In the 1970s, a small African country was invaded by two major military powers, and Western experts said that the country would soon be destroyed!
Surprisingly, this small African country suddenly got a batch of mysterious tanks from the mainland, as if it had been reborn overnight, beating two countries in succession, and becoming an African military power in one fell swoop.
And this country is Tanzania.
The country covers an area of about 945,000 square kilometers, and its domestic economy is dominated by farming and industry, and its economy is extremely backward, and it has been judged by the United Nations to be one of the most underdeveloped countries.
However, even such a poor country is subject to aggression by its neighbors.
This neighbour is None other than Uganda.
In 1971, Uganda produced a man named Amin.
This man was not small and ambitious, taking advantage of Ugandan President Obote's visit to Singapore to launch a military coup and seize power.
In order to consolidate his rule, he used cruel means to bloodily suppress the opposition to the people, dictatorship of the entire country, and became one of the famous "three tyrants in Africa".
After Amin came to power, he began to vigorously develop the strength of the army, which was not only the basis of his brutal rule, but also conducive to his use of force to infiltrate the interests of other countries.
In the summer of 1978, international coffee prices fell to the bottom, and Uganda, whose main source of income was coffee farming, was hit hard, the people were destitute, and the lifeline of the country's economy was on the verge of collapse.
Amin did not have the ability to reverse the economic crisis, he simply turned his attention to neighboring Tanzania, decided to use foreign wars to transfer the growing contradictions at home and alleviate the crisis by encroaching on the territory of other countries.
In fact, the relations between the two countries were originally very friendly, and Tanzanian President Nyerere met the former president of Uganda during the African independence movement, and the revolutionary friendship between the two was very deep.
But after Amin staged a coup, he also hunted down former President Obert.
To this end, Tanzania wanted to lend a helping hand to provide shelter, which caused strong dissatisfaction among Amin, who not only repeatedly scolded the Tanzanian side in diplomatic occasions, but also ordered the massacre of 24 Tanzanian youths, and the relations between the two countries have since fallen apart.
On October 30, 1978, Amin claimed that Tanzania had deployed tank troops along the border and used this as an excuse to send 70,000 troops to launch a surprise attack on Tanzanian territory.
In Amin's point of view, a poor and weak Tanzania could not have tanks at all, which was just an excuse for his aggression.
At the beginning, the situation of the war was exactly as Amin had predicted, Tanzania was completely unprepared for the war, and the Ukrainian army completely conquered the Karagai region in just a few days, beating the lax Tanzanian army to the head.
The Ukrainian army burned and plundered in the occupied areas, and did no evil. According to statistics, about 8,000 innocent civilians have been killed in Tanzania, and more than 40,000 people have been left homeless and become refugees.
The thrill of invading other countries left Amin overwhelmed, and in his view, the destruction of Tanzania was only a matter of time. This daredevil is even already considering the incorporation of Tanzanian territory into Uganda.
But reality soon slapped him loudly, and Tanzania, with its power from the East, turned the tide of the war in an instant, and this force was the tank that Amin thought was impossible to have!
In Africa, there are very few countries that can achieve step-to-tan coordination, and Tanzania is one of them.
While Amin commanded Uganda to develop its military might, Tanzania was not idle, and they found a teacher in the far east, that is, China.
The Tanzanian side has been practicing hard with the Chinese side for many years, not only getting weapons, but also practicing a skill.
The tanks that the mainland aided the Tanzanian side included the Type 62 light tank, the Type 59 medium tank, and the Type 63 amphibious tank.
The Type 62 light tank is mainly used for hilly combat, can also be reconnaissance, detour, attack enemy armored vehicles and other tasks, with good maneuverability and excellent fire protection capabilities.
The tank is equipped with a semi-automatic fire extinguishing device and a smoke screen projectile launch module, which takes into account the control of the battlefield, maneuverability and survival performance, which makes the enemy army a headache.
The second model is the Type 59 medium tank, which was improved from the mainland with reference to the Soviet T-54A medium tank, and is the first generation of domestically produced main battle tanks assembled by our army.
The tank weighs 36 tons, carries 4 people, can reach a top speed of 50 kilometers per hour, and can travel 560 kilometers without any supply. Equipped with a 100 mm rifled gun with a rate of fire of up to 7 rounds per minute.
Not only that, the Type 59 is also equipped with 3 heavy-fire machine guns, and the infrared night vision goggles carried in the cabin can be used for night reconnaissance and marching. The whole tank has a simple structure, a very low failure rate, and is effortless to maintain, which is deeply loved by the Tanzanian army.
The last to appear was the Type 63 amphibious tank, which was exported to Vietnam to fight against Laos and the United States, and was an excellent model that had been tested by war.
The excellent sealing of the Type 63 ensures that it can fight in rivers, lakes, paddy fields and other water network areas, and even when marching on land, the amphibious model shows combat effectiveness comparable to that of land light tanks.
What is even more surprising to Tanzania is that the mainland not only sold 3 models of hundreds of tanks to Tanzania, but also sent troops to conduct a series of military training for the Tanzanian army. It not only taught them the tactics of step-to-tan coordination, but also explained in detail the concept and application of tactics such as interspersed and roundabout.
