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South Africa employed armoured cars as early as 1915 during its invasion of the then-German South West Africa (now Namibia).

After the end of the First World War a single Medium Mark A Whippet light tank was purchased for the Union Defence Force and was operationally employed during the 1922 Rand revolt. The tank in question is now on display at the Army College at Thaba Tshwane.

The formation of an armoured corps was proposed in 1924. An armoured car section was formed the next year when two Vickers machine gun-armed Crossley armoured cars and two medium tanks were imported from Britain.

When South Africa declared war on Nazi Germany on September 1939, the South African Army estimated that its minimum armoured vehicle requirement was a battalion of 22 light tanks and 67 armoured cars. The country actually had just two obsolete medium tanks and two obsolete armoured cars.

Perhaps, significantly, the South African Army's first armoured personnel carrier (APC) was the British wheeled (6 × 6) Alvis Saracen. And during the 1960s, South Africa manufactured the French Panhard AML family of 4 × 4 armoured cars under licence as the Eland.

There was a further development stream, concerned with heavier AFVs, which gave rise to the Ratel, the Rooikat, and the G6 programmes. Consequently, the following account is somewhat simplified and some projects will be omitted.

The Rooikat (lynx or caracal, in English), as it is called, was designed as a long-range, high-mobility, AFV with good hitting power. To increase ammunition storage capacity, it was armed with a 76-mm gun (although later a 105-mm gun version was developed, in the hope of attracting exports). It is believed that more than 250 Rooikats have been built.

Since the original prototype SARC emerged in 1939, South Africa has manufactured some 13 000 locally designed armoured and mine-protected vehicles, not counting those being produced under licence overseas. It is an impressive story of improvisation, innovation, design, manufacture, and operational and commercial success over 70 years. And it is far from finished.


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