With rising threats facing mines in South Africa, Gauteng-based armoured vehicle systems company SVI Engineering is targeting its product research and development at offering mining clients solutions that protect and save the lives of mining personnel and empower mine’s security teams.

Threats facing mines in the region include growing illegal mining syndicates, protest actions and the construction mafia moving into the mining sector in an effort to try gain what they perceive as lucrative mining contracts.

Illegal miners and affiliated trespassers are frequently encountered near and on many South African mines as they test security limits and look for areas of entry into legitimate workings.

“Illegal miners are often heavily armed and set ambushes and booby traps . . .” highlights Minerals Council South Africa employment relations and legal senior executive Dr Elize Strydom in a 2016 report on illegal mining. She added that mine trespassers also effected theft of copper, electricity cables, dragline cables, diesel and materials.

As a result of increasing criminal activity around mines, SVI business development director Nicol Louw tells Mining Weekly that “the mining industry is the biggest market for our vehicles”.

The mining sector, besides being the producer of high-value materials, is also susceptible to mass protest action and unrest, both from mine’s employees as well as from near-mine communities and tender/labour rackets.

Armoured Offerings

SVI manufactures various armoured solutions suitable for use on mines, including its most popular solution – the Stopgun V2.0 package, which offers ballistic level 6 (B6) protection from firearm calibres up to 7.62 X 51 mm, thereby providing protection against the R1, R4, R5 and Kalashnikov-series of assault rifles that criminals and violent gangs commonly use.

As such, the Stopgun V2.0 package offers cost-effective, but nonetheless comprehensive, vehicle armouring to keep mines’ security and operational staff safe and unharmed as near-mine threats proliferate.

The Stopgun V2.0 solution employs in-door armour, as opposed to double-door systems, to keep similar the levels of vehicle user-friendliness as that provided by their respective original-equipment manufacturers.

The vehicles most commonly outfitted with Stopgun V2.0, which must be a body-on- chassis bakkie configuration, includes Toyota’s Hilux and Ford’s Ranger in single-cab, extended-cab and double-cab variants.

Armoured B4+ canopy solutions are also available from SVI, including variants for carrying additional personnel and valuables.

The door armouring on Stopgun V2.0 also employs advanced ridged door overlap protection – what SVI calls a ‘splash guard’ – to ensure rounds, as well as round shrapnel, cannot enter the cab through any of the door’s ballistic gaps, regardless of the angle at which they are fired.

Up-Armouring

A step above the Stopgun V2.0 solution is SVI’s fully comprehensive armouring solution – the MAX 3, which sees a donor Toyota Land Cruiser 79-series stripped down to its chassis and its body completely replaced by a B6 hull with almost no ballistic gaps owing to the seamless design providing all-round protection for occupants.

The Stopgun V2.0 and 3.0 packages only offer ballistic protection in a vehicle’s engine bay to the ABS system and battery; however, with the MAX 3 solution, even the radiator is shielded with SVI’s innovative angled radiator air intake that provides no straight line of fire into the engine bay.

MAX 3 is available in double-cab and armoured personnel carrier (APC) variants and includes upgrades to the vehicle’s suspension, wheels and tyres to ensure it can handle the added mass and operating dynamics.

B6 Stopgun V2.0 armouring on a double-cab bakkie adds about 650 kg of armouring while the MAX 3 solutions adds 2 t.

MAX 3, in APC trim, is highly suitable for mining security applications, as it can carry six passengers in the rear, plus the driver and another forward passenger. The bakkie version of MAX 3 offers cargo options, like drone deployment platforms, motorcycle racks or advanced surveillance platforms. The MAX 3 also offers roof-mounted access, which can also be used as an escape in emergencies.

The even bigger MAX SWAT platform is protected by as much as 5 t of armour, provides seating for 12 personnel, rapid access and better interior manoeuvrability for personnel with increased headroom.

For fixed security installations, SVI also offers two sizes of B6 fully-armoured (walls, windows, roof and floor) guard houses. One of these recently protected a security guard from a targeted attack at a mining operation, notes Louw.

Mining Security: Key Market

The roles in which SVI’s solutions are primarily used include perimeter guarding and patrolling, high value goods’ escort, riot/protest management as well as personnel protection during transit into and out of volatile mine sites.

In terms of SVI’s mining sector order book, Louw says the company, on average, produces 220 vehicles a year, of which 80% are destined for full-time security applications. Of that, more than 60% go towards mine’s security.

Besides selling solutions for mine’s security, SVI is also involved in significant repairing of attacked vehicles.

“We fix a lot of vehicles that have been involved in ballistics attacks. They come in all the time. We have to replace the glass and [patch a lot of bullet holes].

“We save a lot of lives. If you see where the attackers [commonly] shoot [at a mine’s security vehicles] . . . the glass impacts are where the vehicle’s occupant’s heads are. We’ve seen this so many times,” he explains.

Ironically, Mining Weekly observed, during a mid-September factory visit, a B6 armoured bakkie, deployed by a major gold mine in South Africa, returning for repair work after surviving an armed assault by illegal miners. Louw says these sorts of bullet-riddled vehicles returning to SVI for repairs are a common occurrence.

He adds that SVI’s solutions empower mine’s security as the brand has become synonymous with ensuring security and mining personnel can return home after a day’s work in the same condition as they entered the workplace that day.

“When the security personnel realise that our vehicles can keep them safe, it gives them a lot of confidence to use it in the field. With a vehicle like the MAX 3 and MAX SWAT, it’s also a show of force. Those vehicles serve as a deterrent for sure, just by the way they look,” concludes Louw.