I know they have flotation equipment added etc, but were they marinized ?
Naval aircraft are specifically built from the ground up with their sub-systems protected from corrosion. For instance ,you can use a regular Apache or Blackhawk on ships, but not for continuous naval ops. like you can with a Cobra of a Seahawk. These helis are designed from the ground up with special anti corrosion coatings on sensitive engine and electronic parts for long terms use at sea. The production run for the Oryx were so small, I doubt they developed specialised marine models.( I might be completely wrong )

Atlas proposed a version of the Rooivalk that would have been "marinized" and its entirely possible that they designed all the Oryx's to this standard. They were planning to use the Oryx on the SA built frigates after all. It was the only Helicopter they had access to under sanctions.

andrewza:


Oryxes are naval. The issue is the size vs the size of the valour hanger. Not much space. They can land on the valor though. Only the BK helicopters has not landed on a navy ship and the rooivalk does not have flotation system in case of a ditching.

Corvette my a$$
Shame we didn't develop naval Oryxes for them.

ssaengine:
SA & Brazil

I don't get what they're trying to do with this aircraft.
Denel has dozens of projects that are stalled at 95% done that cannot make it to market without a international partner to finish development and industrialization.
But they think they have the cash to fully fund a commercial aircraft of this size in an overcrowded market ?
I suspect this was cooked up so some Cadres can have another black hole to pilfer money through at Denel.

ssaengine:
Possibility of Denel displaying full SARA mockup at next month's Africa Aerospace and Defence.

I hope the follow on order is for more ammo. They only got +/- 1500 rounds of each ammo type. You would think they would order a lot more Prac. ammo.

They are going to have to get rid of all their old low velocity launchers as well. Not safe to have them around while having higher pressure ammo in inventory. They had a lot of accidents when it was introduced to the infantry back in the day. I suspect most of it was ammo related though, but still a dangerous weapon if you're training with HE. There was also a huge amount of 40mm HE duds lying on our training ranges because of the soft sand. Imagine diving for cover during fire and movement exercises and then seeing one of these next to your face. Not fun. The fuse activates during firing, so when you see the warhead on its own, it means it can be "live" and go off like a mine if you disturb it. They used to stack them on mounds for EOD to deal with them later.
We didn't have any training ammo for some reason, so everything was HE.

The AP-65 rifle grenade had the same issues in soft sand. I remember a (I think it was a Lt.) guy at 8SAI picking up a dud AP-65 and wanting to throw it at a troop to scare him. He changed his mind at the last moment and threw it into a trench setting it of. Heard he got a "private PT" lesson afterwards. Some if the officers weren't that well trained when it came to weapons specifics. The AP-65 has a live indicator window that tells you if its been activated from firing. Green is good, Red you're dead.

We used to carry it like the guy in the pick bellow. It feels like someone's punching you in the ribs when you're running.

ssaengine:
SA Army taking delivery of 350+ Milkor 40mm SuperSix grenade launchers.

I'm assuming they'd do a "Zero flight hour" rebuild of all the majorly stressed components like they did with the Cheetah. They developed all new composite wings for the Cheetah that never made it to production. Those C models are still flying today. As far as engines go , they had over a lot of new Atar's in stock. Extra engines were bought when we acquired the F1's. The Russian engines (super mirage) would also be an option.

The Cheetah C (1995/7) had a minimum 15 year service expectancy and had two 5 year pre-planned life extensions. Those mirage III airframes were considerably older than the F-1's so , it's not inconceivable that a F1 upgrade could make it to 2030-35 with midlife extensions. The F1 was a much more capable aircraft to start with than the Mirage III. An Atlas upgrade would have been formidable. The current SAAF Gripen would have a tough time against a Elta radar/ R-Darter BVR equipped F1.
As a bonus, most of the $1.8Bn would have been spent in SA. That would make it much harder for corrupt politicians to hide the money.(Dont mess with SARS !)

Ironically ,I might get to see the last Cheetahs in action. The US company that bought them aren't far from where I live. We have lots of airshows here and I wouldn't be surprised if they make an appearance. Lots of private migs etc. participate every year along with the USAF.

Here's a pick of what a mid-life upgraded Cheetah C might have looked like.

ssaengine:


I personally don't think there would have been much room to maneuver on upgrades. Even if Denel pulled out all the stops, just from an airframe fatigue point of view....they wouldn't have been able to carry us up until 2030+ like Gripen is expected to do.

