Army spends cash to keep Mamba biting

02 August 2011 by defenceWeb

BAE Systems has been awarded product support services worth R2.5 million to supply and deliver equipment table schedules for the South African Army's aging fleet of Mamba mine resistant armour protected (MRAP) personnel carriers. The contract, awarded last week takes work awarded for keeping the vehicle in service to R49 478 542.10 since 2007.

The deal is an extension of contract EIVS/2009/583, but unusually no detail on the date of its award or value can be found on the Armscor Bulltin System.

The type came into service around 1993. About 220 of the vehicles were upgraded under Project Jury in 2006. The Mamba is based on the Unimog 416 chassis that was also the basis of the Buffel, an acutely uncomfortable first-generation MP APC used by the SA Army from the late 1970s, and the Bosvark, the latter the standard truck fitted with a shallow v-shaped rear-body to provide troops carried there a modicum of protection from mines. Bosvark offered no sanctuary from small-arms fire and no protection whatsoever to the driver.

The Buffel improved on the Bosvark by providing the driver a cramped but protected module and the passengers an armoured but open-topped bucket. Designed by the Defence Research Unit (DRU) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the Buffel was manufactured by several companies, with mass production starting in 1978. Some 1400 were built, many remanufactured from Bosvark and Army Unimog utility transports.

Writing in the Engineering News in October 2008, Keith Campbell noted that the Buffel “was effective, but it was subject to excessive roll when moving across rough terrain”. The open top also left the troops vulnerable to shrapnel. Campbell adds that the Buffel also proved unsuitable for urban operations. “So, at the end of the 1980s, it was succeeded by the Mamba, designed for internal security tasks - lower than a Buffel, more stable, less military in appearance, and enclosed.”

Campbell notes that the Mamba was first built (or remanufactured from surplus Buffel vehicles) in 4x2 format at TFM and later at OMC. 4x4 soon became standard. More than 500 were eventually produced.

The SA Army is seeking to replace the Mamba under a programme known as Project Sapula. The Army plans a “family of vehicles” that use the same drive train and chassis as selected for the future tactical truck programme, Project Vistula.

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