Elbit Systems Ltd. announced that it was awarded a contract worth $109 million to supply BAE Systems Hägglunds (BSH) the Iron Fist Active Protection System (APS) for its CV90 platform, for a European customer. The contract will be carried out over three years. 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 Iron Fist APS is characterized by low volume, weight and power requirements.
Yehuda (Udi) Vered, General Manager of Elbit Systems Land: “Recent conflicts have shown that armored fighting vehicles and tanks face an increased danger to forces on the battlefield. the Iron Fist has been proven to be effective against a range of threats including kinetic energy rounds and drones, neutralizing them far from troops inside combat fighting vehicles.”
The Iron Fist Active Protection System (APS) provides armored platforms with 360-degree protection from a wide variety of anti-armor threats, such as rocket-propelled grenades (RPG) and up to KE tank rounds in both open terrain and urban environments. The APS sensor combines the dual technologies of search-and-track radar and infra-red cameras with data fusion algorithms, allowing for the rapid, reliable and accurate threat detection, identification and tracking. The system destroys threats by launching an explosive charge toward the incoming threat’s vicinity and exploding it to create a shock wave that breaks apart or deflects the threat at a safe distance from the protected platform.
The Combat Vehicle 90 (CV90, Stridsfordon 90) is a family of Swedish tracked armoured combat vehicles designed by the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (Försvarets materielverk, FMV), Hägglunds and Bofors during the mid-1980s to early 1990s, before entering service in Sweden in the mid-1990s. In December 2016, BAE Systems received a contract from the Netherlands to test the Israel Military Industries (IMI) Iron Fist active protection system on their CV9035 vehicles. Iron Fist employs a multi-sensor early warning system using both infrared and radar sensors to deploy soft- and hard-kill countermeasures against anti-tank rockets and missiles.
