Book review
Surviving The Ride: Steve Camp and Helmoed-Römer Heitman. Published by 30 degrees South Publishers
Johannesburg - For almost two months in early 1988 a Buffel vehicle with callsign 35 Charlie was my home during the conflict in Angola. I spent countless hours jolting through the bush in the back of 35 Charlie on which I had rigged a canvas over the open top to try to keep out the rain.
The technical term for 35 Charlie was a Buffel APC (armoured personnel carrier), but we troops fondly called them kots koets, Afrikaans for vomit wagon, due to the swaying motion. And we did become fond of this ungainly looking vehicle due to the good protection it gave us against landmines.
South Africa has been at the forefront in designing mine-protected vehicles, from the early 1940s with the SARC (South African Reconnaissance Car), during the border war between the 1960s to 1989, and later providing mine-protected vehicles for UN peacekeeping work in Africa and Bosnia, as well as supplying America, Canada and a number of other countries with landmine-protected vehicles for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This pictorial history for the first time pulls all these strands together in a comprehensive overview of the development of mine-protected vehicles in South Africa, their combat roles and effectiveness. Technical specifications of each vehicle is included.
Several prototypes never went into production, either due to lack of funding or because the vehicles did not meet requirements. But these also provide fascinating insight in the search for the perfect mine-protected vehicle.
CHEAP AND NASTY
Further insight is provided by personal accounts of people who survived landmine blasts.
The border war in northern Namibia and southern Angola provided the impetus for research and production against the backdrop of the UN-led arms embargo against South Africa.
Landmines are relatively cheap, easy to use and therefore popular with guerrilla troops who then also have a low risk of being engaged in combat with opposing troops.
But mines are indiscriminate, killing military personnel and civilians alike and as the authors state : “The only option ... was to develop mine-protected vehicles that could move along roads with little risk to the crew, even if a mine was detonated ... and to develop mine-detection vehicles to sweep roads at a reasonable rate to allow normal civilian traffic to continue”.
During the later conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan the coalition forces realised that their soft-skinned vehicles were unsuitable and the South African-made RG31 became their vehicle of choice following its success with peacekeeping missions in Serbia and Bosnia.
An unusual vehicle was the Lion, developed in the mid-1990s for a client in Africa to be used for hunting expeditions on his private reserve amidst concerns about the possibility of landmines.
Surviving The Ride is a fascinating pictorial account featuring more than 200 of these unique South African developed vehicles, with more than 450 photographs, and is a must for military buffs.
Priced at R495, it’s available at most leading book retailers as well as online at Kalahari.com or Loot .
Star Motoring