Iron Fist (Hetz Dorban) is a hard-kill active protection system (APS) designed by Israel Military Industries (now Elbit Systems Land.), with a modular design allowing adaptation to a range of platforms ranging from light utility vehicles to heavy armoured fighting vehicles. The concept was revealed by IMI in 2006 and was expected to enter Israel Defense Forces tests by mid-2007. The system has been successfully tested against a wide variety of threats including rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank guided missiles and tank-fired HEAT ammunition and kinetic energy penetrators. Recently selected by the Israeli MOD to protect the Eitan AFV and armored D9 bulldozers.
Iron Fist series of Active Protection Systems (APS) delivers high-performance protection against anti-tank threats while increasing the survivability of the platform or vehicle. TThe solutions provide interception of anti-tank threats by precise-detection technologies and capabilities to detect, identify, classify the threat, and respond to hostile fire threats in various engagement scenarios, all without endangering the operators or harming the defending platforms. he series includes a light configuration for armored fighting vehicles (AFV), infantry fighting vehicles (IFV) and logistic vehicles, and a heavier configuration for main battle tanks (MBT). The Iron Fist APS utilizes a blast interceptor to defeat the threat without initiating its warhead.
Iron Fist’s sensor suite provides unique detection, classification and hostile fire source location against all types of anti-armor threats. The system’s sensor suite uses two sensing technologies, radar and optics for quick, robust and accurate detection, and provides reliable data with a negligible number of false alarms. It automatically detects and identifies a broad range of hostile anti-tank threats including short range RPGs, recoilless rifled ammunition, and anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs), while the heavier configuration also handles tank rounds such as HEAT and KE. The sensor suite can handle simultaneous, multi-threat scenarios and provides the crew with accurate counter attack capabilities against the launching source.
The Iron Fist APS are specifically designed to accommodate the constraints of lighter platforms and can be integrated on a wide variety of combat vehicles. The Iron Fist series fully integrates with existing systems such as battle management systems (BMS), fire control systems (FCS), and Elbit Systems’ ‘see through armor’ Iron Vision technology. The APS solution does not impede or limit the range of operations of these critical systems, and effectively augments their functionality. The sensor suite enhances the platform’s situational awareness capabilities, while providing 360° day/night surveillance sight and hostile fire detection (HFD) from its sensors up to gunshot fire and small arms bursts detection.
