South African missiles/rockets/PGM's - Prototypes, Projects, Concepts, etc.

[Graugrun]

I think it necessary to lay some background for this thread - it will go a long way to creating some understanding for an outsider into why some a lot of the concepts we were developing were being done (and even those we did complete). It may not have made sense to a NATO country to develop - but then we were not a NATO country and we were certainly not fighting the type of war, or under the battle conditions they would have expected to.

I rate our relatively unknown 23 year "Border War" (1966-1989) as the 3rd to 4th largest of the "Cold Wars", after the Korean and Vietnam wars, but ahead of the Soviet Russian invasion of Afghanistan and the relatively short and sharp (but very little in-between) Middle East wars of the time.

What initially started out as a low intensity conflict, it escalated into a fierce and finally semi-conventional war, indirectly involving the two superpowers Soviet Russia and the USA. Although at it's peak we never committed more than 3000 Troops (not counting the Angolan UNITA soldiers), it is generally accepted that we faced the following: 55,000 Cubans, 3,000 Soviets, 2,000 East Germans and a sprinkling of Ukrainian, Rumanian, Bulgarian, Polish, North Korean and at least 40,000 Marxist FAPLA/SWAPO/ANC soldiers. These elements were backed by billions of dollars of some of the most advanced Soviet weaponry of the time, including MiG 23's/27's, Mi24/25 Hind gunships, T-55/T-62 tanks and various SAMs, radars and other equipment. These were led by Soviet generals, some of whom were veterans of the Afghanistan war.

According to "Air Wars and Aircraft" - Victor Flintham (Arms and Armour, London 1989) "...by early 1988, the (Angolan) air defence system was the most sophisticated of Soviet origin outside the Warsaw Pact countries. It comprised 75 mobile radar sets, 40 MiG-21's and 40 MiG-23's, SA-2, SA-3, SA-6, SA-8, SA-9, and SA-13 SAMs, ZSU-23 AAA and the man portable SA-7 and SA-14 missiles. This impressive range of equipment failed to deter the SAAF, which continued its strikes against SWAPO (and other) targets." - So much so that some of the most advanced Soviet weapons of the time which fell into Western hands were those captured by the South Africans, including the first captured Soviet SAM-8 and SAM-9/13 surface-to-air missile systems.

The first weapon in this thread is the BARB (Boosted Anti-Radiation Bomb) - and is in essence is a poor man's HARM/ALARM type of weapon. It seems to have been developed and tested to some degree, perhaps someone with more knowledge can add to this. It had a 127mm rocket in the tail to boost it's range and/or give it some sort of stand-off ability. It was also generally meant to be toss-bombed.

Towards the end of the war, the "other side" had complete control of the airspace - our Airforce had to perfect the "long toss-bombing technique", as we had no smart bombs for stand-off delivery and as described above operated in an extremely hostile air environment. I have included a brief description of toss bombing below, with a diagram for further ease of understanding (diagram from "From fledgling to Eagle" - Brig-Gen Dick Lord, and is for reference and discussion purposes only).

The toss-bombing technique perfected by the SAAF was the opposite of generally accepted tactics of the day. Instead of flying into enemy territory at great height and then diving at great speeds to deliver their bombs, the SAAF Mirages flew into their targets at 50 meters above the ground, then rose up steep and fast, while 7-8 km's from the target, releasing their bombs and thus "lobbing" them onto the target, then immediately returning to a height of 30 meters to fly home.

 

[Graugrun]

Apologies - finger trouble - this was meant to be included in the above post - the 2nd page of the BARB brochure....

 

[kaiserbill]

I don't know if BARB ever entered service.
It was sensible at the time to develope this, but I've never seen it shown nor described in the SAAF inventory.
This of course does not necessarily mean anything.
There are very few pics out there of BARB. I've only ever seen a couple, along with this picture below, of what I think is a BARB.
It looks to have the same light blue paint scheme, which isn't a colour normally associated with an operational weapon.
I assume the 127mm booster is taken off the Valkyrie/Bataleur Multiple Rocket Launcher rockets?

 

[Graugrun]

Kaiserbill - I don't think that's BARB in your picture, it has similar/the same fins and size, however if you look at the nose, your one looks more like a laser guided bomb. Interestingly enough the company (AMS) who developed BARB, also developed a laser guided 120mm mortar around at the same time (all circa 1992). It may just be that they were the original developers of our early laser guided bombs too (I thought we had bought the Israeli Lizard LGB - or did that come much later, or was the Lizard just license built by AMS for us?)

