Last week, the government procurement office of Germany, in cooperation with the Israel Ministry of Defense, and supported by Israeli defense company Rafael and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) completed a series of challenging live firing tests of the Trophy on the Leopard 2 tank, which was integrated into the German services after a government-to-government agreement was reached in February. The agreement was led by the Directorate of Defense Research and development (R&D) in the Ministry of Defense and Rafael. Krauss-Maffei Wegmann is the contractor to install Trophy components on the tanks in the course of an upgrade from the Leopard 2A6-A3 configuration to the Leopard 2 A7-A1 version. The 23 Trophy active protection system sets and 586 interceptors sought by Germany come with a price tag of $48 million. The Leopard 2 A7+ has been tested by the Bundeswehr under the name UrbOp (urban operations).
Dr. Ran Gozali, Executive Vice President, GM Land & Naval Division at Rafael Advanced Defense Systems: “TROPHY APS proves once again its outstanding capabilities. We are looking forward to the expansion of this successful cooperation with our partners at KMW, and are confident that this achievement will make its impact on the APS market. We at Rafael are dedicated to the success of our customers, and are ready to integrate TROPHY on any platform, anywhere.”
The German Army decided to equip its main battle tanks with the Trophy active protection system because “modern anti-tank guided missiles pose a significant threat” and already in use on Israeli and American tanks. Krauss-Maffei Wegmann is the contractor to install Trophy components on the tanks in the course of an upgrade from the Leopard 2A6-A3 configuration to the Leopard 2 A7-A1 version. The 23 Trophy active protection system sets and 586 interceptors sought by Germany come with a price tag of $48 million. The 17 operational main battle tanks plus one reference type for testing. The systems will be delivered over the next several years. KMW stands to get roughly double that for the integration work, which will leave the government with 18 main battle tank hulls no longer needed after the upgrade.
Developed by Rafael in response to successful anti-armor attacks, TROPHY APS provides mature, combat-proven protection against rocket and missile threats and simultaneously locates the origin of the hostile fire for immediate response. A small number of explosively formed projectiles destroy incoming threats before they hit the vehicle. Its principal purpose is to supplement the armour of light and heavy armored fighting vehicles. TROPHY is the only fully-integrated, combat-proven APS in the world and has been installed on Israel Defense Forces’ Merkava tanks since 2010, and has also been installed on the Namer APCs. TROPHY has also been supplied to four US Army Abrams MBT brigades, and has now recorded an overwhelmingly successful test on the German Leopard 2 Tank. Trophy has accrued over 1,000,000 operating hours, including over 5,400 successful field tests, and is now under contract for serial production of over 1,800 systems.
