HELMOED RÖMER HEITMAN: Cancelling production of the Badger infantry combat vehicle would be dumb

In a recent briefing to parliament’s portfolio committee on defence, Armscor proposed cancelling Project Hoefyster, the development and production of a new infantry combat vehicle, the Badger. However, despite the difficulties at Denel and the delays in this project — some caused by the army, some by Armscor — doing so would be stupendously dumb after having spent about R7.5bn on the project so far.

“Sunk cost” arguments can be fallacious, but there is more to it here than just the R7.5bn. Denel has about 50 component sets on hand and paid for; there is no good alternative for the army; and there is still export potential for the turret and Denel’s highly regarded artillery systems, which would fall away if the project was cancelled, as no-one will contract with a defence group that is not supported by its own government.

Denel is now delivering Badger turrets to Malaysia under a €340m contract with potential for a follow-on order of similar magnitude, and there is real interest elsewhere in the G6 and T5 artillery systems, assuming Denel survives. But perhaps the key questions are whether the SA army needs an infantry combat vehicle and whether that should be the Badger. The answer in both cases is yes.

Why an infantry combat vehicle? While SA can reasonably hope not to face conventional war in the near or even medium term, the threat of guerrilla forces in the region is real and present. Guerrillas are increasingly well led, trained, equipped and armed, not least with “technicals” — bakkies armed with 14.5mm heavy machineguns or even 23mm cannons. Either weapon will penetrate the Ratel, Casspir and Mamba from any direction at typical combat ranges. So, the real question is whether we are prepared to deploy troops in vehicles that cannot protect them from likely enemy fire. The last time we did that was in Bangui in 2013, and that cost us 15 SA soldiers killed.

An infantry combat vehicle provides protection against those weapons, mines and roadside bombs. It also provides the ability to engage “technicals” beyond the range of their weapons, night-fighting capability and good off-road mobility, and its infantry section can dismount, in combat or simply to interact with local civilians in a peace mission situation. It combines the capabilities of an armoured car with those of an armoured personnel carrier, and is the most useful all-round vehicle an army can field: useful in peace support, low intensity and conventional operations.

There are several reasons why the Badger remains the optimal choice:

• It will provide the mobility, firepower and protection required for the future.
• It is based on the proven Patria Armoured Modular Vehicle, optimised for the theatre on the basis of the army’s practical experience.
• It has a “family” of local turret systems that will simplify through-life support compared with other vehicles that have multiple different turrets from different suppliers.
• It will, despite Denel’s problems, be the cheapest fully capable infantry combat vehicle, at an estimated unit cost of $4.35m (R66.61m), including the development cost.

Comparable vehicles include the infantry combat vehicle variant of the German Boxer at a $7m unit cost, the French VBCL at $6.5m, the Italian Freccia at $7.6m and the British version of the Boxer at $11.6m.

Continuing with the Badger will also give Denel Land Systems a lifeline to get out from under the damage of state capture, enabling it and its SA component suppliers to exploit the potential of the Badger turret family and its proven expertise in artillery systems.

There are problems to be overcome. For now, at least, the existing contract is unviable, if only because of the underfunding of the SA National Defence Force (SANDF). So some alternative should be implemented. Key will be to keep costs down and speed up the project to get vehicles into the hands of the army.

The optimal solution would, arguably, be to use the components on hand to produce section variant Badgers for one of the army’s mechanised infantry battalions. That variant will be the primary differentiator between the Badger and the Ratel — eight-wheel mobility, 30mm cannon versus 20mm, stabilisation, night fighting and better protection. The various support variant slots can for some time yet be filled with refurbished Ratel variants as those will not require the same levels of mobility and protection.

That would give the army the ability to deploy mechanised combat teams for peace enforcement operations where there is a likelihood of encountering “technicals” or even armoured vehicles, as has happened in other parts of Africa. In a semiconventional operations context that battalion would, with the Rooikat armoured car, provide a formidable mechanised force around which the lighter elements could operate. Additional Badgers could then be acquired later as funding allows.

It should be possible to begin quite quickly, meanwhile transferring the existing pre-production Badgers to the army to begin developing doctrine, tactics, techniques and procedures. There are really only two alternatives to going ahead with the Badger. We can:

• Import vehicles at much greater cost and become dependent on the foreign supplier for through-life support, in essence exporting hard currency and jobs.
• Deploy troops in vehicles that are inherently vulnerable to likely threats and accept higher casualties as the price for saving some money in the short term.

• Heitman is an independent security and defence analyst.