You are correct regards the 127mm rocket coming from the Valkyrie MRL rocket system, an AMS rep at the time confirmed that to me - said it made perfect sense in keeping things both simple and very cost effective.

AFAIK - the BARB was never taken on officially by the SAAF, perhaps someone with that knowledge can confirm this for us - perhaps it was sold to another country? - Anyhow, below is another brochure from AMS given out at the next DEXSA show (1994).

 

[kaiserbill]

Kaiserbill - I don't think that's BARB in your picture, it has similar/the same fins and size, however if you look at the nose, your one looks more like a laser guided bomb.

After another look, you're quite correct.
It appears to be a LGB of some type, most likely the IAI Griffin or local derivitive.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

You are correct regards the 127mm rocket coming from the Valkyrie MRL rocket system, an AMS rep at the time confirmed that to me - said it made perfect sense in keeping things both simple and very cost effective.

The Valkyrie 127mm rocket was itself a reuse of the design of the AIM-9B Sidewinder rocket motor copied in South Africa. So its a case of circular development when a aircraft weapon is reused for land use and then reused back for aircraft deployment.

 

[TomS]

The overall concept (and especially the laser-guided version in the photograph) reminds me of the USN's Skipper II from the mid-1980s, which combined a Shrike motor with a 1,000-lb Paveway II LGB. It was a nice quick-and-dirty way to add standoff range without a huge development effort.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Could be a Griffin LGB?

 

[kaiserbill]

Could be a Griffin LGB?

I think the LGB that I posted in front of the Cheetah is, on reflection.
In that photo, there is another similar weapon to the right, but with larger rear fins.

 

[Graugrun]

Could be a Griffin LGB?

I think the LGB that I posted in front of the Cheetah is, on reflection.
In that photo, there is another similar weapon to the right, but with larger rear fins.

The one on the right could just be a larger 250 Kg version - the smaller one on the left being 120 Kg...?

Staying on the laser theme - I am posting this in this forum as it seems most appropriate - the very seldom mentioned Kentron KZ2 Laser designator pod. I have only seen reference to it three times, this article being by far the most detailed.

Nothing has ever come up after that - I have my own theories (mostly involving Pakistan), hopefully someone can fill us in and or provide some photos... How far was it developed/tested, was it further improved to try to bring it up to the level of LANTIRN/Litening etc...etc?

Article courtesy of Flight International, March/April 1997.

 

[kaiserbill]

Graugrun, what do you know of the various cruise missile type munitions?
I recall the MUPSOW, which was originally listed as having a range of 300km+ (I believe it was more), before magically shrinking down to around 150km, for clear reasons.
Then the Torgos.
Some of the recent weapons from the Middle East seem to have a lot of influence from particularly the MUPSOW, as well as other SA UAV's, as Overscan (PaulMM) picked up in the Iranian Karrar thread from 4 years back.
What engine powers these munitions?
The APA-1 gas turbine as mentioned in the aviation thread lead to that small turbofan in the same thread that was displayed afterwards.

Then, there is the long range cruise missile developed by South Africa, which we can see these days in a much different role or format.
I recall when seeing it first (first powerd flight 1990) that it was obvious what its original role was, even before it was mooted in a certain book...

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Could be a Griffin LGB?

I think the LGB that I posted in front of the Cheetah is, on reflection.
In that photo, there is another similar weapon to the right, but with larger rear fins.

The one on the right could just be a larger 250 Kg version - the smaller one on the left being 120 Kg...?

Staying on the laser theme - I am posting this in this forum as it seems most appropriate - the very seldom mentioned Kentron KZ2 Laser designator pod. I have only seen reference to it three times, this article being by far the most detailed.

Nothing has ever come up after that - I have my own theories (mostly involving Pakistan), hopefully someone can fill us in and or provide some photos... How far was it developed/tested, was it further improved to try to bring it up to the level of LANTIRN/Litening etc...etc?

Article courtesy of Flight International, March/April 1997.

Well, it would have looked somewhat like this, as it supposed to use the Raptor II command pod:

 

[Graugrun]

Thanks for the pic Paul - and yes the article states that it would be based on the H2 comms pod - however note the 2nd type (shorter and fatter) "HAT-pod" next to the Raptor 2, the comms pod being on the opposite side - input/comments anyone?

