CSIR Aeronautical Research Contribution to the RSA Aerospace Industry: a Historical Perspective
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CSIR aeronautical research contribution to the RSA aerospace industry: A historical perspective BA Gerryts, K Naidoo, D Barker ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION South Africa had a strong centrally planned South Africa's domestic arms industry mission oriented approach to R&D investment originated in 1940 with the appointment of an during the pre-1994 era. Between 1990 and Advisory Committee on Defence Force 1994, the Apartheid government terminated Requirements to study and to assess the this strategy and as a result, the R&D spending country's military-industrial potential. Relying decreased from 1.1% to 0.7% of GDP. Post on its recommendations, the government, with 1994, Science and Technology was seen as an British assistance, established six factories to instrument to help address the socio-economic produce or to assemble ammunition, bombs, needs in South Africa and subsequent policies howitzers, mortars, armoured vehicles, and were aimed at growing S&T investment and electronic equipment. A number of private capacity. companies also produced weapons during World War II. Most weapons factories were In the pre-1994 era, one of the national R&D dismantled in the late 1940s. mission topics centred on achieving independence in South Africa’s defence Seeking long-term military research and requirements. The manner in which this was development capabilities, the government in achieved was by means of backwards 1945 established the Council for Scientific and integration of the national system of innovation. Industrial Research (CSIR) to study the This process of local assembly, local product country's overall industrial potential. The Board improvement, re-engineering and ultimate new of Defence Resources, established in 1949, local product development, together with and the Munitions Production Office, focussed R&D programmes, enabled the SA established in 1951, oversaw policy planning aerospace and defence industry to develop concerning armaments. In 1953 the first rifle and support its own equipment such as the factory was established, and the Lyttleton Rooivalk, Ratel and guided weapons such as Engineering Works, formerly the Defence and the V3 air-to-air missile. Ordnance Workshop, collected technical data and information on manufacturing methods. In The role of aeronautics R&D has not been 1954 the government established the National explicitly highlighted in past publications. This Institute for Defence Research (NIDR) to paper aims to focus on the contribution and the assess and to improve the fledgling defence mechanism of aeronautics research in South industry. Africa. Aeronautics research in South Africa, based at the CSIR, gave rise to a number of In 1960 the increasingly security-conscious spin-off companies and products – for example National Party (NP) government stepped up the establishment of Denel Dynamics (guided programs to improve the arsenal of the armed weapons), the manufacture of the Rooivalk forces. Pretoria raised arms production levels, attack helicopter and the establishment of a sought new foreign sources of weapons, and number of UAV programmes. began to acquire new defence technology systems. These efforts intensified after the A focussed research approach in aeronautics, 1963 United Nations (UN) Security Council especially DPSS, can make it possible to once resolution restricting the sale of arms, again lead the industry and the South African ammunition, or military vehicles to South aerospace industry in the development of Africa. The Armaments Act (No. 87) of 1964 appropriate research and technology which established an Armaments Production Board to could help increase the global competitiveness manage the Lyttleton Engineering Works and a of the industry, increase innovation and thereby state-owned ammunition plant. The board create wealth and improve the quality of life of assumed responsibility for coordinating arms South African citizens. purchases among government, military, and private agencies. 1 The Armaments Development and Production dollars) over the five-year period from 1984 to Act (No. 57) of 1968 established a special 1988. The best year was 1985, when it earned production unit, the Armaments Development roughly US$102 million. and Production Corporation (Armscor), to Armscor did however, experience the effect of consolidate and to manage public and private the cutback in weapons sales in the late 1980s. arms manufacturing. Through Armscor's Its work force had increased from 10,000 to efforts, South Africa soon achieved self- 33,000 between 1974 and 1984, but had sufficiency in the production of small arms, declined to about 20,000 by 1989. At that time, military vehicles, optical devices, and Armscor purchased most of its manufacturing ammunition. During the mid-1970s, Armscor, components from twelve subsidiary companies reorganised as the Armaments Corporation of and an estimated 3,000 private contractors and South Africa (still Armscor), expanded existing subcontractors, representing a total work force arms industries, and assumed control over of more than 80,000 employees. The most research and development done by government began to privatise parts of the NIDR. Before the voluntary UN arms embargo arms industry in the early 1990s. was declared mandatory in 1977, South Africa received military technology through licensing Under a major restructuring that began in April agreements, primarily with West Germany, 1992, a segment of Armscor and several of its Italy, Israel, France, Belgium, and Canada. manufacturing subsidiaries were reorganised Licensing and co-production agreements in the as an independent weapons manufacturing 1970s and 1980s made it difficult to distinguish company, Denel. Denel and several other between fully indigenous military manufacturers produced equipment on contract manufacturers and those that relied on foreign with Armscor, which retained overall manufacturing capabilities. responsibility for military acquisitions. Armscor also acted as the agent of the state, regulating During the 1980s, Armscor was a central military imports and exports, issuing marketing feature of South Africa's military-industrial certificates, and ensuring adherence to complex, a state corporation that depended on international agreements. private industry for specific processes and components. Armscor's financial autonomy EMBARGO DEFIANCE was evident in its access to the capital market Despite the numerous international embargoes for loans, but at the same time, many of its functions were closely tied to the government. against arms trade with South Africa in the Armscor executives reported directly to the 1970s and 1980s, it nonetheless developed the most advanced military-industrial base on the minister of defence. Armscor's ten-member continent. In the late 1970s, it ranked behind corporate board had overlapping membership Brazil and Israel, among developing-country with the ministry's Defence Planning arms suppliers. The reasons for this apparent Committee and included leading businessmen, financiers, and scientists, as well as the irony are evident in South Africa's defence government's director general of finance and production infrastructure, which had developed even before the first UN embargo in 1963; in the chief of the SADF. In addition, Armscor was the incremental, haphazard, and inconsistent represented on the government's high-level ways in which the arms embargoes were military planning and policy bodies. imposed and enforced; in the deliberate refusal Armscor's marketing and sales department, by several countries to comply with the Nimrod, undertook an aggressive arms export embargoes; in Pretoria's use of clever and promotion campaign in the 1980s. It covert circumvention techniques; and in its participated in international arms exhibitions, in ability to develop and to exploit advanced Greece in 1982, in Chile each year from 1984 commercial and "dual-use" technologies for through the end of the decade, and in Turkey in military applications. 1989 (displaying its G-5 howitzer and Rooikat armoured vehicle). Armscor also displayed its By the late 1960s, South Africa had acquired at least 127 foreign production licenses for arms, manufactures at numerous demonstrations and ammunition, and military vehicles. South Africa trade fairs in South Africa. Despite the UN ban had purchased fighter aircraft, tanks, naval on arms sales to Pretoria and a 1984 UN ban vessels, naval armaments, and maritime patrol on the purchase of arms from South Africa, Armscor's business flourished. The corporation aircraft, primarily from Britain. After that, did not disclose export figures or customers military equipment was carefully maintained, upgraded, and often reverse-engineered or during the 1980s, but the United States copied, after the embargo made it difficult to government estimated South Africa's arms obtain replacements or replacement parts. sales at US$273 million (in constant 1989 2 During the 1970s, South Africa expanded and weapons. Numerous other reports of South refined its ability to acquire foreign assistance African arms sales to the Middle East, to Peru, for domestic military production. Its broad- to several leaders of breakaway Yugoslav based industrial growth enabled it to shift republics, and to other countries indicated the imports from finished products to technology international awareness of the strength of and components that could be incorporated South Africa's arms industry. The London- into locally designed or copied military based humanitarian organisation,