The U.S. Army and Marine Corps will jointly test a so-called "active protection" system. These tanks and other armored vehicles will be fitted with an Israeli-developed system that shoots down and jams enemy anti-tank weapons. According to U.S. Naval Institute News, this will be the first test of Trophy on American equipment.

The Army is leasing four Trophy units, enough for a platoon, and will test them on M1A2 tanks and Stryker interim armored vehicles . The services will then test Trophy on older Marine Corps M1A1 tanks. The Marines will be particularly interested in the Stryker test, as the vehicle bears a similarity to the Corps' new Amphibious Combat Vehicle 1.1 . If the experiments are successful, Trophy could become an important upgrade to protect U.S. armored vehicles from anti-tank missiles and rockets.

Trophy is considered an active protection system because it actively destroys the threat to the tank, as opposed to a passive protection system such as tank armor. Armor is heavy and makes armored vehicles less mobile. Active protection systems such as Trophy, on the other hand, consist of lightweight radars and the hard-kill countermeasure system.

Made by Israeli defense contractor Rafael, Trophy consists of three parts: a detection radar, tracking radar, and both "hard" and "soft" anti-missile countermeasures. The system establishes a 360-degree bubble-shaped detection zone around the vehicle, with a detection radar constantly searching for inbound threats. Here's a promotional video, produced by Rafael, that describes the Trophy system:

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

Once a threat is detected moving toward the tank, the tracking radar takes over and fires a shotgun-like blast of pellets to destroy the incoming missile or rocket. Intercepts occur as close at 10 meters from the tank. The "soft" kill component of Trophy consists of jammers designed to jam radio signals providing steering commands to anti-tank missiles.

Because of the need for constant alertness, Trophy is always on and fully automated. The system's first "kill" occurred in March 2011 , when it shot down a RPG-29 rocket fired by Palestinian militants. Rafael claims that several Israeli Army Merkava tanks were saved by Trophy in 2014, when Israeli forces entered the Gaza Strip and were fired upon by Hamas forces with anti-tank guided missiles.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io