The Rhodesian Pookie: Expediency Turned Excellence

A surviving Pookie on display at the South African Police Service Museum in Muizenberg, Cape Town, Western Cape. The mine-detector "wing" pans are shown in the stowed position. Photograph by Steve Barrow.

      Desperation has often proved to be catalyst for solutions to a problem. During the Rhodesian Bush War which raged for 15 long years from July 4, 1964 to December 12, 1979, the guerilla forces of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) and the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) waged a campaign of mining roads as a means of limiting or cutting off roads, isolating Rhodesian Security Force garrisons, and also as a means to instill fear in any user of roads, civilian or military, by way of casualties and deaths caused by the mines. Rhodesian Security Forces took numerous steps to try to curb the mine campaign by interdicting supply lines of the guerillas, paving roads using tar (which made burying mines more difficult), and improving mine detection methods. In time, it was seen that finding every buried mine simply wasn’t possible and so another avenue was to improve the survivability of military vehicles that struck a mine. At first, improvised methods were used and while there was an improvement in survival, it was seen that the mine’s explosion was essentially trapped beneath the flat surface of vehicles (such as trucks) which caused severe damage. From this, vehicles began to be purpose built using V-shaped bodies which dissipated the explosive force of the mine away from the vehicle. It was seen that crew/passenger survivability improved significantly and that vehicles could be repaired rather than scrapped. 

     Still, the means to detect mines continued and using the new mine resistant vehicle technology, automotive engineer Ernest Konschel designed the Pookie (named after the Galago, a nocturnal primate) mine-detection vehicle. The driver sat in an armored monocoque capsule which was connected to the frame by shear bolts and the armor was proof against small arms fire. The frame utilized the front and rear suspension units from a Type Two Volkswagen Kombi as the units exerted less downward force than conventional coil springs. For wheels, the Pookie was fitted with used Formula 1 racing tires as their width was often wider than holes used to bury mines. For power, the Pookie used a 1,600cc Volkswagen engine and carried 40 liters of fuel. On each side of the Pookie was a “wing” which contained a Milton detection pan. In all, the Pookie had a ground pressure of 3lbs. per square inch which was less than that of a human which meant it could drive over a mine (even anti-personnel mines) and not detonate it. 

     Sixty-eight Pookie vehicles were built (some sources say seventy-six) starting in 1976 and were quickly deployed and by 1980, Pookie drivers located some 550 mines without a single loss to them. Twelve vehicles were damaged from rocket fire and also command detonated mines. Only a single driver was killed when the capsule was hit by an RPG. The Pookie would later be fitted with the “Spider”, a 24-barrel, 12-guage rotary shotgun system as a means to respond to guerrilla ambushes. The driver, using a chain rip cord, could ripple fire the barrels, throwing buckshot across a 270 degree arc. So devastating was this weapon that guerillas would often let the Pookie pass (as it typically led convoys) before launching their ambush. In 1999, MineTech (a British company) built a number of vehicles which looked much like the Pookie except for using different engines and other enhancements. These were deployed by private “de-mining” contractors in Afghanistan and Somalia.