Leonardo and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems have announced that they have completed the delivery of Trophy Active Protection Systems (APS) ordered by the U.S. Army for installation on Abrams main battle tanks.
This marks a major milestone in the U.S. Army’s efforts to outfit multiple brigades of tanks with APS to protect soldiers’ lives against increasing anti-armor threats.
“Under contracts awarded on an urgent need basis by the Army’s Program Executive Office for Ground Combat Systems, the companies delivered the first APS systems in September 2019 for both the U.S. Army and Marine Corps. A joint team of government and industry from both the U.S. and Israel worked together to adapt and integrate Trophy for the two services’ Abrams variants. This delivery culminates a multi-year effort by the Army to study and rapidly field active protection due to the urgency of the threat and the growing need for improved ground vehicle survivability.”
“It has been an honor to deliver these advanced defensive protection systems for our front-line tanks to give our warfighters a needed layer of survivability against real and emerging battlefield threats,” said Aaron Hankins, senior vice president and general manager of the Leonardo DRS Land Systems business unit.
“Together with our Rafael partners, we worked tirelessly to ensure we met our customers’ needs while delivering ahead of schedule, and we look forward to supporting them with APS in the future.” he said.
Developed by Rafael in response to successful anti-armor attacks and the ongoing proliferation of those threats, Trophy APS provides “combat-proven protection against rockets and missiles while simultaneously locating and reporting the origin of the hostile fire for immediate response”.
The system has made numerous combat interceptions with no injuries to crews, dismounted troops or damage to platforms since its first operational interception in 2011. Having undergone over 5,000 successful field tests, Trophy has accrued over 1,000,000 operating hours, and is now under contract for serial production of over 1,800 systems.
Should we do the same for C2, or just begin a totally new tank project?
Yes, definitely, as it will prolong the effectiveness of the Challenger, by adding what is effectively an additional layer of armour. But we should also be looking at a clean sheet design to replace it, that incorporates both an active and passive protection system as part of the core build.
If there was a preference, I’d go with the Israeli Military Industries “Iron Fist”. This was mooted as part of the BAe Black Night upgrade along with a complete sensor and optics renewal, that got superseded by events. The US Army have gone with Trophy, as it is a battle proven system and has successfully defended Merkava MBTs without loss, for the last 5 years.
Iron Fist uses a combination of passive laser warning, infra red detection and a similar active radar to Trophy. It differs in the method of killing/neutralising the incoming threat. Trophy is basically a trainable claymore mine. When it sees a threat, it will fire off a wall of tungsten cubes towards the threat, shredding anything in its path. It is relatively short ranged. Rafael Defence Systems don’t publish the effective range. After firing it will fold flat and reload another panel. It has I believe, only one reload per side.
The Iron Fist is a newer concept that uses what looks a bit like a mortar round. Instead of using fragmentation to destroy the threat, it uses a concussive blast wave to crush the threat and destroy the missile’s seeker or RPG’s fuse. Tests have shown that it literally squashed flat a RPG and Sagger anti-tank missile. Other tests have shown that it can at times deflect a kinetic sabot round from its aimed path, enough to make it glance of the armour of the target M60 MBT. The Iron Fist Interceptor has a greater range than Trophy. It can also be used offensive, where the Israeli Army have found it useful clearing buildings.
iron Fist comes in a light version where it use a pair of trainable launchers. It can also be scaled up to have six launchers, see attached pic below:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/38/89/fb/3889fb37d7554edcdbacd08b310540ec.jpg
Both systems give an independent all round azimuth defence as well as vertical defence, unlike the T90’s and T14’s Afghanit APS or other curtain APS types. The Afghanit APS needs the turret to point at the incoming threat’s direction. Thereby leaving it vulnerable to a pincer attack. It also can’t protect the tank against top attacks.
Thanks for the lovely post. I wonder if we shouldn’t just start a new project instead of fitting out C2s with an APS system? Sooner or later, we have to. Even the Leopard will eventually need to be scrapped and replaced. Might as well start a research project now.
Just read in Janes, that the Dutch are getting new turrets for their CV90s. As part of the upgrade, they will be fitted with Iron Fist APS.
Shouldn’t just be the challengers that get this, it should be all armored vehicles.
Indeed. Every armoured vehicle should. It’s light enough for sure. Maybe ships should get something similar, albeit bigger, as a last-ditch saving grace tool
A new tank project does not precludes the need for an APS..
No tank old or new tank can survive without APS. Anti tank missiles are too powerful for current armor, unless some tech breakthrough happen it will remain so.
It is basically what happened 70 years ago to ships, battleship armor could not be all around.
Goes without saying, if (and big if) the challenger upgrade goes ahead nothing like this will be fitted due to it being far too 21st century for the archaic suited monkeys in the MOD ..
British Army vehicles often have a white chevron on them….do any of you army buffs know the significance. Polite responses only please 🙂
Isn’t it so the Yankee Air Force doesn’t blow them up by mistake? The US army use them in different directions to signify which unit they belong to. If a tank didn’t have one it might be mistaken for an enemy vehicle by the USAF. Think it happened a few times in the Gulf Wars. That’s what I read anyway, could be cobblers of course.
Maybe if you guys would buy more aircraft, ect you wouldn’t always need USAF support. lol
Not every nation can afford a superpowers budget, simple dan, oh and good buy trumpski never to be seen again lol!!