 

[Graugrun]

Graugrun, what do you know of the various cruise missile type munitions?
I recall the MUPSOW, which was originally listed as having a range of 300km+ (I believe it was more), before magically shrinking down to around 150km, for clear reasons.
Then the Torgos.
Some of the recent weapons from the Middle East seem to have a lot of influence from particularly the MUPSOW, as well as other SA UAV's, as Overscan (PaulMM) picked up in the Iranian Karrar thread from 4 years back.
What engine powers these munitions?
The APA-1 gas turbine as mentioned in the aviation thread lead to that small turbofan in the same thread that was displayed afterwards.

Then, there is the long range cruise missile developed by South Africa, which we can see these days in a much different role or format.
I recall when seeing it first (first powerd flight 1990) that it was obvious what its original role was, even before it was mooted in a certain book...

Kaiserbill - I was intending to start with the small, basic stuff - head onto the more interesting stuff and end off with the multiple MIRVed, nuclear warhead ICBM's we had/and were developing - thought It would be best to ease the unknowing casual/outside observer into things a little....

In terms of the small stuff, this perhaps just gets into the missile category by virtue of it being rocket assisted and also it's laser guidance. This was already far in the testing phase and almost ready for production, obviously fell victim to the huge defense cuts with the Border War ending at that time.

I would guess one of it's intended roles would be for Special Forces attacking high value targets within convoys and on airfields etc, deep within enemy lines (as they so often did in Angola). While the article (Defence Minister and Chief of Staff No.3/1989) mentions Armscor as being behind the development, the actual company involved is AMS, the same as for the BARB bomb above.

 

[Graugrun]

A novel (anti-surface) warhead design by Somchem for the Gabriel anti-shipping missile.

It's rather different and interesting in it's approach, I wonder how much further it was taken - was it fully developed, sold to anyone else, or did anyone else perhaps pick up on it and use it or something similar for their own purposes?

Article at the bottom is courtesy Jane's IDR 1/1997.

 

[kaiserbill]

Interesting.

I was not aware of any local Skerpioen (Gabriel) developments.

 

[compton_effect]

Wow. Thanks for the Gabriel info. I remember reading about the warhead years ago, on one of the missile websites. But could not find any info about it.

 

[panzerskool]

I'm reading SADF in the border war 1966- 1989 and read that 3 ships were sunk / damaged by SA frogmen planting mines in the port of Namibe in 1986. So did a bit of searching around for more info on it as its important to note that these were Cuban and Soviet ships not Angolan and read the following LA times article which mentions a ground attack by Skerpioen missiles.


other articles state it was only frogmen who blew the tanks including Peter Stiff’s [/size]The Silent War – South African Recce Operations 1969 – 1994

[font=verdana, arial, tahoma, calibri, geneva, sans-serif][/size]interesting never the less
[/font]


Cuban, Soviet Ships Hit in Angola Port
June 07, 1986|From Reuters

MOSCOW — The official news agency Tass said Friday that Soviet and Cuban cargo ships were hit in the Angolan port of Namibe at the time of a reported South African raid there Thursday.
Tass said that two Soviet ships, the Kapitan Vislobokov and the Kapitan Chirkov, were seriously damaged as they unloaded in the southern Angolan port. No one was injured, it said.

In Havana, the official daily newspaper Granma reported that the 6,000-ton Cuban cargo ship Habana was sunk. It said the Habana, on contract to the Angolan government for coastal trade, was unloading food. No casualties on the ship were reported.
The official Angolan news agency ANGOP said that in the Thursday morning raid on Namibe, a South African warship armed with Scorpion missiles destroyed two fuel tanks while frogmen planted mines on three ships in the harbor, sinking one of them.
South Africa refused to comment on the raid report.
Helped by Cuban Troops
Cuba has an estimated 30,000 troops in Angola in support of its Marxist government. The Soviet Union has supplied Angola with military hardware.

 

[panzerskool]

did we have a license to manufacture the Gabriel or did we just get supplies from Israel? can't see a manufacturing of a sophisticated system for such a limited need (6 per boat , 9 boats plus dummy shots , test platforms and practice shots ) what maybe 100 missiles?

 

[Graugrun]

I'm reading SADF in the border war 1966- 1989 and read that 3 ships were sunk / damaged by SA frogmen planting mines in the port of Namibe in 1986. So did a bit of searching around for more info on it as its important to note that these were Cuban and Soviet ships not Angolan and read the following LA times article which mentions a ground attack by Skerpioen missiles.


Cuban, Soviet Ships Hit in Angola Port
June 07, 1986|From Reuters

MOSCOW — The official news agency Tass said Friday that Soviet and Cuban cargo ships were hit in the Angolan port of Namibe at the time of a reported South African raid there Thursday.
Tass said that two Soviet ships, the Kapitan Vislobokov and the Kapitan Chirkov, were seriously damaged as they unloaded in the southern Angolan port. No one was injured, it said.

