The SAAF Forum

Anyone know what happened to VEG magazine and Pierre Victor???

Not sure what Pierre Victor is up to now, but unfortunately only eight issues of VEG (Vertically Elevated Generation) were published.

I really enjoyed those VEG mags

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Brent Best

I have all eight (the last in Afrikaans). A really good source for modellers. Also have a number of prints of Harvards, Mirage 111 and F1. Swopped with him for an old SADF dictionary. (Wonder why the SADF had an English-Afrikaans dictionary. In Afrikaans month we spoke Afrikaans and in English month spoke Afrikaans). Must admit that the Navy did have a lot of English (I suppose from RN times, but when I went to 3 SAI in Poych, it was Afrikaans all the way),
Sad that VEG folded. My cash gone, but I would gladly pay again if he started up again.

Would love them to make a come-back. Some of the articles ... well they were dodgy in terms of accuracy ... but I loved the graphics & profiles

These were the main articles:
1 - Not a magazine - but HUGE A1 foldout page of SAAF fighters & SA Armour.
2 - Meko200 Corvettes, Centurion MkIII, JAS39 Gripen, Airbus A300
3 - Centurion Mk5, Mirage IIIEZ, Boeing 727 in SA, Weaponry of AF in 1939.
4 - Armament of the Meko200, Mirage F1CZ, Boing 737 in SA, SA Vehicles in Iraq, SA Armour in 1939.
5 - Tale of the AK47, President Class Frigates, Elephant MkI, Battle of Blaauwberg, Armament of the ground forces in 1939.
6 - Mig & the Mirage, Oliphant Mk IA, Augusta A109, Ton Class Minesweepers, Hosres of the Birkenhead, B747 SP
7 - C130, Gecko 8x8, Oliphant Mk I & MkI ARV, Navy in 1939.
8 - Interlink Airlines, Daphne Class Subs, Oliphant Mk IB & MkII, Cheetah C, project "Hooefyster" (Afrikaans)

Cheers

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Brent Best

Just ordered all 8 mags...#8 for some reason is in Afrikaans but I still "praat die taal". Saw copies at a recent club meeting after one of our members went back home for a visit. Like Kremlin says, some inaccuracies but great graphics and profiles

I have an A4 sized image of the 8th edition Cheetah fantasy weapon configuration. The graphics were great but a Cheetah equipped with AA-11 (R-73) missiles was quite far-fetched.

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A plan is simply a basis for change.

These mags are pretty scarce ... Yonks ago, I made pdf's of all these, so if anybody ... for research or reference purposes ... wants any of the articles above, just shout.

I think that I have one of those PDF's then Brent. Do you still have my spam address, if so please may I trouble you for the remaining articles?

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A plan is simply a basis for change.

I sent a test mail to what I think is your gmail account.

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Brent Best

Messages received, cheers B2

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A plan is simply a basis for change.

Since there was the possibility of using Russian engines, why do you find the idea of Cheetah with Russian missiles far-fetched?

That was my first introduction to VEG magazine - someone posted that picture here viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3107 and treated it as if it was the actual Cheetah C stores capability. Just looking at the picture, I had assumed that everything in VEG was incredibly poorly researched!

Great

Well if the idea of integrating a Soviet propulsion system obviously didn't work sufficiently well enough to be advanced (despite the obvious performance improvements), there was little possibility of a Soviet AA missile and all its ancillaries succeeding either. Logistically it just wasn't feasible and far too expensive to reinvent the wheel.

I don't know of any western aligned nation that has successfully integrated sophisticated eastern supplied weapons and systems into a western platform in meaningful numbers? Am happy to corrected on this.

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A plan is simply a basis for change.

Uncle I'll have a set as well, please? I'll PM you my e-mail addy.

I'm not a missile specialist or an engine specialist, but I would think the industrialisation needed to establish support facilities for a Russian missile system (given that we could already produce various similar-sized missiles locally) would be far less than the industrialisation needed to support a Russian engine. We never produced entire Atar engines, even though we had the licence for them, mainly (as I understand it) because the main engine casings were too large and complicated, and we had reliable spares suppliers.

A big problem with the Russian engines was their short operating lives (even compared to the French engines we had) and the perception that the supplier / supplier country was potentially unreliable, so it would have been necessary to establish an entire engine production facility which could fabricate all parts. The same would have held true for missiles, but I think establishing the production facility would have been easier, mainly because parts are much smaller.

But these are just my ideas - I don't have direct knowledge of the relative complexities of manufacturing an engine compared to manufacturing a missile.