 Dr Carel Gustavovich von Rennekampf

• Any landmine protection development I was going to do therefore had to be on what existed and was in service and even that was not welcome as all the "old" products were going to be phased out anyway so I would be wasting my time as I was repeatedly reminded by Armscor. For UCDD (the importers and distributor of all Mercedes Benz products in South Africa at the time) by whom I was employed it was do or die time - either we do something to extend the life of the Unimog in SADF service and try to get new orders somehow or do nothing, pack our bags and simply "ride off into the sunset”.

And that played a huge role in my decision to embark on the design and development of what became the privately funded Unimog 416.612 based Buffel eventually about which I have written previously.

Which brings me to the 9 rhetorical questions I asked at the beginning of this post - in summary could there have been a better Buffel?

Not really, given all of the above and to mangle a quote during the Iraq War from the late US Secretary for Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, we had to do the best we could with what we had available to us.

• the drivers cab could not be made bigger or moved to the right side of the vehicle because of the limited space for it and the need to accommodate the full front wheel movement • the wheeltrack could not be widened on the 416.162 which would have improved stability (even though wider wheeltrack axles from the New Generation Unimogs were available) because the 416.162 was a discontinued model and development funds could not be spent on engineering new axles into it because its "life in the SADF was over" as we had been informed • both the far more capable and heavier U 1300L (130hp) and U1700 L (168hp) Unimogs in right hand drive were already available which would have allowed me to build a far more capable Buffel all round, but with only Samils to be bought in future that was of course not an option - see photo of Australian Army U1700L attached. • because the V-shaped rear body was already at the practical limit of how "shallow" the 'V' could be before a blast did more serious damage to the rear occupants it could not be made any "shallower" or lowered to significantly reduce the centre of gravity and improve stability in the process. • in any event, we were also not able to do any further development/ improvements because Armscor dishonestly and unlawfully simply took our Buffel design and handed it to Steelmobile to do some modifications and then produce the vehicles and to add insult to injury, also denied us any further access to the product we had created! • So, to summarize, the drivers cab could not be made any larger or more comfortable, the rear body could not be significantly lowered or made into a deeper 'V", the power could not be increased and axles with a wider wheel track could not be fitted because of the cost involved in upgrading a discontinued model when the customer had advised us that there would be no further purchases of this product.

Notwithstanding all the comments about the Buffel, both bad and good, the following are incontrovertible facts:

1. The Buffel saved many lives at a time where there were no other blast and ballistically protected, high mobility personnel carriers available in the SADF and many Ops and patrols would have been difficult, if not impossible without the Buffels to transport the infantry safely at the time.

2. Whist the Buffel was a wholly, privately funded venture by 3 partners (UCDD, Busaf and Transerve), in spite of millions of Rands made available to both Truckmakers and the CSIR and being able to use our pioneering work on the Buffel and the lessons learnt as a basis from which