In Havana, the official daily newspaper Granma reported that the 6,000-ton Cuban cargo ship Habana was sunk. It said the Habana, on contract to the Angolan government for coastal trade, was unloading food. No casualties on the ship were reported.
The official Angolan news agency ANGOP said that in the Thursday morning raid on Namibe, a South African warship armed with Scorpion missiles destroyed two fuel tanks while frogmen planted mines on three ships in the harbor, sinking one of them.
South Africa refused to comment on the raid report.
Helped by Cuban Troops
Cuba has an estimated 30,000 troops in Angola in support of its Marxist government. The Soviet Union has supplied Angola with military hardware.

Panzerskool - Douw Steyn and Arne Soderland's book "Iron fist from the sea" will reveal all when it is published June/July this year. Douw was one of the Attack Divers who lead one of the teams on the above-mentioned raid (Arne is a retired Rear Admiral, who commanded a Strike Craft around that time). All I will say is that no missiles where fired from a Strike Craft in this raid - BTW see below pic of the book's cover.

Although very interesting, I don't want to go into this story too much as we are now heading way off this site's topic...

 

[panzerskool]

look forward to the book and will pre order. I have "last battle of the cold war "on preorder as well . Lots coming out now about Cuito.


Thanks for clearing that up.


What about the manufacture of the ASM in SA?

 

[Graugrun]

The 68mm Mechem RO68 has a range of 6,500m. Basically, it was the 68mm SNEB as found on aircraft. This was built with a six-round tripod mounted launcher assembly weighing only 45kg, or 4 tube version which was lighter. Touted at special forces, the cheap, colapsible launcher was disposable. Timer or crew fired, proximity fuse could explode 3 meters above ground, spraying 3000 steel balls. Aimed with standard mortar sight.

I'm unsure whether this has actually been serially produced or productionised, but below are the only 2 pics I've ever seen of this concept, and I've never heard of any service induction over the years.

Just in case you're still interested in this - brochure below..

 

[curious george]

Sorry I cant credit the sources for these as I dont remember where I found them lol.

 

[panzerskool]

still a question for all. Were the Skerpion/ Gabriel simply shipped form Israel or did we make them under license?

 

[compton_effect]

Those IRBM/ICMB pictures look like the ones that are on Encyclopedia Astronautica.
He has a very detailed page about our launcher project and a breakdown of each variant.

 

[Graugrun]

I wanted to build up from the basic stuff and ease into the nuclear stuff later on... so Curious George, I will post much more on the nuke stuff in time to come.

In the meantime, lets up the ant a bit with this very interesting missile/propulsion project (or missile technology demonstrator) - which had various names, L-RAAM being one of them. Development started in the mid 80's IIRC, with the first successful test taking place in 1988. Different sized calibres were also developed and tested - 127mm, 180mm and 230mm that I know of. A speed of Mach 2.3 was attained in tests, and although ranges were never disclosed - talk of over 400km was mentioned at one point.

It's a long story - how did we get it right when even some major powers could not (nozzle-less boost to RAM speed), that we used laser and water/fluid dynamics in the design and research (a very different approach to anyone else - which obviously worked very well for us), why was it never used/tested as part of a full missile (or was it). Was it sold to a few other countries for their use (strong speculation and rumours around that). Will it form part of the new project 'Marlin' BVR air to air missile, was it always meant to be part of T-Darter/B-Darter/S-Darter etc...?

So many questions, so few answers. What we do know is that it was tested successfully on multiple occasions and worked very well (one of these tests is pictured in the brochure below). It was a Somchem product BTW, and not Kentron/Denel Dynamics as is often thought.

I welcome some informed input/debate on this one .

 

[kaiserbill]

Excellent.

I had previously only known this under the name "Integral".
I suspect that was the vehicle technology codename.

There had been some speculation that it was geared toward a land attack missile, in a role similar to the French ASMP.
Perhaps the larger diameter (230mm) calibre was.

It appears from what you have posted that the BVRAAM and SAM versions were the either the sole versions, or more likely the ones to be realised first from the technology.
The brochure also seems pretty sure on many of the details (such as warhead weight, etc) so I now suspect quite a lot of work was done in this regard, over and above the various test flights I've read about.

I'd also had these pics below kicking about on my computer, from various sources, pertaining to South African ramjet missiles and BVRAAM's.
They must therefore be related.


