LAND FORCES
Army to Receive Active Protection Systems
Photo: Army
The Army recently awarded Leonardo DRS, Inc. a contract worth $193 million to purchase Trophy active protection systems for use on Abrams tanks.
The Trophy systems were developed by Leonardo’s Israel-based partner Rafael Defense Systems Ltd. to provide protection against anti-armor rocket and missile threats. They are currently installed on approximately 1,000 Israeli ground platforms, according to a press release. The system took about 20 years to develop.
“Trophy counters all known anti-armor shaped charge threats by detecting them when they’re fired and intercepting them with a countermeasure that’s fired from the platform, and basically defeats the threat some distance away from the platform,” said Mike O’Leary, director of business development for survivability and lethality at Leonardo DRS, an Arlington, Virginia-based company.
Leonardo DRS and Rafael have been partners for about seven years, he noted.
As “we were looking for an expanded role in ground vehicle survivability … [Rafael] was looking for a U.S. partner for their advanced survivability technology, namely Trophy,” he said.
Delivery timeline schedules and other contract details are still being finalized, O’Leary said.
“We’re extremely pleased and proud that we’ve reached this point where we’ve finally been able to introduce this kind of technology to the U.S. Army” he added. “We look forward to further cooperation to expand that relationship and partnership going forward.”
Most of the pieces of the Trophy components are manufactured in the United States, according to the press release.
In December 2017, the Army issued a request for information on performance capabilities, technical data and maturity in regard to laser warning receivers, reactive armor, hostile fire detection and pre-shot detection as part of the future effort.
Rafael has provided protective systems to the Army for the past two decades, with its reactive and passive armor being installed on fighting vehicles such as Bradleys, Strykers and AAV-7 assault amphibious vehicles, according to the company.
Topics: Land Forces, Army News
The US Army acknowledges the importance of the lives of the tank crews, respectively, and adopted the Air Force’s and Navy’s philosophy of “Don’t get hit.” And really, tanks shouldn’t get hit no matter how much armor they have. The Russian MBTs have a similar protective approach with ERA, ATGM jammers, smoke, and APS.
Peter at 8:46 PMThe Trophy will be tacked onto the sides of the M1A2’s side toolboxes. I just wonder if there’s a better option, such as redesigning the entire turret with laser-warning, better armor, newer electronics, 360-degree cameras, more smoke grenade launchers, APS, more machine guns, ECM and EW jammers, UAV hatch, TUSK and ERA, more machine guns, etc. I mean even with added Trophy APS, the M1A2 SEP V4 will not achieve the parity of technology and modern features as the NATO counterparts with 360-degree color cameras and perhaps laser warning now fielding as standard. The German Leopard MCGS with 130mm gun is a good example of adding a new turret to an existing hull.