You were 250m away from a nuke blast?
Hows your thyroid cancer doing 20 years later numbnuts ?
Explain to me how you set off any size nuke without fallout or ANY detectable radiation afterwards.
Above ground explosions will absolutely dig a crater. Google "truck bomb crater" . I guess all of the hundreds of truck bombs that went off all over the world in the last 50 years were "Jew-nukes" right ?

kikuyu1:
Almost forgot its the 20th anniversary of the US embassy micro nuke bombing. I was less than 250 m away standing next to a 7 story building that shook like a tree in a gale. It actually registered as a seismic event at the Uni. My own info has it it was planted in the basement and the truck bomb was a diversion.
The whole event was most likely classic Anglo Zionist false flag-the 2nd Congo war kicked off the same week and such events serve to distract having media and the public transfixed in one direction while poo goes down in another direction. The Tutsis have always been willing Zionist agents and fyi,ex IDF serve Rwanda in the DRC.
These are the bulky man portable Special Atomic Demolition Munitions of the early 60s,only recently declassified.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H_ifsaMSvU

They're much smaller with scalable yield of 5 to 0.01 kilotons nowadays perfect for taking out a building or a bridge with much less harmful fallout than the early weapons of decades back. In fact experts say Shlomo has used at least 2 in both Syrian and Yemen along with many 'terrorist' bomb atrocities.
Btw,a major tell is the giant crater the BBC/CNN/SKY claim was made by the blast wave of the truck bomb. Impossible since blast waves follow the line of least resistance,meaning the wave travels straight into the air. The massive hole means the micro nuke was buried. First was Khobar barracks 1996,remember? Second Islamabad 2008.

Some pics of SAAF F1's with fangs out.
Would have loved to see what they'd look like after a Atlas upgrade like the Cheetah's , but with the systems and weapons Denel had in the works during the 90s. It would be interesting to see what they would do with the +/- $1.8B that was spent on the Grips.
Assuming they upgraded 36 F1's that would come to about $50mil per plane budgeted.

Some cool vid on Taurus missile being tested at Overberg test range.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppi3Pp6RXNU

ssaengine:
Bronco II - Bronco Combat Systems

A lot of Active Protection Systems will have to be re-thought if this thing makes it to production. The Ingwe is actually a great platform to try this on, because unlike most new ATGM's the guidance is in the rear. You can do all kinds of stealthy things to the nose to neutralise AP radars. IR will also be quite low as as the sustainer rocket is dry long before it gets to the target. I suspect that's why the wings are there. Use a high pulse burn on the motor and then let it glide most of the way. It also has a much bigger caliber warhead than the stock Ingwe.

ssaengine:
One of a couple projects sitting in the waiting line at Denel (funds pending). "Stealthy" Ingwe missile.

Agree

Lets play ID the truck instead.

jteku:
Can we please stop posting off topic issues here.

They're also doing vids in the NTW20 and the Neostrike-20


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIU8axpaYi0

patches689:
In depth look at the Inkunzi PAW

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHbqHx3TLBE

They must have been de-bussed. VBCI's look like they only have superficial damage. Modern 8x8's can take a hell of a punch from exterior explosions.
We had Ratels take 120mm mortar rounds to the roof without penetrating, so I don't see that vehicle taking any casualties from VBIED's unless they're absolutely massive.

newafricaken254:
damaged French army VBCI 8x8 after a SVBIED,Unconfirmed reports claim that 6 french soldiers have being killed,Gao,Mali

1.Takes time
2.Republicans

abiodunalasa:


Hmmm cool.
But why won't Congress pass them to become the 51st state of US

They had a referendum in favour of statehood, but its still had to be ratified by congress. I fly into San Juan quite a lot. You actually clear US customs in there and not in Miami.

abiodunalasa:

Yeah bro Puerto Rico!
They voted last year to become the 51st State of United States.
Thanks.

Costa Rica is an independent country. You can't just vote to become part of the US.
You're probably thinking of Puerto Rico which is US territory, but not a state.

abiodunalasa:


Is it not the same Costa Rica who voted to become part of United States ?

Having a military in South America is more of a threat to the average citizen than a benefit. For every war fought between countries in that region there must have been at least 15 military coups.
It has set back their economic development by decades. I've lived in Costa Rica for a while. They haven't had a military for decades and they're doing fine even though they're surrounded by basket case countries. Drug trafficking and terrorism are law enforcement problems. You don't need subs or SU-35's to carry out those missions.

