MAP75 Armoured Personnel Carrier


The MAP75 Armoured Personnel Carrier is a Rhodesian 4x4 heavy troop-carrying vehicle 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 Mercedes-Benz 7.5 ton Series LA1113/42 truck chassis. Adapted from the Crocodile Armoured Personnel Carrier, the open-topped hull or 'capsule' is faceted at the sides, which were designed to deflect small-arms' rounds, and a flat deck reinforced by a v-shaped 'crush box' meant to deflect 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 FN MAG-58 7.62mm Light Machine Gun, sometimes installed on a locally produced one-man MG armoured turret to protect the gunner. Vehicles assigned to convoy escorting duties had a Browning M1919A4 7.62mm medium machine gun mounted on an open-topped, cylinder-shaped turret. Twin Browning MG pintle mounts placed behind the driver’s compartment were often added on 'Seven fives' employed for 'externals'. The Zimbabwean vehicles after 1980 sported pintle-mounted Soviet-made 12.7mm and 14.5mm Heavy Machine Guns instead.

Variants

The MAP75 TCV was employed late in the war by the elite units of the Rhodesian Security Forces – the Rhodesian African Rifles, the Rhodesian Light Infantry, and the Rhodesian SAS – on their cross-border covert raids against ZIPRA and ZANLA guerrilla bases in the neighboring Countries, such as the September 1979 raid on the ZANLA's New Chimoio base in Mozambique.
After independence, the MAP75 entered service with the Zimbabwe National Army in early 1980 and equipped both the 1st and 2nd Battalions, RAR, which participated in the large military exercises conducted at Somabula Plain, Matabeleland that same year. ZNA's 'Seven Fives' were thrown into action in November 1980 against ZIPRA troops at the 1st Battle of Entumbane and later at the February 1981 2nd Battle of Entumbane, and later again after February 1982 by helping to put down the Super-ZAPU insurgency in Matabeleland. During the Mozambican Civil War, 'Seven Fives' were also employed by the ZNA forces in Mozambique guarding the Mutare-Beira oil pipeline in 1982-1993 from RENAMO guerrilla attacks. The MAP75 served with the ZNA contingent sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo during the Second Congo War from 1998 to 2002.

Operators

The post-war "Puma" version made some appearances in television and film productions shot in Zimbabwe and set in the Apartheid era of the 1970s-1980s. In one such film, the 1987 British movie Cry Freedom, ZNA Pumas appear on several scenes portraying South African Defence Force and South African Police armoured vehicles.