Once upon a time, South Africa was the leading military force in Africa. Twenty years of demorkrasee, and the SANDF is a joke.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/loc...rines-is-operational

http://www.iol.co.za/news/poli...1485479#.UfPLBqyZmDE

http://www.bdlive.co.za/nation...choppers-gather-dust

Oh dear!

Man for man, the SA army was great. Not only was it good, but the armaments made by SA were world class.

These stories remind me of when the Shah of Iran was overthrown. At that time Iran had a number of American high-end aircraft. I had a relative who worked for McDonnell-Douglas as an engineer and he had been involved in developing the F-15. When I expressed to him my concern that Iran had this equipment he just chuckled and said that without us to maintain these planes, they would be useless airframes in several months. He was, of course, correct.

As has been said in the past, the bloody Afs would fcuk up a one car funeral procession and if anyone thinks things are going downhill now just wait until that mad bastard Malema comes to power!

That's a bloody shame, Scriptus.

That's too bad. You basically have equipment not being used and you are still paying for it.

I always tried to talked with soldiers for other countries during my deployments and training and get a look at their equipment. There were times I thought some of the equipment was better than ours but, more offen than not always liked ours more. I will say I thought the G3 Rifle was one of the best out there. Anyway... just hate seeing equipment not being used and the military not getting the proper use of it.

&1 hours flying time for the whole fleet of 20 choppers - and 150 hours for the whole squadron .... (per year).

I reckon real airforces do that in a week (probably a month, but I'm feeling indignant).

Thank $DEITY I'm out of that dungheap.

This is exactly the same as the situation in the management (or lack there of) of the now bankrupt City of Detroit in the USA. Foolishly spend other people's money until there is no more to spend, then shrug your shoulders and blame it on somebody else. And of course, form a couple committees to look into the matter.

I don't know if this is true or not, bu a friend, a native born South Afrikaner, told me that in all the black sub-Saharan languages, there is no word or equivalent for the English word "maintain"... According to him, they don't even understand the concept.. The previously posted articles would seem to bear that out..

Story about the submarines could refer to Canada just as easily. Been a total fuck up since we bought them from Britain.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...cs-corner-brook.html

Grizz