₦airaland Forum

Infantrymen of the Army of Gabon conduct drills with an EE-11 Urutu APC. Late 1970s or 1980s.

I see some good pictures have been posted over the past week of the French in the Sahel.

Here's one of my favourites, from the mid 1990s.

Henry240:
LAVs are an indespensible asset for any military. The ability to move armour quickly to the battlefield cannot be quantified.

MRAPs are nice and all, but the Gambia OP showed, they are not easily deployable, especially for a country with limited lift capabilities. Even the French struggled to deploy heavy armour in Mali, Infact they did not deploy a single MRAP in Mali.

The Senegalese in Gambia showed the absolute usefulness of the LAV, deploying the RAM, Plasan Sandcat and armoured Humvees only.

We should follow Algeria which has ordered 200 Nimr LAVs and build on our existing 72 Panhard VBLs with the Proforce PF 2.

Didn't the Senegalese also deploy to the Gambia with Elands, Ratels, and those Chinese-built PTL-02 tank destroyers as well?

frumentius:
Why? I play my music a bit too loud and a SWAT unit shows up?

Anybody here remember the state of emergency in the 80s when this used to happen?

frumentius:
Just drove down from Oudtshoorn and took a detour through Somerset West and saw Ferrets, Elands, Panhards, Buffels etc at a security company compound and truck dealership. Am in Langebaan for a week and will try to get photos.
Watch this space.

Please do! Wonder if any are in running condition.

Ferrets in South African service, most likely in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Almost all of these would be in storage just a few years later, having been superseded by the Eland.

newafricaken254:
continue.....

Old Bedfords never die!

Rare photo of an original Panhard AML-60 in South African service.

Only about a hundred of these were imported from France, and they were quickly phased out in favour of an indigenous model that later became the Eland.

Note that a few modifications have already started to appear, namely the Dunlop tyres which were later fitted as standard to Elands.

61mech:
Rooikat's main mission is reconnaissance. The biggest reason for its mobility was to run away from tanks, not take them on directly. The suspension system and drivetrain were more important than the gun.
Make contact with the enemy to fix his position and then retreat and let the G-5's and Airforce do their job. Also for doing probing attacks for various reasons like gauging enemy strength to find weaknesses in their defensive lines. Same with the Eland it replaced.

Ratel 90 was the fire support vehicle for mechanised formations in the SADF. We did train with Rooikat in that role during manoeuvres though.
Ratel 90 and Eland 90 contacts with tanks in Angola was not how we were supposed to fight. It was done out of necessity. The terrain was also a bit of an equaliser. You never take on tanks with armoured cars if you can avoid it, no matter how big your gun is.

Crew training and experience also played a role. The FAPLA tank crews had no idea what they were doing and frankly, no business being in a tank.

In his book "The Cuban Intervention in Angola", Edward Georges mentions that FAPLA was so short on tank crews sometimes they received their first crash training only hours before being sent into battle.

As opposed to the Ratel 90 and Eland 90 crews who were held to much higher standards, had to complete thorough gunnery training, and had logged considerable time on their weapons.

Any piece of equipment is only as good as the men behind it.

newafricaken254:
Botswana defence forces china-made Type 65 twin-37mm towed anti-aircraft gun

Is that a BRDM-2 towing it?

andrewza:
T34 where third and forth line tanks in the 80s and Cuba did not use them in Angola. During cuito Cuban tanks where the main tank force.

T34 where common in the fighting in the 60s and 70s and rarely seen in the 80s.


O and don't knock the T34 though it useless as a main battle tank even to day it a great fire support vehicle. I all so don't think we ever had one of our oliphants ever fight against any T34s. The Angolan T34s where easy targets for the AML90 and Ratels. Even Allouet K car gunships could take them out with there 20mm auto cannons.



I wonder how many of the chapter T34s we even brought to south africa. I know most where given to Unita and any we left in SWA is now in Namibian hand. I suspect we left most of them in Angola.



