[1] The Ratel was designed in response to a South African Army specification for a light armoured vehicle suited to the demands of rapid offensives, providing maximum firepower and strategic mobility to mechanised infantry units intended to operate across the vast distances of Southern Africa.

[12] One result was that German companies came to dominate several sectors of the South African civilian and military vehicle market, including achieving a virtual monopoly on the sale of trucks to the SADF.

[15] In 1968, the SADF began formulating a new mobile warfare doctrine which centered around the independent deployment of mechanised infantry to defend the vast borders of South West Africa (Namibia), which were deemed vulnerable to the threat of insurgency and external infiltration.

[2] During wargaming exercises designed to simulate a foreign invasion of South West Africa, the SADF found none of its preexisting armoured vehicles suitable to fill this role, so development of a new dedicated IFV was undertaken.

[2] Any South African IFV had to be a simple, economical design which helped ease the significant logistical commitment to maintain armoured vehicles in border regions otherwise lacking in advanced support or transport infrastructure.

[1] Wheeled IFVs were also favoured because they possessed a much greater operating range than tracked vehicles, and did not require the use of transporters on South West Africa's limited road and rail network.

[2] Each Ratel was powered by a Büssing D 3256 six-cylinder diesel engine fitted in a compartment at the left rear of its hull with access panels in the roof for ease of maintenance; it could be changed by two technicians with a crane in thirty minutes.

[10] The SADF had selected the Hispano-Suiza HS.820 for the Ratel's primary armament due to its prior success during trials with Eland armoured cars; however, at the time of production this was superseded by a variant of the Modèle F2 produced under licence as the Denel GI-2.

[3] The Ratel was first tested in combat during Operation Reindeer, a major South African raid on People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) insurgents based out of neighbouring Angola.

[16] For the purposes of Operation Reindeer, the SADF experimented with an integrated combat team consisting of mechanised infantry mounted in the new Ratels, backed by attached Eland armoured cars.

[19] Although PLAN possessed little conventional warfare capabilities, it was frequently backed by its allies in the Cuban and Angolan armed forces, which were skilled at constructing well-fortified defensive positions and had access to heavy armour.

[22] The Ratel Command was fitted with additional radio equipment, a public address system, and map tables; it carried a 12.7 mm machine gun as its main armament.

[22] In 1979, Sandock-Austral introduced the Ratel Mk II, which included a number of functional modifications designed to optimise the vehicle for southern African conditions and improve mechanical reliability.

[19] In these theoretical combat battle groups, armoured squadrons and mechanised infantry, transported in Ratels, would be integrated at the company level, giving them sufficient flexibility to operate in concert.

As the Ratel and most of the SADF's other combat vehicles were lightly armoured, South African mechanised doctrine came to revolve around such tactics as rapid movement, striking from the flank, and confusing the enemy with continuous manoeuvring.

[24] Although capable of operating independently, Ratel-based battle groups were not expected to occupy and hold static positions; their primary task was to outmanoeuvre an enemy unit[25] before destroying it with a concentrated fire and movement tactic known as a firebelt action.

[26] This doctrine was suited for the wide, densely wooded expanses of southern Angola which enabled the South African forces to carry out evasive manoeuvres and strike quickly from unexpected directions without being prematurely detected.

[1] A notable feature of the South African Border War was a cyclical pattern of increasing cross-border infiltration and raids by PLAN guerrillas, primarily from Angola, during the annual rainy season.

[27] At the end of April or early May, when the heaviest rains ceased, South African mechanised battle groups launched retaliatory raids to capture or kill the insurgents in their external sanctuaries.

[34] While the Ratel-90s were for the most part adequate in countering Angola's largely obsolete and second-line Soviet tanks, they remained hindered by mediocre standoff ranges, inferior fire control, and a lack of stabilised main armament.

[39] While South Africa was able to partly compensate by developing its local arms industry, the SADF's requirements were too small to make the manufacture of a wide range of armaments economically profitable.

[12] These unprofitable practices threatened to result in stagnation for the defence sector; firms like Sandock-Austral looked for new ways to gain badly needed funds for future research and development efforts and counter their own rapidly rising production costs.

[47] The Jordanian government worked closely with a number of South African contractors, such as the Mechanology Design Bureau and Paramount Group, to maintain and refurbish its Ratel fleet.

[51] The South African government acknowledged that it was notified of Jordan's intention to deliver the vehicles to Yemen, but had not formally consented to their transfer or amended the original end-user agreement, which made no provision for the re-export of Jordanian Ratels to third parties.

[51] A similar controversy erupted when Ratels began appearing in Libyan service in 2013, prompting Democratic Alliance defence spokesman David Maynier to call for a formal inquiry into how Libya could have acquired the vehicles without the knowledge of South Africa's National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC).

[56] This effort collapsed due to a variety of unforeseen problems: the SANDF was only willing to supply previously decommissioned Ratel-90s and insisted that the donation was contingent on the Central African government making its own arrangements to have them shipped to Bangui.

[57] Their inexperienced crews failed to use them effectively in an offensive role,[57] and ammunition shortages became so acute that President François Bozizé made personal appeals to South African officials for additional stocks of 90 mm shells.

[1] Its use of parts otherwise ubiquitous to the civilian automotive industry proved to be an advantage in circumventing the universal arms embargo imposed on South Africa, which extended only to purpose-built military products.

[62] As an interim measure, the SADF occasionally issued Ratel crews with night vision goggles, which aided navigation in the Angolan bush where the use of headlamps was precluded due to proximity to enemy positions.

[23] During Operation Moduler, one Ratel commander directed a stream of 20 mm APTC rounds at an Angolan T-55 at close range, which apparently penetrated a vulnerable margin in its armour and caused a catastrophic kill after igniting the on-board ammunition.