Quote Originally Posted by Biggus View Post
I'm not surprised at how amazed the Rhodesians would have been at seeing what the South Africans had accomplished. When you consider how quickly things seemed to progress from looking at Pookie prototypes to developing the Bosvark, the Buffel and then the Casspir, it's an incredible achievement. Then to consider how successful both the Buffel and the Casspir have been over the last three decades or more, it's really quite remarkable. They've been quite long-lived vehicles.
Development in South Africa was parallel where the SAP (police) and the military worked separately with the military retaining the conventional chassis with its suspension system (the Buffel) while the SAP developed the monocoque design used by Konchel in Rhodesia on the Leopard further (into the Casspir).

It should be noted that while Rhodesian vehicles were designed to travel on roads and tracks the South Africans developed vehicles with cross country capability to avoid roads and tracks that could be mined.

Book to read:

Taming the Landmine - by Peter Stiff