All so wonder how many of the option tanks we still have. I know we have a few T55s captured including some from a shipment, we gave a few to Rhodesia and Zimbabwea still uses them and there is the T72s we bought I know those still work. Still there no complete list on South Africa war loot and how much of it could be made operational.

The Cubans used T-34s when they were trying to reinforce Cassinga in the late 70s. Most of those were taken out by the SAAF Mirages and Bucaneers.

Castro is on record in 1985 as complaining that the Soviets hadn't given him enough T-55s to replace his entire T-34 fleet. This is according to the minutes from a meeting he had with the Soviet chief of staff in Angola.

I personally know of 6 FAPLA T-34s that were brought back by the SADF. Three are on display at Tempe, at least two were used as gunnery targets, and one was on a base in Namibia (Oshakati?) for a while. One of the "target" tanks was salvaged and restored by the War Museum in Joburg.

Presumably the remainder were given to UNITA.

EE-9 Cascavels of Chad.

On a related note, there is now a South African company that offers a modernisation programme for the Cascavel, Boomslang Logistics.

The company recently upgraded a number of Cascavels for Zimbabwe. Where the Zimbabwean government got the money to afford this when they can barely pay their troops is beyond me. Maybe they used diamonds from Marange.

Ratel 90 of Morocco.

ActivateKruger:
Commonsense says Algeria. Egypt hardly buys anything South Africa (notice I said hardly).

What about Morocco? They've got a number of Ratels and Elands, which means we've sold them on SA equipment at some point.

Some technical drawings of the Ratel 60 and 90. I think these were lifted from a parts handbook or something similar.

Throwback Thursday: EE-9 Cascavels of Togo.

Henry240:
Captured SADF Olifant Tank

Border war

Wonder what became of this tank. It's not at the FAPLA/FAA museum in Luanda, unlike most of the SADF vehicles they captured.

Kubinka Museum in Russia has some Angolan "spoils of war", maybe it ended up there.

An Eland 90 outside a retirement home in Irene.

This is one of three Elands I know of on display in the Pretoria area. The other two were plinthed outside the legal office at AFB Swartkops for many years. I have no idea if they're still there; when I was on the base in 2014 I couldn't find them.

Perhaps somebody who's had reason to visit Swartkops recently can provide an update?

A few photos of the only Eland armoured car known to be in a European museum.

This one currently resides at Kubinka in Russia. Where the Russians got it from remains a mystery. Some have theorised it was one of those lost at Ebo in Angola. Others have suggested it was actually an ex-Zimbabwean vehicle donated to Kubinka by that country after 1980.

Note: the plaque for this particular exhibit erroneously states it is a French-built Panhard AML. It is not - the Dunlop tyres, roof pintle mount, extra antennae mounts, and the number of lug nuts are all telltale signs indicating its South African origin.

Prototype armoured car trialled in South Africa in 1974. This received the designation "Boerboel" and was rejected in favour of the Ratel 90. Note the SADF registration plate.

frumentius:
Yes, in a conventional conflict. And as you point out, that's what the Rooikat is for. However, nasty little conflicts is what we're far more likely to face, and an Eland type is what we miss. Case in point, Bangui.

The one place where the Eland truly shines over the Kat and Ratel 60/90 is its ability to be driven into, and dropped from, a C-130 type aircraft with minimal preparation.

Its size and weight are ideal for rapid airborne deployments, that's one reason the Israeli paratroops and the French Foreign Legion liked it so much.

I've suggested before on this thread that more African armies need to borrow a page from the Russian VDV and allow airborne units to deploy with their own armour assets as necessary.

Yes, vehicles like the Jakkals are nice for mobility, but they lack even minimal armour and firepower. Why not have a vehicle that does all three? The Eland is suitable for the task, though of course a more modern take on the same concept is preferential.

This would be a vast improvement on the defensive capabilities of the paratroopers, who are especially vulnerable in their role of light infantry.

