The 2025 SA National Defence Force (SANDF) Military Skills Development (MSD) intake differs from previous ones in that 150 of the 2 538 recruits have already been mustered and will move to specific operational training on completion of basic military training (BMT).
The change in modus operandi can be largely attributed to a series of selection processes attended by potential recruits after the 15 March 2024 closing date for applications for the 2025 intake. These were held at various venues nationally to ensure final selection and recruitment resulted in what can be termed “the pick of the crop” making it into uniform. Medical assessments along with interviews formed a basis for seeing to it applicants who made it to the recruitment stage were “the right stuff”.
Mustering-specific training will see 100 SA Air Force (SAAF), SA Army and SA Navy (SAN) recruits move to the ranks of service military police post BMT. Similarly, Defence Intelligence will add 25 MSD recruits from the Air Force, Army and Navy with the Logistics Division adding 10 from the landward force to its personnel strength.
As with previous MSD intakes, the bulk of recruits – 1 591 – are allocated to General Lawrence Mbatha’s landward force and report to 3 SA Infantry (SAI) Battalion in Kimberley, along with the Infantry School at Oudtshoorn – acknowledged as premier training units. Post BMT this number will shrink by 71 when 50 go to military police, 11 to Defence Intelligence and 20 to the “Loggies”.
Vice Admiral Monde Lobese’s SAN will add 460 new names to the personnel register at SAS Saldanha and then lose 20 to military police ranks as well as seven to Defence Intelligence.
Three hundred and thirty-seven SAAF MSD recruits report to what was the SAAF Gymnasium in Valhalla, opposite what is now the Air Force Mobile Deployment Wing (AF MDW), previously Air Force Base (AFB) Swartkop, before heading north to Limpopo. Their destination for BMT is the SAAF Gymnasium at what was the Batavia training area near AFB Hoedspruit. When BMT is done and dusted 30 SAAF recruits will move to the air force’s military police and seven to Defence Intelligence.
SA Military Health Service (SAMHS) Surgeon General Lieutenant General Ntshavheni Maphaha will keep his allotted complement of 150 MSD recruits once their BMT is completed as the service’s Lephalale Training Centre in Limpopo with none selected for service elsewhere.
First to move into BMT will be the SAMHS MSD men and women. They report at the SAMHS Training Formation in Thaba Tshwane on Friday 10 January before moving to Lephalale to start BMT on Monday 13 January, the intake’s training commencement date supplied by the SANDF Directorate Corporate Communication (DCC).
The 2024 MSD intake is 96 less than last year’s 2 634.
The MSD System takes around 2 000 volunteers into either the SA Air Force, SA Army, SA Military Health Service or SA Navy for two years. Basic military training is first up followed by specialist mustering training, dependent on service and then deployment to a division, unit or base.
When the 24 month MSD period is up, a limited number of MSD volunteers will be offered short-term contracts in the full-time force (usually for 10 years) with the remainder expected to put their military skills to use in the Reserve Force.
Due to budget cuts, the Military Skills Development intake is only taking place every two years, rather than every year as was the case previously.
