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was that the optimum calibre because Uncle Sam's ordnance people said so, or because the shell had good flight characteristics, a useful AP capability and a useful HE weight?
The optimum round would not be below 25mm, in calibre, probably badly phrased by me.But the report had been published before we had the turrets refurbished.
Covid 19 is not over ....it's still very real..Hand Hygiene, Social Distancing and Masks.. keep safe
The South africans had taken the AML's turret as a model when developing the Ratel in the 1970's,( after all SA licenced produced over 1000 AML-60/90) hence when the DF went shopping for an upgrade to the AML-60, they chose the south african upgrade based upon the Ratel 20 Turret because was the cheapest and simplest option.
Fitting another turret with a heavier calibre gun, like the photos rhodes has posted in another thread of trials in the 1980's, would probably have made the vehicle very top heavy, the rarden turret trialed would have resulted in a vehicle similar to the FOX which the british produced and was by all accounts a death trap.
Jesus wept, Murph! Who'd be a storeman!? It'd be fun and games to get yizzer 20mm mixed up on the battlefield. Did the NS run the old Oerlikon and the Rhinos at the same time?
Yep PVs had the Oerlikons while the Eithne had Rhinos and then to complicate matters the GamBo was purchased...and the Deirdre had .5's .
And just checkeing with some empty shell casings I have from the AML 20s..guess what the website has a mistake as the Shellcasing I have are unusually stamped on the side and marked T PT 20/90 M649...Target practice trace 20mm calibre lenght of barrel 90 calibres, but it bears no relationship to the ammo pictured and dosen't have a bottle neck but is more in line with Oerlikon ammo.
Now from memory I was in the curragh magazine when the Gambos were entering service, and there was no shortage of the older 20mm stuff, and on one occassion in 1986 we took a brand new oerlikon from stores, still its its packing grease, but within 6 months the type was gone from service.
Guns and ammo weren't the problem, magazines were with the springs starting to give trouble...181 parts to remember was a bit of a night mare.
Any way back to AMLs.
Picked this up from a south african perspective on the AML 90
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 main battle tanks, but it is quite capable against armored personnel carriers or other lighter AFVs, unarmored vehicles, exposed infantry, and buildings or entrenchments. The 90 mm gun cannot be fired from a moving Ratel because the fire-control system is decidedly primitive and not stabilised; the turret and gun are manually traversed.
On the rare occasions when SADF Ratels encountered enemy armor, such as the Soviet-made tanks encountered in Operation Protea (1981) and Operations Modular, Hooper, and Packer in 1988, they achieved successes through maneuverability and only at very short ranges. 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 tanks were considerably more effective against enemy armour than Ratels, Elands, or other vehicles.
Sums up the capabilities and deficiencies of the 90mm F 1 gun
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