The story of the Trophy Active Protection System – from when the idea was first brought up, til the massive use of it in the 2014 war.
The Merkava tank Trophy Active Protection System’s – aka APS – story started in the Yom Kippur war in 73. Egyptians successfully destroyed hundreds of Israeli tanks using Soviet ATGM’s, the Saggers, a briefcase size missile with a terrifying shrieking voice. This reality hurt the maneuverability of its armored corp, and indeed the IDF’s as a whole and killed hundreds of soldiers.
Following this horrible war, the Israelis looked for solutions, both offensive and defensive. On the defensive level, the Israeli MOD & Rafael developed the worlds first Explosive reactive armor. Metal explosive tin boxes that would cover the tank like a blanket and would explode outward and destroy Missiles once they hit the tank. This ground breaking technology saved the lives of countless Israeli soldiers in the 82 Lebanon war. Eventually, it was also adopted by the US and other armies around the world until it became standard.
But
But…During that 1st Lebanon war Israel lost 2 tanks completely INTACT tanks to the Syrians, with the ERA on them. The Syrians immediately passed them on to the Soviets whom copied copied the ERA to their own tanks. But, not only copied. They researched it in depth, and developed the Kornet ATGM to able to deal with it. The Kornet is todays Russia’s lead ATGM, with a double tandem warhead. It’s a warhead which first explodes onto the ERA and the second one penetrates the tank itself once the ERA was cleared. In the cat and mouse game between the ATGM and the tank protection the ATGM was winning. The Israelis knew it, and something new, game changing, was needed to break the cycle. In 1987 the idea for the active protection systems – APS – was green lighted by the Israeli MOD.
In charge of the project at Rafael was DR “S”, whose name is classified until now. What he and the team assembled around him proposed was revolutionary –a system which will destroy incoming ATGM’s with explosive pellets. Specifically, a radar on the tank will ID the threat and then especially designed mini explosive pellets will be fired towards it and destroy it in mid air. The pellets will be fired from shotgun like mechanisms, spread around the tank, and the whole process will be automated (no “man in the loop”) in a split second. In fact, the system will also be offensive as the panned technology will ID the shooter and his location, and once ID’ed, neutralized. This was a complete break in the tank protection methodology theory
Actually, to their credit, the soviets were actually the first to develop such a system, Arena/Droze. However, it was very limited in its protection, hence not good enough)
What did people in Rafael think of Dr “S” and his ideas? Just like the iron Dome – nobody believed in it!…out of 4 levels of difficulties which Rafael management and corporate categorizes difficulty – this was 4. In other words, almost impossible! There was no methodology for designing such a system, and nobody did anything even remotely similar anywhere (again aside from the Arena which was different and simply not good enough and also almost nothing was known about it at the time cause it was still the cold war era). Nobody ever designed special explosive pellets, ever put a radar on a tank or let alone automate it. At least in the late 80’s early 90’s. It’s as if today somebody designed a special rifle meant to hit and take down incoming bullets. In other words, pure Science fiction.
But Dr “S” was a “Crackpot” scientist which didn’t give a dam* conventional thinking. My way or the highway and anybody whom doubted this idea, was ejected from the project. Same true for the Iron dome, when the developers went against “common sense” and preheld beliefs and designed it. Frankly that is something can not only be said about Rafael, but also about all of Israels amazing arms industry and even tech industry.
Over the years there little progress was done due to low prioritizing and lack of resources. Even the resources that were available, time and time again the team had to fight repeated cutback attempts on the project. The reason is that since the late 80’s, the tank seemed less and less relevant because of Israel’s repeated involvement in asymmetrical low intensity conflicts. In the 1st and 2nd Intifada tanks were barely involved, and there was no immediate conventional threat against Israel. Hence, the tank, or its protection, looked less and less important. It wasn’t a high priority issue.
The watershed moment came in the 2nd Lebanon war in 2006 when Israel massively deployed tanks into Lebanon. A few dozens were hit and numerous penetrated resulting in, sadly, casualties. Although, and this must be said, the casualties are NOT remotely as much as Israel enemies tend to propagate.
However, even if the loses in purely military proportions were little – still the psychological effect was large. That’s especially true for a society like Israel, which places extreme value on their soldiers lives. Especially in today’s interconnected world, where news is in an instant and on dozens of platforms and every casualty is over blown as if Israel is collapsing. This unique aspect of Israel, has a direct effect on development of such systems. Why? As our readers know from our previous posts, Israel is a tiny country where everybody – sometimes literally – knows everybody and an engineer can be designing the system for his neighbor’s son. This added personal dimension has a trickle up effect in the development of such systems
In the 2006 war the priorities changed and the protection of the tank was against raised high. All the funds needed for the development and completion of the system were made available no questions asked. And now they let Dr “S” and his team go all the way with “Crazy” technology. Once it was green lighted in 2006, the engineers worked full speed ahead and also because in the south in Gaza problems were brewing and tanks would no doubt would be needed there also. Israel evolutionary need for such systems is real.
