MAP75 Armoured Personnel Carrier
| MAP75 Armoured Personnel Carrier | |
|---|---|
| Type | Armoured personnel carrier |
| Place of origin | Rhodesia |
| Service history | |
| In service | 1978–present |
| Used by | Rhodesia Zimbabwe |
| Wars | Rhodesian Bush War 1980 Entumbane clashes 1981 Entumbane uprising Mozambican Civil War Second Congo War |
| Specifications | |
| Mass | 11 tonnes (combat) 9.29 tonnes (empty) |
| Length | 7.2 m x 2.28 m |
| Width | 4.2 m Wb |
| Height | 2.84 m |
| Crew | 2+16 |
| Armor | 10 mm mild steel |
Main armament | one 7.62 mm, 12.7 mm or 14.5 mm machine guns |
Secondary armament | personal weapons through gunports |
| Engine | 6-cylinder 5.67L Benz diesel OM352 130 hp |
| Power/weight | hp/ton hp/tonne |
| Drive | 4 × 4 |
Operational range | 600 to 700 km |
| Maximum speed | 80 km/h/60 km/h km/h |
The MAP75 Armoured Personnel Carrier (a.k.a. MAP 'seven five') is a Rhodesian 4x4 heavy troop-carrying vehicle (TCV) first introduced in 1978 based on a Mercedes-Benz truck chassis. It remains in use with the Zimbabwe National Army.
General description
The MAP75 consists of an all-welded body with a fully enclosed troop compartment built on a modified
landmine
blasts. Three inverted U-shaped 'roll bars' shorter than those on the Crocodile were fitted to protect the fighting compartment from being crushed in case the vehicle turned and roll over after a mine detonation. However, the reduced height of the 'roll bars' often hampered the crew's movements inside the vehicle, though the problem was rectified only in the post-war Zimbabwean versions by fitting higher bars. Access to the vehicle's interior is made by means of two medium-sized doors at the vertical hull rear whilst two square hatches placed low at the hull sides allowed for rapid debussing, an innovation that reflected the vehicle's combat offensive role.
Protection
The hull was made of ballistic 10mm mild steel plate; front windscreen and side windows had 40mm
bullet-proof laminated glass
.
Armament
Rhodesian MAP75s were usually armed with a
Heavy Machine Guns
(HMG) instead.
Variants
- Troop-Carrying Vehicle (TCV) or "Puma" – is the standard IFV/APC version, armed with either a single LMG (Rhodesian SF 1978-79) or HMG (ZNA 1980–present) and capable of carrying 16 infantrymen.
- Convoy escorting version – basic IFV/APC version ('E-type') fitted with 'dustbin' Browning MG turret (Rhodesian SF 1978-79).
- Command vehicle – command version equipped with radios and map boards.
- Ambulance – modified version of the command vehicle intended for medical support and casualty evacuation.
- Cargo vehicle – transport version with shortened, open-top cargo hull.[2]
- Articulated tractor – heavy transport truck with a four-wheel cargo trailer.
- Horse-carrying vehicle (HCV) – modified transport version with wooden box for horses ('horse box').
- Armoured horse-carrying vehicle – one specially-modified articulated tractor in service with the Grey's Scouts, later converted to a mobile operations and command room (Rhodesian SF 1978-79).[3]
- Wrecker – recovery version with shortened cab mounting a 6-tonne Model 600 Holmes jib, with A-frame and tooling.[4]
Combat history
The MAP75 TCV was employed late in the war by the elite units of the
Rhodesian SAS – on Fireforce operations and on their cross-border covert raids ('externals') against ZIPRA and ZANLA guerrilla bases in the neighboring Countries,[8] such as the September 1979 raid on the ZANLA's New Chimoio base in Mozambique (Operation Miracle).[9]
After independence, the MAP75 entered service with the
Democratic Republic of Congo during the Second Congo War from 1998 to 2002.[10]
Operators
Rhodesia – In service with the Rhodesian Security Forces in 1978-1980 passed on to successor state.
Zimbabwe – Still in service with the ZNA.
See also
- Crocodile Armoured Personnel Carrier
- Hippo APC
- Thyssen Henschel UR-416
- Rhodesian Armoured Corps
- MAP45 Armoured Personnel Carrier
- Mine Protected Combat Vehicle
- List of weapons of the Rhodesian Bush War
Notes
- ^ Touchard, Guerre dans le bush! Les blindés de l'Armée rhodésienne au combat (1964-1979), p. 73.
- ^ Locke & Cooke, Fighting Vehicles and Weapons of Rhodesia 1965-80 (1995), p. 56.
- ^ Locke & Cooke, Fighting Vehicles and Weapons of Rhodesia 1965-80 (1995), p. 55.
- ^ Locke & Cooke, Fighting Vehicles and Weapons of Rhodesia 1965-80 (1995), p. 57.
- ^ Baxter, Selous Scouts: Rhodesian Counter-Insurgency Specialists (2011), pp. 109; 130.
- ^ Grant & Dennis, Rhodesian Light Infantryman 1961–80 (2015), pp. 24-25
- ^ Baxter, Selous Scouts: Rhodesian Counter-Insurgency Specialists (2011), p. 138.
- ^ Locke & Cooke, Fighting Vehicles and Weapons of Rhodesia 1965-80 (1995), p. 58.
- ^ Touchard, Guerre dans le bush! Les blindés de l'Armée rhodésienne au combat (1964-1979), pp. 65; 73.
- ^ Abbott & Ruggeri, Modern African Wars (4): The Congo 1960-2002 (2014), pp. 41-42.
References
- Laurent Touchard, Guerre dans le bush! Les blindés de l'Armée rhodésienne au combat (1964-1979), Batailles & Blindés Magazine No. 72, April–May 2016, Caraktère, Aix-en-Provence, pp. 64–75. )
- Neil Grant & Peter Dennis, Rhodesian Light Infantryman 1961–80, Warrior series 177, Osprey Publishing Ltd, Oxford 2015. ISBN 978-1-4728-0962-9
- Peter Abbott & Raffaele Ruggeri, Modern African Wars (4): The Congo 1960-2002, Men-at-arms series 492, Osprey Publishing Ltd, Oxford 2014. ISBN 978-1782000761
- Peter Baxter, Selous Scouts: Rhodesian Counter-Insurgency Specialists, Helion & Company Limited and South Publishers (Pty) Ltd., Solihull UK 2011. ISBN 978-1-907677-38-0
- Peter Gerard Locke & Peter David Farquharson Cooke, Fighting Vehicles and Weapons of Rhodesia 1965-80, P&P Publishing, Wellington 1995. ISBN 0-473-02413-6
- Peter Stiff, Taming the Landmine, Galago Publishing Pty Ltd., Alberton (South Africa) 1986. ISBN 9780947020040