ActivateKruger:
So the solution here is simple. Develop modular armour plates for this vehicle. Use 2 helicopters to deploy it. 1st helicopter drops the vehicle then the second helicopter drops the modular armour then quickly fit on the field and then hit the road.

That's clever, but one Russian Mi-8 or Mi-17 Hip can easily handle a little armoured car, even with a substantial add-on armour package. They routinely lift 8.3 tonne vehicles.

Anything like a Super Frelon, on the other hand, will definitely require the additional armour to be carried by a second helicopter as you proposed.

frumentius:
Yet another example of others eating our lunch.
We were testing jet-powered UAVs as far back as 1989 .
Hell, we even went into stealth UAVs with the Flowchart technology demonstrator. If memory serves, out of Flowchart came the Seraph in about 1996, able to fly 1 300 km at a speed of Mach 0.83 at 40 000 ft, carrying an 80 kg payload of either optical cameras, a synthetic aperture radar or electronic surveillance sensors.

http://www.defenceweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48601:overberg-test-range-hosts-first-flight-of-jet-propelled-uav&catid=35:Aerospace&Itemid=107

This is very interesting background information.

I saw the Flowchart 2 at Swartkops almost three years ago to this day, had no idea what it was. I assumed it was a model for a larger, manned aircraft. It never occurred to me that it might have actually been a UAV technology demonstrator.

A new Tanzanian armoured car based on virtually the same concept as the Mechem MC-90: an extremely lightweight, air droppable and compact 4X4 chassis carrying a large gun. Not sure if it's been posted here before, but it's certainly worth taking a look at.

I sincerely wish them all the best in making this design work. Who knows? Perhaps someday a modernised vehicle concept like this will replace the large numbers of Elands and AMLs still in service all over Africa.

Senegalese Eland-90

Eland 60 being rescued after many years of rusting in storage at the Umvoti Mounted Rifles. Last I heard it was going to be fully restored for public exhibits and parades.

All units everywhere should do this with their antique vehicles whenever possible (or at the very least, donate them to a museum) instead of letting them go to waste. Especially when they are an important part of regimental history.

T-55 tank at the Armour Museum in Bloemy. There has been a lot of debate over the years as to the circumstances of this tank's exact origin.

This tank was supposedly built in Poland in 1975. It resembles a typical Polish T-55A, but is one of only 10 known examples in existence which received the designation "T-55LD". To this day it remains unclear what the "LD" actually stood for, if it was a reference to the particular turret/chassis combination or the original export customer (Libya).

According to a few armour historians, the fact that the "L" is stamped on the hull and "D" is stamped on the turret indicates that this tank may have been created in 1975 by mating the turret and chassis of two separate, older tanks.

Some people have theorized this is not a T-55 at all, but a T-54 which was rebuilt to T-55 standards (known generally as a T-54B) which may have even received a T-55 turret.

Semantics aside, the tank in its present form did not see service with the Polish Army but was sent straight to Libya from the factory, where it saw only about three years of service with the Libyan Army. In 1978 it was written off as military aid to Idi Amin's collapsing government in Uganda. The freighter carrying the tanks got stuck in Durban though, and the T-55 ended up in the hands of the SADF. It was used in Tempe for many years for evaluation purposes and is now owned by the Armour Museum (a second T-55LD is currently at the War Museum in Joburg, and the other eight are believed to be in semi-permanent storage at Inkomo Barracks in Zimbabwe).

iblawi:
I can see a female in the first picture. This is enough to prove these are not gripen pilots. Am sure most of them fly transport/other aircrafts.

I will mention here that the SAAF has at least one lady Gripen pilot: Cathy Labuschagne. I remember when she first qualified on the Gripen back in 2010, it made big news at the time and being an avid 94.7 Highveld listener, I caught the first radio interview she gave (to Whackhead Simpson).

http://saabgroup.com/Media/news-press/news/2010-10/The-first-female-Gripen-pilot-is-born/

Senegalese Army Ratel and Casspir.

kikuyu1:
Can you say 'wishful thinking'? Was looking up the Zimbabwean Special Air Service and caught this predictive programming piece on a Brit invasion of Zimbabwe.