Don't think Costa Rica has given up any security either. They encourage foreigners to come live and start businesses there. Thousands of American expats retire there every year. Anyone tries to cause trouble at their borders and a Marine Expeditionary Unit will have boots on the ground in less than a week.

jln115:

Salaries actually....60% of our defence budget go to sa.laries

Education, infrastructure trying not to get into too much debt with the IMF/China etc.etc

jln115:

A country with a defence budget of less than a billion $ can afford 6 subs, 2(New) LPDs, 7 corvettes(Old...but still), 6 fast attack craft, several replenishment ships and an Oceanographic research ship ect ect

So what the fvck are our countries doing with our budget

Also check out the vid they did on the Vector CR-1


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm4M7RVOEm0

61mech:
I've hear that it can convert to .50.
Not to sure if its 12.7x99 NATO as the Inkunzi is 20X42mm. Don't know how they got the action working with a cartridge thats that much longer.
It might be a cut down .50cal. The one vid they have on youtube shows what looks like at most 338 brass case ejecting.
12.7mm would make a pretty big fireball coming out out that short barrel.
The 20x42 Practice round should be used for training. The more they buy in that cal., the more the unit price goes down. For some reason we only used HE and AP in the Ratels 20mm's for training even though Prac ammo is much less expensive.

Forgotten weapons on youtube is working on a vid covering a lot of SA infantry weapons. They did a piece on the Inkuzi that should clear up some of the questions.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lf8dfVgJgg

I've hear that it can convert to .50.
Not to sure if its 12.7x99 NATO as the Inkunzi is 20X42mm. Don't know how they got the action working with a cartridge thats that much longer.
It might be a cut down .50cal. The one vid they have on youtube shows what looks like at most 338 brass case ejecting.
12.7mm would make a pretty big fireball coming out out that short barrel.
The 20x42 Practice round should be used for training. The more they buy in that cal., the more the unit price goes down. For some reason we only used HE and AP in the Ratels 20mm's for training even though Prac ammo is much less expensive.

Forgotten weapons on youtube is working on a vid covering a lot of SA infantry weapons. They did a piece on the Inkuzi that should clear up some of the questions.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lf8dfVgJgg

frumentius:


The Inkunzi (PAW20) has been supplied to the Recces, with plans for the Parabats, but I'm not aware of any immediate plans to supply it to sections in the regulars. A colleague on doctrine development called it a weapon in search of a role, for motorised/regular infantry.
The Kurds (fell off the back of a truck ) have been using it well as counter VBIED. On COIN and peace-keeping ops I can see it as a section weapon.

I'm far more interested in the Inkunzi Strike - 20mm auto for ground, vehicle, aero, with .50 calibre change for training and exercise.

Added to that, they need a 120mm mortar variant in the mix as well. I suspect that the Ratel 81 will be in service for the duration of the Badger service live.

An interesting idea would have been to develop a 81mm turret instead of the 60. Would have been a 80% solution to both the indirect fire and fire support missions. Ad a couple of vehicles to the 81mm battery, so you could swap some in and out of the fire support and Bn. indirect fire roles. As a bonus you have 1 less ammo type in you log. train.
Then again, they will probably just use the Rooikat in this role. In that case the SANDF should look at some more midlife upgrades to the ones held in surplus and dedicate them to fire support leaving the rest of the Kat fleet dedicated to the recon/cavalry mission. I'd have fire support Rooikats organic to mech infantry units.

IMHO they should have stuck with the 35mm Emak and developed a 50mm supershot round for a fire support vehicle along with Ingwe's mounted to the turret. That would just have required a barrel change. The AP version of the 50mm supershot will take care of any future IFV's and it also has space for guidance electronics as a AA option to take care of drones etc. I've actually never heard a good reason why the SANDF chose to go down the 30mm route when they already had the 35mm ammo in production/inventory. Suspect it was pushed by Denel so they could export 30mm ammo to the miraid of militaries that now use that cal.

patches689:
Interesting thing people often miss... The importance of "bush-trials". After complete, the Badger re-appeared featuring:
- a branch deflector on the turret
- re-configured commanders-periscope (it can now move to a position that protects the glass)
- removal of front tow-ropes
- protection for road lights
- massively improved suspension (see vid)

2013

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VRk75lu1pE

Running the same track in 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btwQiroaZLI

See pics too

Apart from some strategic disagreements (my civilian opinions - would prefer to have seen a Ratel Mk2, cheaper) I must say I am quite pleased with how the project has come along. Although it would have been nice to see the ingwe 30mm CAMGUN combo as standard, as well as a dedicated direct-fire fire-support option included in the program (maybe one of the solutions from Cockrill as an off-the-self option) instead of the IMO undergunned 60mm (we have been down this road before)

The General Dynamics gun is a brand new purpose built design with a new operating system that lets the barrel recoil with the action. A FN Mag/240 or ss77 receiver would get destroyed with the 338 norma. You'd have to build a new gun from the ground up and use some sort of constant recoil mechanism to handle the 338Norma. It would be problematic to sell as militaries are extremely "gunshy" (excuse the pun) about adopting new calibres in general.

