South African prototypes, projects, concepts, etc.

[sa_bushwar]

N4 trucks - East of Pta. Used to be a treasure trove of ex military vehicles. Not much left now.

Except for the two vehicles on the left, those are Casspirs, or more accurately, the supply version called the Blesbok.

What are those two vehicles on the left?
Wolf?

Whereabouts is this place?

 

[sa_bushwar]

RG32 Scout with locally produced imitation of Chinese MRL system.

 

[xiaofan]

Just found this on wikipedia, it look like Umkhonto ground based air defence system on an old 8X8.

 

[sa_bushwar]

And on the back of a Mamba...

RG32 Scout with locally produced imitation of Chinese MRL system.

 

[kaiserbill]

Just found this on wikipedia, it look like Umkhonto ground based air defence system on an old 8X8.

That is the GBADS that is in testing.

It is basically a containerised land based version of the Umkhonto SAM as used by the South African, Finnish, and soon Algerian navy.
It is mounted on the SHE Cavallo 8x8 (Kynos) vehicle as used in various formats by the army.

In a way, it has come full circle, as the Umkhonto SAM started life as the SAHV-3 in the late 1980's which was designed to replace the land based Cactus (Crotale) in SA Army service. I think it was developed under Project Spectre.

 

[sa_bushwar]

Found this on the www a while back. Any more detail out there?

 

[JohnR]

South African G6 SPG chassis, mounting the Marconi Marksman AA turret.

Regards

 

[kaiserbill]

Another Model of the G6 chassis and Marksman turret.

Does anyone know when this project was, and anything more about it?

 

[Abraham Gubler]

Another Model of the G6 chassis and Marksman turret.

Does anyone know when this project was, and anything more about it?

From memory the (Marconi) Marksman fitted to the G6 hull was an attempt to sell the system around 2004ish to the UAE Army which had acquired G6 SP arty.

 

[xiaofan]

Just found an artical about Spanish Kynos Aljaba 8x8 tank transporter.

http://www.military-today.com/trucks/kynos_aljaba.htm

 

[kaiserbill]

From memory the (Marconi) Marksman fitted to the G6 hull was an attempt to sell the system around 2004ish to the UAE Army which had acquired G6 SP arty.

Ahh, okay.

If your memory is serving you correctly, that's later than I'd imagined.

 

[sa_bushwar]

Never seen a picture of the MBD Mantis. Did it ever got off the drawing board?

 

[Abraham Gubler]

Never seen a picture of the MBD Mantis. Did it ever got off the drawing board?

Its on page one of this thread.

 

[JohnR]

Another early hour of the morning question, what does the MPWAVS acronym stand for?

Regards.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

Another early hour of the morning question, what does the MPWAVS acronym stand for?

Regards.

This is a guess, but maybe: multi purpose wheeled armoured vehicle system?

 

[sa_bushwar]

Not sure if repost - 35mm Ratel?

 

[sa_bushwar]

Better picture of the turret.

Not sure if repost - 35mm Ratel?

 

[kaiserbill]

Interesting, SA Bushwar.

That indeed looks like the turret with 35mm that was shown on the Ratel.

The pic before your colour one above comes from a pdf a fellow posted here from the 1998 DEXSA show.

The article simply stated it was a Ratel ugrade with a new 35mm gun (Eremek) and turret arrangement.

 

[CostasTT]

Another (small unfortunately) picture of the LCT-35 turret on the Ratel.

 

[sa_bushwar]

An early production model Ratel 90. Note the absence of the rear copula, goods cage on engine cover, are bare turret.

 

[sa_bushwar]

For the latest prototypes come to...http://www.aadexpo.co.za/

 

[kaiserbill]

You've posted some extremely interesting pics of early vehicles and prototypes that I've never seen before, SA Bushwar.
Thanks.

 

[sa_bushwar]

Not strictly South African as the Wolf was built in Namibia while it was under SA and SADF control, so it must have had input into the design? Used by Koevoet on the border. This looks like a "GT" version, as it looks shorter than the normal Wolf? [From the www, indicated as a Wolf in Cambodia in 1992]

 

[kaiserbill]

Earlier in the thread, we decided to include SWA projects, as it was basically run as a province of South Africa.
Thus, any projects were basically for the same client.
So the Wolf fits neatly here, SA Bushwar.

