Rooikat

The Rooikat (Afrikaans for Caracal; ) is a South African armoured reconnaissance vehicle equipped with a stabilised high velocity gun for organic anti-tank and fire support purposes. The Rooikat's main armament was built with the Oto Melara 76 naval gun as its basis, to which it is nearly identical in terms of technical performance and statistics. The Rooikat can also fire the same ammunition as the naval gun, albeit modified with new percussion primers in the shells.

==Development history== ===Background=== From the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, the standard reconnaissance vehicle of the South African Defence Force was the Eland-90, a four-wheeled armoured car modelled closely after the Panhard AML-90. However, the Eland was designed for border patrols and internal security, and proved ill-suited to countering tank warfare. The Eland's limitations were first observed during combat in Operation Savannah, a 1975 South African incursion into Angola. This led to its supplementation in the late 1970s with the much heavier, six-wheeled Ratel-90 infantry fighting vehicle. The Ratel proved to be a successful interim measure because it could both carry troops and provide fire support.