Angola (FAPLA) during the Angolan Civil War. To that end, it provided FAPLA with just under 500 BTR-60s as part of a comprehensive military assistance programme between 1975 and 1989. FAPLA initially received 74 BTR-60PBs in 1975, and ordered another 175 BTR-60PBs in 1980, which were delivered between 1981 and 1985. In 1987 and 1988, Angolan motorized brigades received another 250 BTR-60PBs and some BTR-60R-145BM command vehicles. For most of the 1970s, FAPLA remained critically short of modern armoured vehicles, and as late as 1981 many of its motorized infantry formations were equipped only with trucks or obsolete BTR-152s. By the late 1980s, however, the BTR-60 had largely superseded the BTR-152 in FAPLA service and was being deployed frequently during the civil war. FAPLA's motorized brigades, which bore the brunt of South African counter-insurgency as well as conventional army operations, came to include three companies of BTR-60s each. Additionally, both the Cuban and Soviet military missions in Angola possessed a number of BTR-60s, which were used for general liaison purposes. A number of FAPLA BTR-60PBs were deployed during the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, with 65 being lost during several engagements with South African expeditionary forces. FAPLA was not successful in coordinating its combined arms operations over the course of the campaign, and on several occasions the Angolan motorized infantry became separated from their accompanying armour or advanced with no accompanying armour at all, allowing the much more lightly armed South African troops to isolate and destroy them. The first armour-to-armour kill of the battle occurred on 9 September 1987, when a lone BTR-60 carrying out reconnaissance on the Lomba River was knocked out by a South African Ratel infantry fighting vehicle. Over the course of the civil war, FAPLA BTR-60PBs were commonly used for convoy escort purposes, guarding logistical vehicles bringing fresh supplies and ammunition to the front lines. In this role they were used to repel counter-insurgent ambushes, with some success. Due to prevalence of land mines on Angolan roads, the BTRs always traveled behind a bulldozer or a tank equipped for mine clearance. During the late 1980s, the threat of ambush by South African troops with armoured vehicles and heavy weapons of their own prompted the BTR-60 to be complemented in this role by the much more heavily armed BMP-1. Finland Finland's Jäger battalions operated Soviet-built BTR-60R-145BM "Chaika" vehicles. These were upgraded to BTR-60PUM standard between 1996 and