The first pic below, Somchem Ramjet, I pulled off one of Somchems pages a few years back.

 

[Graugrun]

Nice pics Kaiserbill,

I had read some Somchen brochure in the past that stated that the very first picture you posted was in fact one of Somchen's ramjet artillery designs, it worked as a sort sabot within a 155mm artillery shell, sacrificing payload (size and therefore HE filling) for extreme range (for an artillery shell). It was all part of the 'Loosvoor' (Well-ahead) artillery program, unfortunately AFAIK it was not developed further for either practicality or funding reasons - hopefully someone can fill us in some more on this very interesting and perhaps unique project (pictured again below)

 

[TomS]

Not completely unique.

Denel had a round called ProRam that was also being worked on in the early 2000s. It was a full-caliber ramjet artillery round:


Images below are slides from: http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2004armaments/DayII/SessionII/13Fitchat_South_African_COOP.pdf

 

[kaiserbill]

Some further info on the South African artillery ramjet projectiles, with some pics and windtunnel results.

 

[Graugrun]

Thanks to both TomS and Kaiserbill for the additional info - Somchem became a division of Denel BTW, so it's their artillery shells pictured in the South African/American proposed co-operation slides. The proposal was with regards various South African artillery ammunition (charges and rounds) and the Denel LEO 105mm gun mounted on the LAV III as a SPH.

The lethality of our 105mm rounds exceeds that of American and European 155mm rounds by a very large margin, I believe that the U.K. and the U.S.A have both adopted on the 105mm rounds and Bi-modular propellant charges (someone with better knowledge on this can correct me or add some more info). There is much more to this artillery story, however I believe it belongs in the South African Army section.

Back to the L-RAAM, below are two scans from an old CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) brochure, advertising their high speed wind tunnel capabilities, note the two pics showing and testing the ramjet inlets.

An earlier version of this missile was called the LRTM (Long Range Tactical Missile), I will also scan and post some more on this soon.

 

[kaiserbill]

Thanks Graugrun.

That second pic in your first attachment...what missile is that? A-Darter?

Was the LRTM then the land attack missile version I mentioned earlier, akin to the French ASMP?

Look forward to your next post...

 

[Graugrun]

Kaiserbill, the 2nd pic down in the first attachment is indeed A-Darter.

I always thought that LRTM was just an earlier iteration of L-RAAM, however perhaps your are correct in that they are two different missiles designed for two different purposes. If this is true, then as some pure, uneducated speculation on my part, is that perhaps the reversed/inverted air-breathing inlets on LRTM are more efficient for long range purposes, small fins for lower drag and less need for high-G maneuverability - being the long range land attack version, it's 360mm diameter (according to "Those who had the Power") matches quite well with the supposed 370mm diameter gun-type nuclear warheads we had, or better still with the 203mm/175mm/155mm Linear implosion nuclear devices we also supposedly had - akin to the French ASMP, as mentioned.

But then we had MUPSOW, Torgos, Skua, Flowchart and Seraph for the long range (nuclear and conventional) strike purposes... (Raptor1 and 2 for mid to close range precision strike - 60-120 Km) - so why bother with LRTM (in the ground/strategic strike role)?

L-RAAM on the other hand has it's inlets facing outwards and has much larger rear control fins, perhaps not as (fuel) efficient as LRTM's inlets - but much better for high end-game maneuvering (air-air)? It would be good if we could get accurate specs and weights on both, I think that would clarify things up a bit more.

As mentioned, very much speculation on my part - anyway, below is a pic of LRTM (photo-shopped as if in flight) from a (Denel) Somchem brochure, I have a nice pic of it's test launch and other that I still need to scan and post.

 

[Graugrun]

Below pics include LRTM in a test launch, some background info including a pic of LRTM, L-RAAM (also being test fired) and two pics of the static test devices, note the black tubes feeding in the air for the nozzles on the static test benches. The last two pics show the fluid dynamics test bench and also show the laser being applied for measurement and testing purposes - this act (when everyone else was using air to test with), helped us get it right very quickly and was the big secret to our success with this nozzeless to boost air-breathing/ramjet missile.

 

[kaiserbill]

Once again, excellent post Graugrun.

Looking at the 2nd attachment, the inference does indeed seem to be that the name "Integral" was perhaps the technology codename that woukd be extrapolated into air-to-air missile and also a air-to-ground missile systems.