Frankly,this is arrogance that turns the world to poo! A contempt,a deliberate disrespect for the capabilities of non Anglo Zionists that leads to stalemate in Vietnam,Iraq and Afghanistan.

I'm not sure if one foreign battalion would be sufficient to seize Harare, but Zimbabwe's military is a shadow of its former self.

Despite its former legacy of great professional competence and, despite having produced some truly elite units, the ZDF is nowhere near as formidable as it was during the Second Congo War.

There are several reasons for this.

1) Most of Zimbabwe's heavy equipment and tanks are unserviceable.*

Less than 10 of the famous Cascavel armoured cars mentioned in that article are serviceable. This is because the ZDF bought 90 of them, which gave them a maintenance budget they could not sustain on their own without foreign financial aid. They should've bought less actual vehicles and budgeted more for spare parts. The result is when the IMF and World Bank learned that the ZDF was taking development aid intended for development purposes and using it to buy Cascavel parts, they cut it off. So all the Cascavels became unserviceable due to no funding to buy the parts. The parts for tanks like the T-55/Type 59 are even more expensive so it was only a matter of time before they ran out of money to pay for those too.

You also have to understand that after the Congo War ended foreign exchange levels in Zimbabwe were critically low at a time when it was badly needed to replace wartime losses of preexisting equipment.

2) Very poor morale.

It's a sad fact of life that the ZDF loses entire battalions to desertion. No other modern African military that I know of has lost literally multiple battalion-sized units because all of the personnel decided to go AWOL.** The reasons are the soldiers are being very badly treated by the Zim government, they aren't paid enough to support their families and the government doesn't even pay what little they do get on time because it is bankrupt.

The last time the government defaulted on salary payments that I'm aware of was in 2016. The soldiers stood in line all day to draw their pay then nearly rioted when the bank told them there was no money to pay them with.

How the soldiers get fed also varies from unit to unit. In some army battalions the only food at the canteen is the salt in the salt shakers. The men are not issued rations because the government ministry tasked with importing them cannot afford the revenue dues(!) So out of desperation, they are trying to grow their own food but of course this is not enough to feed the whole unit. So more soldiers desert because they have nothing to eat.***

3) The force has become increasingly politicised since 2000. I think this sort of speaks for itself. The junior officers in the ZDF are the most badly affected by this, as it means they get passed over for promotion by people connected to ZANU-PF. During election year in Zimbabwe the rate of desertion always spikes, supposedly because the soldiers do not appreciate being used by ZANU-PF during the election cycle for political purposes.

Now, all this being said I would still say the ZDF was and still is one of the most promising fighting forces in the SADC region, after Angola's FAA and the SANDF. But its rate of decline in the past twenty years has been unprecedented. It badly needs reform and that is the fault of the politicians and securiocrats in Harare who have ignored making the ZDF a priority since the Congo war.

Forgive me for dwelling on the negative, I know one of the purposes of this thread is to focus on the positive aspects of many African armies rather than what we all know to be wrong with them. However this does need to be said. Hopefully military reforms in Zim come sooner than later, I know most of the soldiers themselves would have nothing less.

*http://www.thezimbabwean.co/2011/07/zna-crippled-report-exposes-decay/

**I did not believe this figure either when I first read it. But friends I have in northern Limpopo assure me it's true. There are deserters from Zim coming in all the time wanting to do work for local security companies. https://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/amphtml/2007/0425/p04s01-woaf.html

***http://nehandaradio.com/2014/03/27/looming-starvation-army-barracks/

Senegalese Eland-90.

View from the turret of an AML-90, looking out over the Aouzou Strip in Chad.