Futuristic anti-missile tank shield changes warfare

The Israeli “Trophy” tank defense system could prove to be a game-changing device should the U.S. acquire it for armoured vehicles it now has deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The final touches are being applied to a miniature anti-missile system designed and built by Israel-based RAFAEL in cooperation with IAI/Elta defense industries, which would further bolster Israel’s response to aggression on the part of Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon. John Pike of Global Security, a military information website, has said that the future of the U.S. Army may ride on whether the system can be made to work. RAFAEL has entered into an agreement with U.S.-based General Dynamics to market the system to the U.S. military. It is not effective for naval vessels, however, nor in soft vehicles such as the U.S. Army’s Humvee four-wheel drive vehicle. Russia is also working on a similar weapons system.

While the U.S.-based Raytheon defense contractor is still working on its similar “Quick Kill” system, RAFAEL’s Trophy is more mature and now deployed in the field. It is believed to be the first of so-called active defense systems to become operational. Heralded as being similar to the “force-field” familiar to fans of science fiction, Trophy would neutralize weapons such as rocket propelled grenades (RPGs), and other projectiles fired at tanks and lightly armored vehicles. Tanks such as the American-made Abrams M1A2 and the Israeli Merkava 4 have long relied on increasingly thicker layers of armour or “reactive” technology that weakens or frustrates the impact of rockets and other projectiles by setting off an explosion.

Propelled by battlefield experience where tank crews were killed and dozens of Israeli tanks were stopped by anti-tank rockets during the 2006 war against Hezbollah, Trophy’s developers devised a system that can apparently stop any anti-tank rocket that Iranian-backed terrorists can muster. For irregular forces, such as Afghanistan’s Taliban, and Iraq’s various armed groups, RPGs have been an essential weapon against conventional forces. In 1993, RPGs brought down a Black Hawk helicopter, precipitating a firefight between U.S. ground forces and Somali warlords that was the most furious combat since the Vietnam War for the U.S. This was recounted in Hollywood’s “Black Hawk Down” film.

At its proving grounds in northern Israel, Rafael's testers have fired RPGs, Sager rockets, TOW and Cornet missiles at tanks equipped with the Trophy system to great success. The Trophy system is lodged behind small rectangular plates on both sides of the tank and uses radar to detect the incoming projectiles and fires a small charge – similar to a shotgun blast - to intercept them. In videos, RPGs and missiles approaching tanks equipped with the system appear to explode and that fragment into nearly harmless pieces. Even should the explosive charge on the incoming missiles actually detonate, the harm to nearby unprotected troops would be minimal, promises RAFAEL.

After firing, the system quickly and automatically reloads. It even holds fire should the rocket is going to miss the tank, and causes such a small explosion that the chances of unintentionally hurting friendly soldiers through collateral damage is only 1 percent, the company says. Use of the Trophy system should allow reducing the weight of armour used on tanks, promises RAFAEL, even while it would not protect tanks from landmines or improvised explosive devices that have been used to lethal effect by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan against allied forces. The cost of the system has been said to be approximately $200,000 per vehicle. An undetermined number of Israeli Merkava battle tanks have now been retrofitted with the system.

The Trophy is the latest in a series of new systems. State-owned Israel Military Industries is producing "Iron Fist," an anti-missile defense that is expected to be installed on Israeli armored personnel carriers, known as “Namer”, in 2010. Iron Fist takes a different approach than Trophy in that it uses jamming technology that can make an offending missile veer off course or create shock-wave to detonate it. Rafael is also developing "Iron Dome," which can shoot down the short-range Katyusha rockets that rained down on Israel in 2006, as well as Hamas rockets fired from the Gaza Strip. Rafael has also developed an unmanned naval vessel, the “Protector,” which is reportedly now prowling the waters off Gaza.

General Dynamics plans to introduce the Trophy system with every new and existing combat vehicle it produces, including the Stryker wheeled vehicles and the Abrams tank. It was first tested for the U.S. in Virginia in 2006. General Dynamics, as well as Israel’s defense industry, has been innovative in numerous weapons systems including armed unmanned aerial vehicles such as the Global Hawk.