*bye
Thanks for the correction jack.
The US army have them to signify which company/unit they belong to. Everyone else had to paint them on their vehicles too or they may get mis-identified as enemy vehicles by the USAF and blown up. Happened in Iraq apparently. I read all this on a blog a few years ago, might be cobblers of course.
Sorry posted a reply twice – it didn’t seem to work first time!
During the Gulf war (1991) I’m pretty sure that all US and UK vehicles had red panels issued to them , in which to try and mitigate friendly fire.
During that conflict a British Army APC, with a bloody big Union Jack on its roof, was taken out by a Maverick launched from an A10!
The red fluorescent air recognition panels were designed to be easily spotted a Union Jack isn’t, also and a big also there is a little thing called fog of war. The 2 A10s were informed that there were no friendly forces for 10km and spotted 37 armoured vehicles belonging to C company 3 RRF and Engineer support vehicles. After the Sappers had finished their task of battlefield dems, the order was given to get back on the bus and bug out, 1 Warrior exploded , followed by another. The 2 A10s had flown over the vehicles at 15000 ft and 9000ft and using Binos could spot no recognition panels. ( in the official enquiry it is was revealed that open hatches may have obscured the fluorescent panels )
In the end it was revealed that the aircraft were 20 miles off track.
But just to expand on the above here are the rest of BoB incidents from 1991 involving U.K. forces taken from Parliamentary questions in the house:
The first of these occurred shortly after 1100 local time on 26 February. An officer attached to 1 Staffords received shrapnel wounds when a Warrior vehicle was attacked by a Challenger tank of the Scots Dragoon Guards. Personnel from 1 Staffords were guarding prisoners of war when a Challenger tank from the Scots Dragoon Guards began to engage nearby Iraqi armoured vehicles, which later turned out to be abandoned. The tank mistakenly fired on the vehicles of 1 Staffords, hitting the Warrior, before moving off. Visibility at the time was reduced by a dust storm to about 400 m. All the Staffords’ vehicles were marked with the inverted V device and carried fluorescent orange panels. The four personnel in the Warrior were unharmed, but shrapnel injured an officer who had dismounted from another vehicle. Once the mistake was realised, the Scots Dragoon Guards returned to the scene and evacuated the officer to hospital.
Another incident occurred shortly before 1100 local time on 27 February. Two personnel from the Queen’s Royal Irish Hussars (QRIH) were injured when their Scorpion armoured reconnaissance vehicles were fired on by US M1 Abrams tanks. Both Scorpions were carrying the black inverted V device and visibility was good. United Kingdom and US forces had their own areas of operations and the QRIH reconnaissance section was about 2 km within its area. They had stopped to take the surrender of Iraqi troops, when one Scorpion was hit in the front by a round from a US M1 tank, firing from about 1500 m to the north. The driver escaped without injury, but a soldier walking alongside received shrapnel wounds. The other Scorpion came under tank and machine gun fire, and the soldier manning the turret-mounted machine gun also received shrapnel wounds. When the US personnel realised their mistake they assisted with the treatment of the injured British soldiers and their evacuation to hospital.
The third incident also occurred on 27 February. At about 1445 local time, two soldiers from 10 Air Defence Battery, Royal Artillery received burns when two Spartan armoured vehicles from which they had dismounted were engaged by Challenger tanks from 14/20 Hussars with thermal sights beyond the range of unaided visibility (about 1500 m). In these conditions, it was not possible to identify the inverted V device carried by the vehicles. The rearmost vehicle was hit and burst into flames. The other vehicle was also damaged in the ensuing fire. The Spartan destroyed was empty and was being towed after breaking down. The Spartans had become detached from a convoy of 7th Armoured Brigade vehicles which had been delayed in getting clear of the area because of the difficult terrain.
My point, war is a nasty business and mistakes do happen. All we can do is learn from them
It was these incidents during the first Gulf War that spurred on the development of friendly force trackers, such as Blue Force Tracker. By the second gulf War the majority of US Army vehicles had this mounted as did a good portion of ours. A lot of the support helicopters also had this fitted.
The blue force Tracker system works over a satellite network where it combines a unique user id with the GPS coordinated to let anyone fusing the system, know where you are. It can be used to send test and video messages.
The UK no longer uses Blue force Tracker, but a derivative called friendly force tracker that works through the Iridium satellite phone network.
It still hasn’t stopped Blue on Blue incidents!
In some point in the future, the expectation is that each bod on the ground gets their own friendly force tracker, along with all vehicles and aircraft.
Its like others have said it’s to identify at quick glance FF vehicles. Later on a system called blue force tracker was used, where it’s was a GPS type of system which would be visible on a computer system in the CC vehicle, able to plot where all FF were, and easily visible to all users.
In GW2 were those Gold Grids Mounted on Tanks and MBT’s Part of the System ?.
Yes Paul they were mate.
A little more information on the above story, the US only ordered 400 sets of the Trophy APS system for its tanks which is only meant to be fitted on deployable 4 armoured brigades . Its plans to fit their M2 Bradleys with the lighter Iron Fist was cut by congress last Feb
Yes, it is mostly for brigades that are to be deployed in Europe. Those more at risk they will get in a war.