Rooikat Armored Fighting Vehicle - South African Firepower

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I was a gunner on the Rooikat, it was an amazing experience. The only difficulty was shooting on the go doing 90km/h through the dirt when you hit a trench with your eye on the scope. I often had a blue eye!! The targeting was fully computerised and takes into account many different factors that may influence the travel of the projectile. You can also lock on target while driving and turning. Night vision was absolutely amazing. I love the smell of cordite in the morning! Thanks for doing the video, brought back fond memories.

As a South African , I really appreciate that you post content about our country. ❤

I served as a member of the citizen force in the old SADF from 1979 up to 1989 in a mechanised battalion. The developement of the Rooikat started in the early 1980's and it was not intended as merely a replacement for the French Panhard armored cars. The Panhard armoured cars were locally manufactured as the Eland, and was locally upgraded to serve an effective role supporting the South African armoured columns during the 1980's. The Rooikat was a weapon designed for the South African theater of war where the map of the entire continent of Western Europe could fit onto the map of Southern Africa. Over such a vast area, land battles are not fought in the conventional sense of holding and controlling territory but in a similar fashion to naval forces that conduct outflanking maneuvers darting in to deliver vicious blows on the flanks. It was with that in mind that the Rooikat was developed and that made it unique in the world at that time. In the 1980's, the Rooikat was called South Africa's insurance policy, a weapon that could outflank the enemy formations and penetrate for at least 1,600 km before requiring refueling, delivering a vicious blow to rear echolon supply lines or enemy formations and melt away into the bush only to strike again on another distant target. With such distances, supply lines were everything and whichever side had the best logistic supply could overcome their enemy. Conversely, whichever side can ground the enemy supply columns to an effective halt would force the enemy formations into a defensive stance or even a retreat. In the African bush the primary supply line would effectively be a single dirt or asphalt road running for hundreds of kilometers through the bush. However, the South African bush war effectively ended after 1987 before the Rooikat was ever used in actual battle. The closest modern day equivalent of a vehicle that is used in the context that the Rooikat was designed for, are the Toyota Land Cruisers mounting heavy armament that ISIS used in Syria and Iraq to great effect, by rapidly advancing over considerable distances in order to deliver devastating blows on the flanks of conventional formations. Thus ISIS could force the rapid capitulation of a series of defensive positions over hundreds of kilometers behind their enemy front lines, by outflanking and destroying lines of communication.

I can testify that this vehicle is 100 % locally designed and built. Even the tyres were locally developed to offer sufficient penetration resistance to thorns, but at the same time being able to handle those high road speeds without over heating.

you have no idea how proud this makes me to be south african

SdKfz 234 Puma, version 2.0

My dad was in the south African military during the Angola border war the war you talked about

i find it fascinating how south africa has largely forgone the use of tracked AFVs and instead relies on wheeled vehicles in it's military i mean the actual tank they do have are just upgraded centurion tanks and it's amazing how effective wheeled vehicles can actually be, i mean during the bush south african armored cars where able to out maneuver and defeat Angolan t55 tanks and were able to do this over extreme distances hats off to these guys for sure

South Africa has a robust defense industry that took me by surprise. The stated owned Denel firm has a ton of systems including vehicles and missiles and I look forward to your take and presentations.

Thanks for featuring the rooikat. It took me down memory lane. It was called motley when I worked on it. Motley means "scrambled or deurmekaar in Afrikaans". I worked for LEW, the manufacturer for the turret and I was the first woman electronics engineer and consecently I designed the first FCC (fire controlled computer) in 1987. We used Intel 8 bit CPU (computer processing unit) for the prototype but then Intel flew a 16 bit CPU specially from the states for our upgrade! Parallel processors were just talk of the town. Our first attempt was half successful, as we switch on the radio system during our systems test, the FCC shut off... Too much noise and interference. It turned out we had to redesigned the grounding concept. Remember, electronics in armored vehicles were new back then. Just a note on the comment for the 105 on the turret. 105 would not be good, coz the turret needed to be fast and light and in those days we already had the 105 gun on our G5 weapons platform. The rooikat (red cat🙀) was designed and spec'ed to run fast and shoot fast. I worked on the FLIR as well, so it was formadible at night as well. I remembered when we took her to test on the roads how the public were in awe as we roared down the roads in Irene, Pretoria and moved the turret with ease. Good memories.

Thank you matsimus i am proud to be an south african

The Ratel and the Rooikat laid the foundation for all the land mine resistant wheeled fighting vehicles out there today.

Thanks so much Matsimus for covering the Rooikat , and its great to hear you've got plans to cover more South African equipment including the G6. Really looking forward to those!

As a South African we should celebrate what we achieved more often. Thank you 🇿🇦

Nice, thanks for covering some of the SADF equipment, it is often forgotten

It kind of reminds me of the SDKFZ 234 Puma

Hey Matsimus really happy about this. I am a South African and I am very proud to be one. I know you are more of a land based vehicle guy, but it would be nice if you checked out the Rooivalk helicopter. It was an absolute beast of a machine. Anyways thanks very much for exploring South African military vehicles, I get goose bumps when I find videos about them.

Wow. These dutchmen know how to make good weapons

As an American, I am impressed with this armored vehicle, not too shabby honestly. I actually think this is a well put together infantry assualt vehicle. I do enjoy African technology.