During WWII the Rhodesian military went under a rapid expansion of full-time units. One of these consisted their first AFV unit an Armoured Car unit. The fact that it was not a tank unit started a tradition of Armoured Cars in the Rhodesian and coupled with necessity and the environmental conditions explains why the Rhodesians never went out of their way to aquire tanks.

    Everything has been tried to Africa to give mobility to armies the list includes paradrops, helicopters, tanks, trucks, jeeps, horses, and bicycles. Due primarily to need most of these methods were also employed by the Rhodesians.

    In 1965, when the unilateral declaration of independence was declared new armaments for the Rhodesians were slowed  to a trickle.  A few shipments came in from Canada, France and of course South Africa. By 1970 the Rhodesian had barely managed to scarp together 20 Ferret Scout cars to give a single infantry battalion a proper scouting force scouting.  The most prolific of their armoured cars were there AML-90 Panhard Elands from France of which they had 60. In 1971 they had a mere 10 APCs. The proliferation of mines lead to many locally built APCs dealt with anti-mine measures for civilian and police use including the locally built Cougar,  Rhino, Hyena, Leopard, Puma, Crocodile, and Kudu which can be considered "light" apcs.  The following quote from the online book Those Were The Days described the situation well:
    "Our vehicles were mainly mine-proofed Landrovers but there was a fair number of the strange custom built armoured vehicles
such as the Leopard, built on a Volkswagen chassis, the Rhino, a converted Landrover, and the Puma, built on an Isuzu 7
tonne chassis."

The effect on the actual counter-insurgency war must of been minimal but; the fact that communist guerrilla recruits were not even told of the weapons the Rhodesians had an encounter with Armoured Cars must of had an incredible psychological effect.
Thus the Armoured Car regiment was used in a variety of roles patrolling, static defence, leading convoys, and even larger roles.

Around 1977, an American named  Maj. Darrel Winkler was given command of of the Rhodesian Armoured Corps. In reality merely a regiment with four squadrons. The unit was composed of  400 White and Black soldiers. Winkler a Vet of 3 tours in the Republic of Vietnam and more service in Germany resigned from the US Army as a armor officer because in his words "I was embittered by our desertion of the South Vietnamese." With their black jumpsuits, berets, sunglasses and constant racing around they were named "Black Devils" by the Marxist radio.

In October of 1979, the Rhodesians received a gift from their allies in South Africa. The Lybians by way of the French ship “Astor” had decided to give Amin a squadron of 10 Polish T-55/54s tanks to help him in his war with Tanazania. This small number of tanks against the lightly armed Swahili infantry could've been devistating. The ship docked at Mombasa, Kenya the day Amin's regime collapsed. Still feeling in the giving mood, the Lybians sent the tanks to Angola. On the way however the ship stopped off in Durban, South Africa. This proved to be a large mistake; South Africa was at war with the MPLA "governement" of Angola and seized the ship.  The SADF kept two Tanks for "evaluation" and gave the rest to the Rhodesians along with SADF personnel to train the Rhodesians. Capitalizing on the new tank "E" Squadron, Rhodesians were paraded them around in transporters attempting to show they now had large numbers of tanks in their arsenal. The new tank units saw brief service before the war ended, them like all other Rhodesians AFVs they were put into the service Zimbabwe.

Other vehicles: . Out of necessity they ended up using a large supply of "Gun trucks" with 4X4,  a few Machine guns and water-filled tire.

Source: Various issues of Soldier of Fortune. The Military Balance 1977, 1978, 1979, War in Peace, Armed Forces of the World, Armed Forces and Modern Counter-insurgency, Those Were the Days
 
 

Mine-Protected Vehicles of Rhodesia are not part of  RhACR:
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6138/acar_mod.html
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

Nation:	United Kingdom
Performance :	49.69 mph
Aramament	O.30 MM MG or Anti-tank missile
Dimensions:	Lt 13ft 8in, Wt 7ft, 1in, Ht 7ft 11in
Crew:	2-3
Wieght:	11880lbs loaded
Fording:	2.96 MPH
Type:	Light Recon Vehicle
Range:	186 miles
Armour:	??????????????