Ratel IFV

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Ratel 90

General characteristics
Crew	4 + 7
Length	7.21 m
Width	2.7 m
Height	2.395 m
Weight	18.5 tonnes
Armour and armament
Armour	20 mm
Main armament	20 mm semi-automatic cannon
Secondary armament	1 x 7.62 mm MG (coaxial), 7.62 mm MG (anti-aircraft), 1 x 7.62 mm MG (anti-aircraft), 2 x 2 smoke grenade dischargers
Mobility
Power plant	D 3256 BTXF 6-cylinder in-line turbocharged diesel 282 hp (210 kW)
Suspension	350 mm
Road speed	105 km/h (road); 30 km/h (off-road)
Power/weight	15.24 hp/tonne
Range	1000 km

The Ratel is the basic Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) of the South African National Defence Force's mechanized infantry battalions, and is named after an African animal known in English as the Honey Badger, which has a reputation as a ferocious fighter. The 6x6 Ratel was indigenously developed and produced for the South African Army in order to circumvent the arms embargo of South Africa. Design work began in 1968, with prototypes completed in 1974. The basic Ratel-20 version entered operational service in 1977 Other variants, including the improved Mark II and Mark III versions of the basic Ratel, were phased in over the subsequent decade. Mark I verhicles were upgraded to Mark II and III standard during refits. The Ratel was the first wheeled IFV to enter military service, and is generally regarded as an influential design; a number of other countries have since produced vehicles similar to the Ratel, including the Sibmas from Belgium --which is all but a direct copy-- and a number of South American designs. The Ratel-20 is the primary squad IFV, with the Ratel-60, Ratel-90, and Ratel-ZT3 (the anti-tank guided missile version) used primarily in anti-armour, support, and recon elements within a battalion. The vehicle usually carries a crew of four or five men, with a seven-man infantry squad.

1 Vehicle Characteristics
2 Production history
- 2.1 Variants
- 2.2 Operators
3 Combat History
4 See also

[edit] Vehicle Characteristics

The vehicle was designed with the South African environment and the combat experience of the South African Defence Force (SADF) foremost in mind. For example, it has considerably more firepower than most comparable infantry fighting vehicles--ranging from machine guns up to a 90-mm cannon.

[edit] Mobility

It is wheeled, with six run-flat tires for the long-distance speed, mobility, and ease of maintenance that tracked vehicles lack and unlike the United States Army's M2/M3 Bradley or Warsaw Pact's BMP designs, the Ratel does not need to be transported long distances on trains or trailer trucks; it can simply be driven to the destination. The Ratel's ground clearance and cross-country performance are very good--certainly adequate for the generally rolling and arid terrain it usually operates in-- and the vehicle has a ride which SADF crews often compare favourably to civilian cars. The chassis also served as the basis for the G6 self-propelled gun. SADF crews also frequently praised the visibility imparted by the vehicle's high profile; although it makes the Ratel a bigger target, it enables the crews to see the surrounding area more easily, a key factor when maneuvering in the bush, where grass can grow to three meters in height.

[edit] Landmine protection

The Ratel's design also gives far more consideration to protection against land mines than most armoured vehicles, reflecting SADF experience and priorities. Like the Casspir and Buffel vehicles, the bottom of the hull is angled and reinforced so as to deflect mine blasts out to the sides. The Ratel's wheels, if damaged, are also much easier to repair or replace than tracks. The vehicle also has multiple doors and hatches; the two main doors are located in the vehicle's sides, but a small rear door and roof hatches allow the crew to exit the vehicle from many directions at once, or to more easily dismount under cover during an ambush.

[edit] Armour

The Ratel is relatively lightly armoured, in order to preserve mobility, weapons space, and range. The vehicle is well-protected against bullets and artillery shell splinters, but is vulnerable to tank guns, automatic cannon such as the Warsaw Pact 23 mm AA guns (which were often used in a ground-fire role in Namibia and Angola) or guided missiles. The SADF's experience during the South African Border War in Namibia and Angola showed that Ratels were far more likely to be faced with small-arms fire and mines in small-unit actions or ambushes than to run into main battle tanks in pitched battles. More to the point, the Ratel is a personnel carrier and not a tank, and is by definition not intended to engage main battle tanks.

[edit] Armament

The basic Ratel's (designated Ratel-20) primary armament consists of a 20 mm automatic cannon mounted in a powered turret at the front of the vehicle, supplemented by a coaxial 7.62 mm (0.30 inches) calibre machine gun and a 12.7×99 mm NATO (.50 BMG) calibre pintle-mounted machine gun mounted by the commander's roof hatch. The Ratel also has four rifle ports on each side of the vehicle, allowing the infantrymen to fire from within the vehicle. An additional pintle-mounted machine gun, accessed from a roof hatch, is located at the rear of the Ratel's upper deck and provides cover for the Ratel's rear quarter. The crew consists of commander, driver, gunner, and radio operator, as well as seven infantrymen.

The Ratel-60 and Ratel-90 variants are otherwise identical, save that the former mounts a 60 mm breech-loading mortar in turrets taken from the Eland 60 armoured cars, and the Ratel-90 mounts a 90 mm low-velocity gun and has a five-man crew, adding a loader for the turret gun. The 60 mm mortar is most effectively used in firing smoke shells, and is generally useless against armoured vehicles or dug-in troops.