 

[Graugrun]

Yes Kaiserbill, I also noticed their reference to 'Integral' - below are some additional photos, the first is larger and in colour to that you posted (also note the car in the background for some basic size reference). the 2nd pic is from the above Somchem brochure for simply reference regards the differences between L-RAAM and LRTM.

The last two are pics I took at two Dexsa shows, the first is a simple mock-up of L-RAAM, the 2nd shows a hybrid L-RAAM/LRTM (L-RAAM intake nozzles and LRTM type non slimming rear with small control fins). The infrared type seeker is spurious, realistically it would need a protective cap for most of it's flight, popping off at the last minute, and at least a sapphire crystal glass dome cover to handle the high Mach heat. A Kentron spokesman on the stand confirmed this, he stated that it was simply to demonstrate the possibilities/flexability of the ramjet missile propulsion section - which is what they were really trying to sell - they wanted to create a talking point and thus attract attention with this unlikely combonation. Unfortunately similar pics have been published, leading many to think the intention was for an Infrared type missile, when in fact it would very likely be radar guided (in the air-air mode at least).

 

[kaiserbill]

Thanks Graugrun.

That third pic has some interesting stuff in the backround.

Looks like the SAHV on the right, with its launcher container. The container is nutria brown, so must be from the days when this was tested on the Cactus/Crotale vehicle, and was to be fitted to a Rooikat chassis to complement the twin 35mm SAPPG in the field.

Something interesting on the left too, behind the potted palm.

Once again, I must thank you for this info.
So little was out there before, apart form very few small black and white photos and some sparse detail.
It is thankful you were so diligent in your photography and brochure collecting.

We know from Those Who had the Power that tests were conducted in the late 1980's and early 1990's on the Integral ramjet project, including flight tests of prototypes achieving speeds well in excess of Mach 2.

That book actually lifted the lid for a peek onto quite a few programmes, for me at least, even if it was muffled for final publication due to various reasons.

 

[compton_effect]

I've been trying to get my hands on that book for years now. Even spoke to the publisher a few times - they were at one time planning a new run, but it never happened.
I remember standing next to that display at the big DEXA '94 exhibition. And every question I asked the rep standing there was answered with 'I can't tell you.'

 

[Graugrun]

I'm going to come back to L-RAAM again, however just for a change in scenery, how about this one: 'Impundulu' (Zulu/Xhoza mythical lighting or vampire bird). When I took these pics at the last AAD show, I almost mentally discarded it as pure make-believe - however I then noticed that it was from CSIR and it had a project name (Impundulu). I know from chatting to a Hawk pilot at the show that the reason for intergrating A-Darter onto the Hawks (they don't have the radar etc to get it's full potential out of A-Darter), is by using Link ZA (our equivalent of the NATO/US Link 16) with the Gripen in a hunter killer type mode (Gripens stand back and finds the target, Hawks sneak in and fires A-Darter) - hence the A-Darter missiles, obviously the much bigger and longer range Impundulu would work in a similar way.

So what is Impundulu, a technology project, part or the forerunner of Marlin, or just quick plastic and cardboard missile model of nothing? Very interesting fins, section connections and rocket/jet(?) exhaust. Unfortunately I did not find anyone there to talk to about it (too busy looking for other stuff).

Again hopefully someone else can provide us with some more info on this potential long range missile project...

 

[kaiserbill]

Very interesting Graugrun.

Denel/Kentron have for years been mentioning that they have a new BVRAAM project.

Looking at the (incomplete) history as I understand it, the R-Darter was the first indigineous BVRAAM.
This seems to have been a joint project with Israel, with the missiles looking the same externally, but apparently a divergence at some stage in the programme led to differences between the South African version and the Israeli version.

It seems that the follow on to R-Darter was to be a ramjet BVRAAM, as discussed in this thread.
Again, various public announcements in the press and displays supported this since the early 1990's, although it is clear that the previous levels of government funding were no longer available.

This funding issue seems to have led more recent announcements and displays (such as the Marlin BVRAAM displayed in South America) to focus on a non-ramjet BVRAAM instead, although I have seen a press report in the last few years that still mentioned the possibility of ramjet propulsion.

With this in mind, I also wonder if this Impundulu is a part of the Marlin project.
As you state, it has an actual name, which is not CSIR practice for fictional developments.
The seeker head, fins, and nozzle shape are interesting.

So, I also wonder if it is perhaps one of the Marlin BVRAAM applications being looked at, or which were looked at.
There have been some noises about Brazil joining into the existing BVRAAM programme like they did with A-Darter.
What year was this displayed in? You mention it was the most recent?