Rooikat

The Rooikat (Afrikaans for "Caracal"; literally "Red cat") is a wheeled armoured fighting vehicle built in South Africa for the South African Army. It was designed for combat reconnaissance and seek and destroy operations. Its secondary roles include combat support, anti-armour and anti-guerrilla operations. The Rooikat is intended for deep penetration missions, so the wheeled design was needed for speed and to counter sandy desert conditions that might slow tracked vehicles.

Production history
Designed to replace the Eland the Rooikat came too late for the war in Angola. It was designed to incorporate lessons learned from the bush war. One was turned into a conventional vehicle electric drive technology demonstrator (CVED) and displayed at AAD2006 in Cape Town in September of that year. The CVED project involved LMT, HIT, IAD, Nezrotek, Hotchinson (France), Kessler Magnet Motor (Germany) and MTU (Germany). VEG Magazine reported in 2006 the vehicle was fitted with a power supply control system feeding eight wheel-hub mounted M67/0 electric units and a two-phase pneumatic gearbox.

Capability

 * Can climb a 1m earth vertical step.
 * Can cross a 2m wide trench at a crawl 1m @ 60 km/h.
 * Can ford water 1,5m deep.
 * Can climb a gradient of 70 degrees.
 * Can traverse a gradient of 30 degrees.

Variants

 * Rooikat 76: Denel GT4 76 mm gun
 * Rooikat 105: Denel GT7 105 mm gun

Operators

 * 🇿🇦 South Africa: South African National Defence Force.