Trophy Active Protection Systems Initial Deliveries for U.S. Army M1 Abrams Completed
Leonardo DRS and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems have completed delivery of Trophy Active Protection Systems (APS) for installation on U.S. Army M1 Abrams main battle tanks. According to the two companies, this marks a major milestone in the Army’s efforts to outfit multiple brigades of tanks with APS to protect against increasing anti-armor threats.
Trophy is the only fully integrated, combat-proven APS in service at the moment. Developed by Rafael in response to improvements in anti-armor weapons and their proliferation, Trophy APS is combat-proven and provides protection against rockets and missiles while simultaneously locating and reporting the origin of the hostile fire for immediate response.
In addition to the U.S. Abrams tanks, Trophy is currently installed on the Israel Defense Forces’ Merkava Main Battle Tanks and Namer APCs. It has reportedly 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.
Initial contracts were awarded in September 2019, for both the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, with 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.
Speaking of the completion of the orders Aaron Hankins, senior vice president and general manager of the Leonardo DRS Land Systems, said: “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.”
In additions to these initial Trophy system deliveries to the U.S. Army, the partnership is also under contract for additional support and development work for future U.S. Abrams tanks. The U.S. Army is also assessing the next generation “Trophy VPS,” a smaller, lighter, equally-capable variant of Trophy that will provide protection to a broader range of U.S. ground combat vehicles.