That July a South African military delegation headed by Minister of Defence Jim Fouché and Commandant-General Pieter Grobbelaar, chief of the SADF, went to France to negotiate a licensing agreement with Panhard. Furthermore, all vehicles produced under the terms of this licence could only be re-exported with written permission from the French Minister of Defence. In response to SADF inquiries concerning an AML more similar to the Saladin in terms of armament, Panhard produced the AML-90. The AML was favoured because the SADF's priorities at the time were fighting a possible counter-insurgency campaign or an unconventional bush war, the basic requirements of which were light armoured vehicles with the greatest mobility and most simplified maintenance. In the case of in-kind services, the revenue and expense should always cancel each other out within the given time period. The Elands' reliability was also somewhat called into question: nearly half the armoured cars in the squadron were rendered unserviceable at one time or another due to engine failures. http://terebinthministries.org were to acquire a fearsome combat reputation in Angola, where they earned the moniker "Red Ants" due to unorthodox but effective crew tactics and the lack of any equivalent Cuban or FAPLA vehicles. Less than two months later, Cuban general Abelardo Colomé Ibarra cited his inability to counter the Elands' superior manoeuvrability as one of the greatest tactical challenges facing the Cuban-FAPLA coalition in Angola.
A surplus of parts were manufactured for the Eland as well as the original AML series; according to General Jannie Geldenhuys, after 1979 Panhard actually fulfilled orders for older AML parts it no longer produced by sourcing them from South Africa. As the SADF had been organised along the lines of Commonwealth doctrine in general and British doctrine in particular, it wanted a vehicle capable of filling the same role as the Alvis Saladin. Although the Saladin was evaluated favourably since it shared most of its interchangeable parts with the army's Alvis Saracen armoured personnel carriers, the AML licence had already been purchased and there was an advantage to fulfilling the same requirement with another preexisting vehicle type. Bal Bhawan has also purchased One acre of land for Ashram to construct a building with modern facilities to occupy more children and to serve them with latest modern facilities available to feel any facility available outside. The effectiveness of the low-pressure 90mm gun against modern tanks was also questionable; during Operation Askari Eland-90s' high-explosive anti-tank shells rarely penetrated enemy T-54s without multiple hits.
The fleet then consisted of 369 Eland-60s and 131 Eland-90s. Twenty-two Eland-90s were flown out to UNITA's headquarters at Silva Porto in mid-October 1975, and soon clashed with FAPLA armour. During a wargaming exercise designed to simulate a foreign invasion of South West Africa, the SADF found that the Eland-90 suffered from three major disadvantages: it had no trench-crossing ability, its off-road mobility was limited due to its four wheels and high ground pressure, and the 90mm cannon was ineffective against enemy armour at long range. Although they remained relatively popular with the armoured corps, Elands were not well-regarded by the mechanised infantry due to several unsuccessful attempts to integrate them with Ratel-mounted combat teams. In 1970 the South African Army was operating 500 Elands of various marks, with another 356 on order. By 1975 the army had 1,016 Eland Mk5s and Mk6s in service. This evolved into the Eland-90 in South African service. Panhard also approved a licence for domestic production of the AML chassis in South African plants. Operated by a crew of three, each Eland was built on a small and remarkably lightweight 4X4 chassis with a height of 2.5 metres, a length of 5.12 metres, and a weight of 6 metric tons.
There was substantially more firepower in the new variant: its 90mm low-pressure rifled cannon, with a range of 1,200 metres, enabled it to knock out all but the heaviest contemporary tanks. Panhard subcontracted the project to Henschel rather than carrying out the work itself as it was anxious to avoid criticism from its potential clients in other African states. Successful people always see things working out. Bids were accepted from four local companies for the manufacture of 300 AMLs with working armament, along with another 150 turretless demonstrators; this contract was claimed by Sandock-Austral, now Land Systems OMC. While South Africa's AMLs remained externally similar to their French counterparts, up to two-thirds of their parts were of local origin by 1967, the main part of that balance being a new water cooled inline-4 cylinder petrol engine installed in the Mk5. One hundred AMLs were purchased, presumably for preliminary evaluation purposes, as well as enough turrets, engines, and other associated parts for the later assembly of another 800 in South Africa. On top of that, with the increased production and consumption, there are new waste problems to deal with as well.