And these assistances have reborn the Tanzania Army, which was originally weak in military strength, as if it has been opened up to the second pulse of Ren Dou, and its strength has been qualitatively improved, directly ranking among the top military powers in Africa.
But the mainland and Tanzania are separated by mountains and rivers, so why provide military assistance to them? This starts with the Korean War.
As a national war on the mainland, the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea not only shocked a number of Western hegemonic countries, but also gained a large number of "fans" for our side around the world. Tanganyika and Zanzibar are prominently listed, two countries that were the predecessors of Tanzania.
Both countries have established friendly diplomatic relations with the mainland, and after the merger of Tanzania and Sambo, after the merger of the two countries in 1964, they continued their friendly strategy with China and maintained friendship with the mainland.
In africa, a land of constant war, there are no real guys and skills, and the consequences are extremely serious, ranging from continuous civil war to the disaster of national annihilation, and the newly established Tanzania has fallen into this dilemma.
When Tanzania was first established, its military strength was extremely weak, the domestic situation was extremely unstable, and strong foreign enemies were eyeing the tiger. The Top Brantans have asked the outside world for assistance several times without success, and they have been panicked all day long.
The mainland saw Tanzania's internal and external troubles, so it decided to pull this African friend together, which led to the Tanzanian army with a large number of tanks and military literacy that is unique in the whole of Africa.
However, all this is not clear to Amin and the Ugandan army.
In the early days of the battle between the two sides, Tanzania was defeated by the Ukrainian army, quickly stabilized its position, gradually reversed the decline, and sent tank troops to counterattack.
Ukrainian army cadres reported to Amin that Tanzania's tanks seem to be endless, almost everywhere, and it is impossible to defend themselves!
It turned out that the Tankan tanks relied on strong mobility to take the lead, constantly turning in the major battlefields, for a time, the streets, alleys, and even rivers were full of Tanzanian tanks, and each time they could take advantage of the Reaction of the Ukrainian Army to beat them head-hugging.
Moreover, the Tanzanian army relied on the infantry-tank coordination tactics granted by the mainland to inflict great damage on the living forces of the Ukrainian army, forcing the enemy to continuously retreat and avoid the encirclement and suppression of the Ukrainian army as much as possible.
In January 1979, the situation in the Utan War was firmly in the hands of the Tanzanian army, which not only recovered all the lost land, but even gathered more than 10,000 troops into Uganda with the cooperation of air forces.
It was then that Gaddafi joined the war with Libyan troops, and the situation became confusing again.
Libya in the last century, aided by the Soviet Union for $4.6 billion, was one of the strongest military forces in Africa with a large number of Soviet-style ordnance.
Gaddafi, a lord who feared no chaos in the world, had long wanted to intervene in the war between Utan, and he sent a force of 2,500 men to Uganda.
Do not underestimate these 2500 people, they are the elite of Gaddafi's elite, not only equipped with T-54, T-55 tanks, but even MiG-21 fighters, Tu-22 strategic bombers for air fire cover.
It turned out that after being defeated by tanks from the mainland, Amin had long since lost the arrogance of starting a war. Seeing that his aggressive ambitions were about to be destroyed, he could only choose to ask his ally Libya for help.
With strong reinforcements from the Libyan army, the Ukrainian army regained confidence and after resting, launched a counterattack against the Tanzanian army.
The Uli coalition forces, supported by advanced weapons, forced the Tanzanian army out of Uganda, and the situation on the battlefield was reversed again, and Amin was overjoyed, ordered a victory to pursue, and vowed to be humiliated.
However, when the Uli coalition advanced to the Lukaya area of Tanzania, they suddenly found that they were not capable of pursuing the Tanzanian army.
The swamps are everywhere, the roads are muddy, and the T-54 and T-55 tanks cannot move as soon as they enter it, and they are in a dilemma and lose their combat effectiveness.
The Type 63 amphibious tanks sold by the mainland to the Tanzanian side were able to come and go freely in the Lukaya area, using strong firepower and mobility to crush the stagnant Uli coalition army one by one.
The Battle of Lukaya was a great victory for the Tanzanian army, and the Libyan reinforcements suffered heavy casualties. Not only that, a large number of Soviet tanks fell into the hands of the Tanzanian army in vain due to their deep swamp.
This made Gaddafi furious, repeatedly rebuked Amin, and even tried several times to order the Libyan army to withdraw from the country, withdrawing from the war, and the Uli coalition army became a mess.
Since then, the internally discordant Uli coalition forces have completely lost the possibility of overturning, and the Tanzanian army organized a counterattack in April 1979, hitting the Ugandan capital in one fell swoop and successfully occupying it.
The Ugandan army was completely defeated, the Libyan army, sitting on a large number of Soviet-style weapons, announced its surrender, and Tanzania won a comprehensive victory in the war.
The culprit, Amin, was forced to flee overseas and died with full of anger after more than a decade of hiding in Tibet.