A SHIELD THAT STRIKES BACK

Attack is sometimes the best form of defence.

Unlike a tank's passive protection (such as armour plating) that protects soldiers by deflecting or absorbing the blast from missiles, the Trophy APS shoots back.

Developed by Israel's Rafael Advanced Defence Systems, Trophy APS is a situational awareness protection system for tanks and other armoured vehicles. It uses four radars — strategically outfitted around the tank for 360-degree coverage — to scan for threats from all directions.

When an incoming projectile is detected, the smart system makes sense of the data within seconds. It decides if the threat is real (and not, for example, a flying bird); determines whether the enemy fire will hit the vehicle; and if so, activates a countermeasure blast to take it down.

It can even guard against attacks from a high elevation, such as a missile fired from a helicopter.

Trophy APS is designed to have a small kill zone by shooting small projectiles aimed at a specific point on the incoming warhead. According to Rafael, this means that the risk of collateral damage to a nearby trooper or civilian is less than one percent.

Known as the “Windbreaker”, Trophy APS is relatively lightweight, adding just 820kg to a 70-ton tank. This allows the tank to fend off an anti-tank guided missile without compromising its mobility. To defend against a similar threat using traditional armour, the tank would need to be fitted with many more tons of steel which would weigh down the vehicle and slow it down.

The system has been operationally deployed on the Israel Defence Forces' (IDF's) Merkava MK4 tanks since 2009. It chalked its first operational “kill” in March 2011 at the Gaza border — where a Trophy APS-fitted Merkava destroyed a rocket-propelled grenade fired from a short range at it, with no damage to the tank or its crew.

This February, the United States (US) Department of Defence announced that its Army will equip 261 of its M1 Abrams tanks with the Trophy system. The wide rollout comes after the US' two years of tests of such protective systems for its main battle tanks.