The Neopup would be more useful for peacekeeping missions where you can use the weapons accuracy and lower kill radius to limit collateral damage. It's almost a purpose build roadblock/VBIED weapon in my opinion. That would sell very well in the current ME wars. Iraq alone must have 1000nds of roadblocks set up. We actually used the 40mm MGL at the section/squad level.

Don't believe what Denel tells you about the widespread issuing of the 20mm to the infantry. The SANDF can hardly afford to train mechanics to service SAMILS, let alone adopt a new weapon at those numbers. The top priority for the infantry should be to get more ACOGS on R-4 's.


[quote author=kikuyu1 post=68294241][/quote]

I like watching Kenya play.
They are quite capable of winning tournaments. I think they've actually won some before .
Like everyone else though , you have to catch Fiji with a team hangover or something.

jln115:
6th place still isn't bad though!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oct6ACAfIIE

jteku:
1. Is this real

If yes, what is it primary purpose, can I shoot a person 100km away , is it an anti thank gun or anti aircraft gun.

You do know what the Challenge Trophy is right ?

newafricaken254:
off topic:Veni, vidi, vici #wakanda forever

For SADF IR sights we had (i'm pretty sure they haven't been replaced in bulk) the range depended heavily on the ambient light (stars etc.) could be as low as 50m. The rifle scopes were better. Does any of you guys currently serving know if they've been upgraded ?

FLIR will give you better range, but its expensive. Id bet SF has them though.

Some recent acquisitions and pricing. I'll let you work out how many they bought.

http://www.defenceweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=15170

kikuyu1:



I'm aware of both one and two but the latest carbon based battlefield smoke effectively obscures most IR sights. What's the range of SADF individual IR sights if I may ask? The latest individual use western gen 4 designs have an astounding 3 km range-(detection not recognition)

Most NVG's in use amplify light. Those are the "green screen" ones in your pic. They are not thermal NVG's and require some light. The more the better. Thermals (FLIR) doesn't need light, just heat, but its very expensive and not commonly issued to regulars. You'll mostly find them in vehicles or aircraft.

The old amplifying NVG's actually needed an infrared searchlight to work and was called Active night vision. Our Ratels actually had infrared driving light cover lenses for night driving. That's why the early NVG's were commonly referred to as "Drivers goggles" in the SADF.
The new gen. NVG's uses ambient light and is called Passive night vision, because you don't give away your position to an opponent using the same NVG's with your IR lights. You can actually damage a non thermal NVG if you turn it on in the day without a lense cover. The cover has a tiny pin hole in it to limit daylight coming in and burning the sensor. They were very expensive and walking around with them on your head during the day would get you a nice PT session.
Contrary to what the movies tell you, it doesn't turn on 2 red light on your eyes when you turn it on ,because that would be f-ing stupid. It does make that cool whining sound when you switch it on though.

On a cloudy night the range goes down significantly on passive NV. To get around this you supplement the ambient light by dropping Illumn rounds on the enemy position. It also "floods" their NVG's with light. Kind of like having the sun in your eyes. The 60mm patmor were very useful for this a sit operated at the platoon level, so it was always available to the sections.
Another problem is that you have no depth perception with those things, so when you walk around at first you tend to fall over a lot stepping into holes. Kind of like when you walk over a step you didn't see.

We also used Illumn trip flares in ambushes for the same effect. They can be more deadly than a Claymore as they light up the kill zone at night.
We had a OP on a hilltop one night and the local farmer drove up to our position. He wanted to bribe us to watch his farmhouse with our long range night vision scopes ,because he was suspecting his neighbor of "visiting" his wife at night while he was out!

frumentius:


Mortar illum rounds and NVGs aren't mutually exclusive. Will discuss tomorrow if you wish.
Must run: on deployment I have limited daily allocation of bandwidth for personal purposes.

Interesting sidenote.
The guy running that program for Sikorsky used to work at Atlas in SA.
His last project there was the tail-rotor less version of the Alouette 3 the Cirstel (Combined Infra Red Suppression and Tail rotor Elimination)

jteku:
Batmobile Of The Skies.