The Ratel-90 fire-support variant is an unusual vehicle in that it can carry an infantry squad while retaining a 90 mm turret gun, although a smaller quantatity of 90 mm ammunition can be carried. The Ratel-90 does not normally carry a full squad, but it at least such a squad has immediate artillery fire from the 90 mm gun. It is not a tank destroyer, but has occasionally been used as one, albeit with some difficulty.

[edit] Anti-tank capabilities

The low-velocity 90 mm gun, a license-made copy of the 1950s-vintage French GIAT F1, is very accurate out to 2 km range. It is generally considered to be inadequate for facing modern MBTs, but it is quite capable against personnel carriers or other lighter AFVs, unarmoured vehicles, exposed infantry, and buildings or entrenchments. Firing the 90 mm gun from a moving Ratel is difficult because the fire-control system is decidedly primitive; the turret and gun are manually traversed. The vehicle's transmission needs to be disengaged before firing to avoid the shock of recoil wrecking the transmission.

On the rare occasions when SADF Ratels encountered enemy armour, such as the Soviet-made tanks encountered in Operation Protea (1981) and Operations Modular, Hooper, and Packer in 1988, they achieved successes with difficulty. The 61 Mechanised Infantry Battalion Group found that each enemy T-55 and T-62 required multiple shots from the 90 mm guns to disable it, and that the SADF vehicles had to attack in groups, fire from point-blank range, and hit the tanks in the engine vents, turret rim, or similar weak points in order to have an effect, the 90 mm shells being otherwise ineffective against the Soviet tanks' armour. For this reason, the SADF's Olifants (modified Centurion) tanks were considerably more effective against enemy armour than Ratels, Elands, or other vehicles.

[edit] Anti-tank missile

Image:Ratel ZT3 front.JPG

Ratel ZT3-A2 with cut-away Ingew anti-tank guided missile in front

The anti-tank guided missile variant, the Ratel ZT-3, was originally equipped with the indigenously-developed ZT-3 heavy anti-tank missile, while the latest versions (ZT3-A2) is armed with the new 127 mm Ingwe (Leopard) anti-tank guided missile (ATGM). The Ratel ZT3 is basically a Ratel-20 with a different turret, which is fitted with a three-round missile launcher. Other missiles are carried within the hull.

The original ZT-3 laser-guided ATGM was roughly comparable to the European HOT or American TOW missiles in performance; in fact, there have been allegations of it being based on a TOW prototype design which the Central Intelligence Agency provided to South Africa during the 1980s. The new Ingwe missile is laser guided and completely different to the wire guided TOW missile.

The Ratel ZT-3 entered service in the late 1980s, in time for Operation Modular, and gave yeoman service against enemy armour at the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale. The SADF was previously limited to the obsolete French-designed ENTAC wire-guided ATGM, which was usually transported in Land Rovers or other unarmoured vehicles.

[edit] Typical deployment

A typical SADF mechanized company consists of 16 Ratels, with three four-vehicle rifle platoons and a two-vehicle command section. A battalion's support company consists of; 3 Ratel 90s, 3 MILAN teams in APCs or Ratel-ZT3s, 6 Ratel 81 mm Mortar vehicles and 3 Ystervark self-propelled 20 mm AA vehicles.

Since SADF unit frequently operated in ad-hoc task forces during the South African Border War, however, units structures and equipment frequently varied widely. At the time of Operation Modular in 1988, for example, the 61 Mechanised Infantry Battalion Group's task force consisted of two infantry companies with Ratel 20s, an armoured car squadron with 14 Ratel 90s, a mortar platoon with 12 81 mm Ratels, an anti-tank company with a mix of ATGW and Ratel 90 vehicles as well as other attachments.

[edit] Production history

The South African Army had been using the 6x6 British Alvis Saracen APC for several years before the acquisition of spare parts become problematic due to the arms embargo, the South Africans decided to manufacture a new vehicle to satisfy their needs. After building the Eland, a modified version of the 4x4 Panhard AML armoured car, Sandock then undertook to design a replacement for the Saracen. The prototype was completed in 1976, and the first units rolled out the following year. Since then, over a thousand Ratel vehicles have been manufactured.

[edit] Variants

Ratel 20 - Original version, French designed turret (see side notes)
Ratel 60 - crew of 4 plus 7 infantry, turret is identical to that of the Eland 60 with a 60 mm breech-loading mortar
Ratel 81 - no turret, but an 81 mm mortar is installed in the crew compartment for use as a fire support platform
Ratel 90 - crew of 5 plus 7 infantry, turret is identical to that of the Eland 90. Primary role: fire support for the Mechanized Battalions.
Ratel Command - crew of 9 men, two-seater turret with a 12,7 mm machine gun
Ratel Maintenance - setup as a mobile workshop
Ratel ZT3 - new anti-tank turret, with a rack containing 3 anti-tank missiles ready for launch and additional missiles stored within the hull.
Ratel Logistic - 8x8 logistic vehicle. Only 2 were ever built and thus never went into production.