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Thirty-Five to One
Rhodesian Light Infantry 1961-80 by Neil Grant, illustrated by Peter Dennis
© 2016 James LaFond
NOV/2/16
2015, Osprey, 2015, 64 pages
Osprey books are great for a direct appreciation of the military situation from the soldier’s point of view with minimal narrative adherence to the Leftist lie or the rightest delusion. In Rhodesia’s slide from colonial inequity to tribal iniquity, from moral purgatory to amoral hell, we have yet another example in which the better men, who won virtually every battle, has the war lost for them for their masters. In such struggles we get a glimmer of what men—particularly certain types of men—are capable of under the worst circumstances. A landlocked nation, outnumbered and with the entire world arrayed against them, the Rhodesian Light Infantry inflicted 35-to-1 casualties on their idiot enemy.
There are a handful of excellent paintings of the RLI in action and numerous photos, including a weirdly haunting picture of a shooting champion who died of wounds inflicted by a lion! This book is instructive for the American fighting man as the RLI did not benefit from the massive material superiority that American and European militaries have become dependent on, but inflicted 35-to-1 casualties against an often more heavily armed enemy with ingenuity and the aid of volunteers from around the world. The men of rural America should study this war, for they will one day have such a war of their own on their hands.
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B     Nov 3, 2016

The RLI benefitted from a maneuver superiority (those Pumas and Dakotas,) better discipline, better training and about 30 extra IQ points, as well as having grown up in a society where tech beyond a five gallon bucket was commonly used and maintained. Check out, by the way, the Koevoet, most of whose soldiers and NCOs were turned and retrained enemy.

The men of rural America will not have such a war on their hands, I don't think. In a civil war, their enemies will not be the Dindu hordes, who will eat each other and then starve, and are militarily useless, far beyond the tribesmen the RLI fough. Those tribesmen were in good shape, had some sort of cohesion at least tribally, and were accustomed to the terrain where they fought. The majority of black soldiers with whom I served (the ghettoer ones) were afraid of the woods, afraid of the dark, afraid of everything
Ishmael     Nov 3, 2016

Roland the Headdless Thompson Gunner! Good tune!
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