service personnel (48 years), and low proportion that are medically fit enough to
caption: South African troops in Sake, 10 km from Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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