The SAAF Forum

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It still annoys me that the government intend using a Finnish produced vehicle instead of a locally produced one. It doesn't seem a very fair trade at all... a handful of Umkhonto missiles in exchange for hundreds of armoured vehicles?

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I need some help to decipher some of the "alphabet soup" acronyms. Please fill in the ????? and correct any errors:

PRAC-T = Practice - Tracer (might have a small "flash" charge to indicate hits?)
APCI-T = Armour Piercing C????? Incendiary - Tracer
SAPHEI-T = Semi-Armour Piercing High Explosive Incendiary - Tracer
HEI-T = High Explosive Incendiary - Tracer
APFSDS-T = Armour Piercing Fin Stabilised Discarding Sabot - Tracer

PRAC-T = Practice - Tracer (might have a small "flash" charge to indicate hits?)
Has a Tracer element that burns when fired

APCI-T = Armour Piercing C????? Incendiary - Tracer
Core (Outside is a 'Soft' alloy, inside is a Tungsten core to defeat armour - Non Explosive - Incendiary ignites on passing through the Armour

SAPHEI-T = Semi-Armour Piercing High Explosive Incendiary - Tracer
Correct

HEI-T = High Explosive Incendiary - Tracer
Correct

APFSDS-T = Armour Piercing Fin Stabilised Discarding Sabot - Tracer
Correct

Should we be concerned that the Fire Support version of the Badger has only a 30mm main gun - the same as the troop carrier?
The FS Ratel has a 90mm gun - a far more "serious" bang.
I would have liked to see the FS Badger get at least the 76mm gun from the Rooikat.
Or even use the Rooikat for the FS role and the AT role too with an added missile launcher. That would eliminate two variants of Badger and give the Rooikat a meaningful role in addition to it's current limited use as a "tank trainer".
The increased number of Badgers roled as standard troop carriers would improve the imbalance in the numbers as the current number of Badgers ordered are nowhere near enough for the Mech Inf units. Replacing 1000+ Ratels with less than 300 Badgers makes no sense at all. How many batallions could be fully equiped with the current order of Badgers?

Perhaps FS version of the vehicle is the same weapons system but dedicated specifically for the application of that weapon against enemy forces and not for performing suppression duties supporting disembarking infantry. I'm not sure how a rooikat could be used as a tank trainer. It doesn't have tracks for starters and weighs about half as much plus is far quicker around the battlefield - two totally different vehicles.

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A plan is simply a basis for change.