Rafaels Engineers studied the tanks performance, the ATGM’s and tactics the Hezbollah used during the war in depth. Western experts, who looked at the goals of the developer, didn’t give Rafael much of a chance for success with the project. But If budget cutbacks didn’t stop the crazy engineers, neither would foreign experts.
The team thought it could have it ready by 2008 but then technical difficulties caused delays. Rafael hauled in one of the smartest and most unconventional brains they had, a software expert, to help get over them. He looked at the system from a totally fresh angle, and the source of the difficulties was identified – and solved. Another success of the system is that when destroying the incoming threats, there is less than a 1% chance surrounding soldiers will be hit. What is the point if soldiers outside the tank are hit while defending soldiers inside??
Some military methodologies would say the survival of the tank is “more important” than the survival of infantry outside the tank. That maybe true for other countries, but not in a place like Israel, where every soldiers live matters. And also on a tactical level, it is a serious draw back cause one of the main goals of the tank is to provide cover for advancing infantry. The risk needed to be lowered to a minimum – and it did and the chance of outside infantry being hit by a destroyed ATGM was less than 1%.
All in all the system was tested more than 3000 times with the most rigorousness tests Possible. In 2010, the Trophy Active Protection System came to life and was declared operational and in 2011 was the first combat use of it. The system knocked out an RPG-29 fired from Gaza onto a tank. The system worked perfect and completely automatically. It identified the threat, issued the warning and automatically destroyed the ATGM upon impact and also identified the source of the attack. “I have goose bump until today when I think of it” says Yiftah Kleinman – today’s head of APS division in Rafael.
A Hamas video actually showing the Trophy in action
Alsoa Hamas showing a long distance shot that was intercepted
Rafaels Engineers studied the tanks performance, the ATGM’s and tactics the Hezbollah used during the war in depth. Western experts, who looked at the goals of the developer, didn’t give Rafael much of a chance for success with the project. But If budget cutbacks didn’t stop the crazy engineers, neither would foreign experts.
The team thought it could have it ready by 2008 but then technical difficulties caused delays. Rafael hauled in one of the smartest and most unconventional brains they had, a software expert, to help get over them. He looked at the system from a totally fresh angle, and the source of the difficulties was identified – and solved. Another success of the system is that when destroying the incoming threats, there is less than a 1% chance surrounding soldiers will be hit. What is the point if soldiers outside the tank are hit while defending soldiers inside??
Some military methodologies would say the survival of the tank is “more important” than the survival of infantry outside the tank. That maybe true for other countries, but not in a place like Israel, where every soldiers live matters. And also on a tactical level, it is a serious draw back cause one of the main goals of the tank is to provide cover for advancing infantry. The risk needed to be lowered to a minimum – and it did and the chance of outside infantry being hit by a destroyed ATGM was less than 1%.
All in all the system was tested more than 3000 times with the most rigorousness tests Possible. In 2010, the Trophy Active Protection System came to life and was declared operational and in 2011 was the first combat use of it. The system knocked out an RPG-29 fired from Gaza onto a tank. The system worked perfect and completely automatically. It identified the threat, issued the warning and automatically destroyed the ATGM upon impact and also identified the source of the attack. “I have goose bump until today when I think of it” says Yiftah Kleinman – today’s head of APS division in Rafael.
This is a far cry from the last 30- 40 years when the tank, albeit not becoming obsolete, seems to have lost their importance as the main player in the modern battlefield. Modern warfare seemed to be headed more and more towards asymmetrical and low intensity conflicts as those dotting the globe everywhere. The scene of 2 modern armies standing face to face and battling over territory seemed like a scene from the past. Israel, with the Trophy Active Protection System, pushed the tank back to center stage. For now at least, seems like the tank (at least for Israels tanks) again has the upper hand in the cat & mouse game between the tank and the ATGM.
In the meantime, also light versions were developed for the armored vehicles and the US army is equipping its Abrams with the system. And according to reports, at least one battalion of German army Leopards will be shielding itself with Trophy Active Protection System also. In the meantime, also a second APS system came out of Israel – the Iron Fist. Not bad for a small country to develop 2 game changing systems (But more on that system in a separate article). According to reports, the Next Generation of APS will be a hybrid of both systems and will probably also include the ability to take out kinetic energy shells (as Iron fist succeed in taking them out in tests).
And what about other Active protection systems? WE discuss it at length in this linked essay here, but so far NO country has succeeded in producing an operational system yet. Even the US shelved its own Quickill, for some reason, and apparently even the German system AMAP-ADS, isn’t “Mature enough” yet. Reports last year said its own system was operational. Turns out the reports were false, apparently, and hence now they are equipping their tanks with Trophy.
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