I'm particularly interested in the 6X6 Wolf, known as the "Sterk Hans" as shown earlier in the thread from an excerpt from SA Arms & Armour from Helmoed Romer Heitman from the 1980's.

It is the only real description, photo, and writeup I've seen of it.

If anybody has any other info or pics of this 6X6 vehicle, it would be greatly appreciated.

 

[sa_bushwar]

Sorry-repost

 

[curious george]

*of f/book,

another look at those bridgelayers

 

[kaiserbill]

Nice find, CG.

Speaking of facebook, I hope the SA Armour Museum, custodian of many of the interesting vehicles on these pages, and probably a repository of info on many more, release more more pics and info on their page.

 

[Herman]

Reply to post # 1143.


The Gator 8x8 also never got built, as far as I know.

 

[curious george]

*off the net

 

[Graugrun]

Very nice post curious george - I also recognize the driver in the pics...

Can you tell me a little more about this turret - when, where, how? I also notice what seems to be an early version of the active part of LEDS (Denel Mongoose IIRC) atop the turret.

 

[kaiserbill]

It was featured just a little earlier in the thread, with some nice close up pics from Herman.

I think we speculated that it was a 105mm equipped with an auto-loader.
The vehicle has all these "cylinders" distributed over the vehicle, which we also speculated was part of the LEDS system.

An interesting vehicle and I would also like to know a little more about it beyond our informed speculation.

 

[Graugrun]

Thanks Kaiserbill, I must have missed Herman's post...

I have just chatted to a current armour guy who knows the turret well, he in fact reports the the captain seen driving the vehicle in the pics (I know him too and hope to also chat to him soon about it). I asked him to please join this site so that he can give us some important and accurate feedback regards this and a lot of the pics we have posted (many are of the various vehicles parked within his base).

He is naturally armour mad and knows his stuff so I certainly look forward to his feedback. In the meantime he mentioned that it is a prototype and also has a different fire control system. It is still at his base (he will take some nice close up photos for us tomorrow).

It might also very well have had some input from the South African MDB company who have designed the Falcon turret for Jordan - see brochure below.

 

[Graugrun]

Just found these pics I took a few years ago at one of the DEXSA shows - I'm sure it is LMT's models of their then Badger proposal, obviously later won by the Patria AMV, although LMT did modify it to make it mine resistant amongst others. It features what seems to be an early redition of the Denel turret (now on the Badger and since also sold to Malaysia).

 

[Graugrun]

Actually here is one better to the above pics - the article from Janes IDR covering project Hoefyster - November 2002.

 

[kaiserbill]

Excellent.

That model was shown before in a single, blurry picture, either here, or on the Ratel Replacement thread.

I'm going to have a look through the brochure you've posted to see if it sheds more clarity on the various vehicles of Hoefyster.

 

[Graugrun]

This will surely make a few ex Ratel guys hair stand on end - Russian 14,5 mm and 7,62mm guns in the Ratel turret - to think how many times they faced the 14,5 (AAA lowered for the ground role) in combat!

 

[kaiserbill]

That's the turret from the Command Ratel, that was usually fitted with Browning 12,7mm, isn't it?

 

[Graugrun]

Yes it certainly looks like the Ratel command turret to me. OTT displayed a whole lot of other Ratel updates/upgrades - unfortunately I did not get the chance to photograph them all.

Here is a UGV by Reutech, which unfortunately I neither got the chance to get any information on, nor even it's name - interesting development though. Their was another very interesting UGV type vehicle that I still need to post pics and info on.

 

[sa_bushwar]

From IDEX 2000 at AFB Waterkloof, these turrets were marketed by Krygkor.

This will surely make a few ex Ratel guys hair stand on end - Russian 14,5 mm and 7,62mm guns in the Ratel turret - to think how many times they faced the 14,5 (AAA lowered for the ground role) in combat!

 

[Graugrun]

These were prototype turrets (I think you mean from DEXSA 2000), IIRC the top version was further developed and was supplied to Ireland for integration onto one of their armoured vehicle types.