Helicopters aren’t given much thought when compared to fighter jets due to lower speed and agility. But every once in a while technology takes a leap forward and changes our opinion. The debut of Sikorsky S-97 Raider is a big game-changer for the world of attack helicopters. The S-97 is boasting speed and agility far beyond other helicopters.

In development, the S-97 is boasting flying speed of 276 mph far making it the second fastest helicopter ever made after the experimental Eurocopter X3. The Raider is capable of transporting six passengers alongside two pilots but is also capable of autonomous flight. Along with its impressive speed, it can fly to an incredible height of over 10,000 feet.

“In addition to flying at nearly twice the speed of a conventional helicopter, the S-97 RAIDER helicopter will incorporate other key performance parameters critical to combat operations — increased maneuverability, greater endurance, and the ability to operate at high altitudes.”
As prototypes improve the S-97 will undergo weapon testing for its .50 caliber and rocket pods. The Raider is a sleek, impressive and but could be the innovation the military needs for helicopters?Take a look at this clip and judge for yourself.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HncZgouxt9k

RSM Marais

Frumentum:
RSMs and SMs are legends in most decent militaries.

To the vets and active servicemen here, how about sharing your pics of RSM/SMs here? Stories too.

My initial contribution:

PIC: RSM Baard of the SA Special Forces whose name reflected his appearance

Airdrop

Hrmnn:


One wonders why they didn't simply use an Eland 90 instead of resorting to the towed 90mm. Two of those could be driven into a C-160.

SF has a packed training schedule. Hand to hand combat takes a lot of time to develop, so you have to balance it out with the rest of your training. It might ,for instance , be more valuable to concentrate on training for foreign weapons handling, navigation etc.

A lot of the stuff you see SF doing on youtube has been proven worthless in the MMA octagon. Modern hand to hand combat training should start with wrestling skills rather than fancy roundhouse kicks and brick smashing.

saengine:


I speak under correction, but I believe South African special forces lean more towards weapons handling (on numerous different local & international platforms), tracking, reconnaissance and long range endurance... as opposed to snapping people's necks. But hand-hand combat is no doubt a part of their training, but perhaps not their speciality. Who knows.

I fully agree that Nigeria should build a local defence industry. Too much money flowing out of the continent for things we could build here.
Offshore deals also create a environment ideal for corruption to thrive. Take the SA def. deal in the 90's for example. It much easier for law enforcement to investigate shady transactions through local banks that they can subpoena for evidence. Local procurement can be done with much more transparency.

The product has to be good enough though. Competition is a good thing and should be embraced not avoided.
I don't see any reason that Nigeria couldn't develop a world class MRAP that could beat foreign products on it own merits. I just dont think it would help your industry or the soldiers that are going to go into contact with these vehicles if you force a "buy Nigerian" policy on the military. If it meets clear performance metrics using the competition as a baseline, then it shouldn't have a problem. This can only be done with side by side testing in a evaluation setting with the military involved.

The problems with some of the vehicles you procured in the past was that ,for whatever reasons, there were no proper evaluation and that some of these system were just bought off-the-shelf.

Henry240:

If they have problems in the field, the company responsible will fix it. We've deployed tons of foreign vehicles that have not performed optimally, so why not try local?

There should be a proper tender and evaluation process for this contract involving at least 2 other suppliers. Vehicles should be evaluated on protection, mobility and price. Trials should be done on a test track and in the bush, not on paper. If it does well , buy 400 and standardise based on the platform. If it doesn't, go back to the drawing board and start over. There's no shame in failing on your first go. The SA defence industry could feild a Bn's worth of prototypes that never sold.

Getting foreign expertise in to help out is essential if your getting started. Take look at what countries in the M.East like UAE and Qatar are doing to build up their local production. Lots of "White Papi's" walking around those companies BTW.
They buy foreign designs/expertise and then slowly build their own capabilities. This is what Turkey has been doing in the last 15 years and now they have a massive and diverse industry that exports all over the world.
There seems to be way too much procurement done on an ad hoc basis in Africa. You see examples of this everywhere, countries operate 4 or 5 systems that does the same job and then trying to deal with all the support and maintenance problems that goes with that.

At the end of the day, it has to be about what works for the Nigerian soldier on the ground not national pride.
It would sink your local industry if they end up having problems in the field after such a big buy.

Henry240:

For a Nigerian company, 50 is small. If we can afford to get 120 units CS-VP3 from China, 177 APCs from Streit group, i see no reason why we can't get 200 units of this beast.

Innoson still has its own armoured vehicles in the pipeline, including a fresh new company based in Lagos.

I just want to see a 6x6 variant of the ARA, something similar and armed like the Nexter TITUS.