The year involved the greatest loss of life in peacetime operations, repeated funding problems, accusations of sexual and other misconduct by soldiers on peacekeeping duties abroad, and a number of fatal crashes.
The year began for the SANDF with President Jacob Zuma informing Parliament that he had deployed soldiers to serve in the Central African Republic (CAR).
The deployment was immediately in trouble with opposition parties complaining that Parliament had been inadequately informed.
More was to follow, with hard questions asked about why the deployment was made in terms of a bilateral agreement and not as part of a United Nations (UN) or African Union mandate. There were suggestions that the soldiers were in the CAR to protect SA's business interests and to prop up its dictator, president François Bozizé.
It all went horribly wrong when Mr Bozizé's unity government collapsed and Seleka rebels marched on the capital Bangui. It was in the battle for Bangui that the South African soldiers came under fire with 15 soldiers killed.
Local defence expert and analyst Helmoed Romer Heitman, commenting on the CAR deployment, said: "I think that the strategic decision to deploy was correct - as the collapse of the CAR and the spill-over into the north of the Democratic Republic of Congo have demonstrated.
"The initial purpose of causing the rebels to stop and negotiate was served. The error was believing they would be honest, not ensuring up to date intelligence, not providing aerial reconnaissance and not providing armoured vehicles."
The problem there is that SA has no airlift worth mentioning, because people in the Congo have a fixation on the notion that SA can charter when it needs something, Mr Heitman says. "The troops and officers of the protection unit did outstandingly, as did some members of the training team who joined them, and the overall command system from up here also worked well, with no one interfering with the mission commander here or force commander there."
In June, Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula revealed that over an eight-year period, 93 South African peacekeepers had been charged by the UN for offences including murder, drunkenness and sexual misconduct when replying to a parliamentary question from Democratic Alliance MP David Maynier.
Mr Maynier expressed shock, saying "of the 93 cases, most shockingly, at least 23 involve rape, sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and assault of women".
"These include ... alleged sexual molestation, rape and murder of a Burundian girl, sexual abuse and exploitation, and misconduct.
"It is completely unacceptable for the members of the SANDF, who are supposed to be a disciplined military force, to begin to mirror the behaviour of the national defence force and rebel groups in the Congo."
The South African Air Force (SAAF) continued to be in the news for the wrong reasons, not the least being the crash of an M109 helicopter in the Kruger National Park in April while on duty against rhino poaching, with all five on board killed. This followed the similarly fatal crash of a Dakota in December 2012 in the Drakensberg. The results of the inquiries into the incidents are yet to be released.
It also emerged over the year that most of the state of the art Gripen jet fighters and a large number of the Agusta helicopters are in mothballs because of a shortage of funds and skills to fly them.
In parallel with this, however, controversies continued over the number of VIP flights flown by the SAAF, including charter flights on luxury aircraft.
The VIP flights also included numerous helicopter flights for Mr Zuma between Durban and his rural homestead in Nkandla.
Mr Heitman observed: "The SAAF is in deep trouble.
"The C-47TPs (re-engined Dakotas) are running out of life, the C130s are overworked. There is not enough money for fighter and helicopter crews to fly enough to be really proficient or to keep the technicians really proficient.
"The battle for Bangui has brought home the extent of the error made in cancelling the A400M (Airbus heavy lift transport) contract - now we will not get that aircraft at that price, nor will we find anything else that can do the job."
Commenting on the year as a whole, Mr Maynier said: "Ms Mapisa-Nqakula has had a terrible year, being at the centre of virtually every major political scandal this year including 'CARgate', 'Guptagate' and 'Nkandlagate'".
However, in the end the minister is politically responsible for the biggest military disaster in the history of democratic SA.
The fact is that the SANDF was left dangling, with both hands tied behind its back, in the battle in CAR that it could not supply.
"The biggest overhaul of defence policy, in more than a decade, is underway in the form of the Defence Review. The review is absolutely crucial: the defence force is effectively in a holding pattern until its completion."
Source: Business Day
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