At the joint NATO exercises Saber Strike-18, which began in June, the first US Army M1A2SEPv2 Abrams tanks equipped with the Israeli Trophy active protection complex (KAZ) (for the Israeli Armed Forces - Meil Ruach, that is "Windbreaker").
These are the first combat vehicles of the American army equipped with this KAZ, they belong to the 1st armored brigade of the 1st cavalry division, which changed another armored brigade for 9 months. This brigade is now spread over 8 European countries, portraying "the forces of restraining Russian aggression", and became the first to be equipped with KAZ.
The first military M1A2SEPv2 equipped with KAZ "Trophy" in Europe during exercises. The complex, judging by the "blue", with educational elements
KAZ "Trophy" began to be installed on Israeli tanks "Merkava-4" shortly after the disastrous second Lebanese war for Israel in 2006, which is also the 34-day war. In Israel, it is sometimes even asserted that the Merkava-4M is the world's first serial tank with a KAZ, although the first was the Soviet T-55AD in 1983 with the KAZ Drozd, which were produced at least comparable to the number of tanks with Meil Ruachom has been made over the years for Israel. Only now the T-55AD series was produced in such a number at once, not in 10 years. Well, this is an everyday matter - to boast of their achievements as the first in the world, "forgetting" that they have long been in one distant and backward northern country, where men in triplets and with balalaikas drink vodka with bears, basking in a rusty nuclear reactor. It's just that this country is not on the same planet, apparently, as the "blessed" Western world.
Complexes of active protection in the USSR began to be dealt with even when no one in the West thought about them: in the 50s, when the colossal experience of the victorious army in the most terrible (so far) war began to actively convert into new solutions, the search for new ways development, including in armored vehicles. New layout schemes, various types of automatic machines and loading mechanisms (it is difficult to find a scheme that has not been tested even at the level of preliminary design or preliminary study at that time), spaced-apart, combined booking schemes, explosive reactive armor, various weapons options - missile, rocket-cannon tanks, etc. … And KAZ schemes, almost any, were worked out exactly then - in the 50-60s, and later, in the 70-80s. By the way, not only in our country the 50s became a period of explosive development of technical thought and also thanks to the terrible last war, then our main enemy carried out a lot of work in the field of the prospects for armored vehicles. And he even had a chance to be the first to introduce a number of innovations like combined armor, but their work then remained at the experimental stage, and we had tanks of our second post-war generation equipped with combined armor.
Until the early 80s, there was little threat to these tanks, therefore, both DZ and KAZ began to be introduced into the series only when it was required in order to qualitatively enhance the security of the vehicles. In the early 80s, first the 1st generation DZ appeared, the hinged "Contact", then the built-in "Contact-5", and the first serial KAZ "Drozd" appeared. But the introduction of "Drozdov" on some other tanks, except for the T-55AD, was not carried out, and the introduction of the "Arena" KAZ was prevented by the collapse of the USSR and the "saints" of the 90s. Then, through our Ukrainian "non-brothers", the modernized "Drozd" "leaked" to the USA, which immediately put an end to the development of the complex.
But the development of KAZ in the Russian Federation did not stop, and by the time the tank about. 195 (T-95), a new generation KAZ Shtandart was already created for it. It was planned to introduce this KAZ as part of the Burlak theme - the Omsk program for modernizing tanks of the previous generation by installing a unified fighting compartment and a number of other measures. Ultimately, "Shtandart" expanded and changed, becoming an all-aspect and practically "all-threatening" complex "Afganit" (however, it was originally created as such), which allows you to protect the "boxes" from both BOPS and ATGMs, including high-speed promising, both from BCS, and from threats in the upper projection - KOBE (cumulative fragmentation cluster warheads delivered by shells and missiles of MLRS and aerial bombs), SPBE and SNBE (self-aiming / homing warheads of ammunition of cannon and rocket artillery and airborne artillery, OTR,), being also combined with the curtain setting system. Now this is the only KAZ that reliably, and not in words, or under very specific conditions, strikes tank BOPS.
"Afghanit" is installed on vehicles created on the basis of heavy platforms "Armata" and medium "Boomerang" and "Kurganets-25", namely on the battlefield vehicles based on these platforms, now it is the T-14 tank, TBMP T-15, BMP B-11 and K-17. Other machines are only equipped with a curtain system. But this is more or less clear with the new generation. The complex is ready, passed the whole complex of tests, it can be produced. But no one will put it on old equipment - it is not cheap even at the level of KAZ, which are all very expensive. Meanwhile, the issue of equipping KAZ and modernized tanks of the previous generation is ripe. Including on the basis of the active use of ATGMs in Syria, such a conclusion can be drawn.
The Americans, who "rolled cotton wool" (or, if you prefer, rolled a ball in the Spanish style) for more than 20 years on the topic of KAZ, testing and rejecting various crafts and products in this area, both their own industry and others, suddenly decided that without KAZ on the tanks, the Russian tanks rushing into the Baltic States cannot be stopped in any way. After all, they are eager to go there, you simply do not know anything, only non-brotherly "avatars" are holding them back in Donbas with all their might, otherwise the Russians would have taken Vilnius long ago! Rather, it is true, they decided that, since they are allocating additional funding, then it needs to be mastered as soon as possible. Well, to put it mildly, the unconvincing results of the Abrams in Yemen (M1A2S) and Iraq (M1A1M) also prompted this. Although in comparison with the catastrophic results of the Leopard-2A4 in Syria, the Abrams proved to be a very tenacious and successful tank. Of the Western ones, he is definitely the most successful.
The Americans first decided to test equip Trophy for their tanks up to an armored brigade (87 tanks) with a deadline until spring 2019, until the KAZ developments of American firms are completed. Then, obviously realizing that numerous American developments in this area will successfully destroy only budget funds flying up to them for a long time to come, they signed a contract for 3 more brigade sets, and then they plan to equip all 10 armored brigades of the US Army with this complex. The US Army has 10 brtbr, not so long ago there were 15 of them, then there were 12, 11, 10, 9, and recently one of the brigades, just shortly before that reorganized into the infantry "Stryker", was reformed back, showing that the army's trademark idiocy is international … The equipment of the 3 NG armored personnel carriers and the rather few M1A1 KMP tanks has not been announced and, most likely, not yet planned.
In fact, having chosen "Trophy", they decided that it is better at least somehow tested in battles tit in the hands than the promise of miracles on the horizon. The pace taken for re-equipment is respectful, I must say. And not only respect - questions also arise. Where are they in such a hurry? It is unlikely to fight with the Russian Federation, judging by their own documents, the maximum that they are ready to afford is a hybrid proxy war, probably with some involvement of their own units in the style of "ichtamnet" or more openly. Perhaps they are just mastering financing while they are giving it.
Equipping Trophy tanks, and then the planned partial equipping of them with the Bradley BMP and the Stryker armored personnel carrier, will undoubtedly force the RF Armed Forces to respond. "Trophy", of course, is not an all-round KAZ "Afganit" on T-14 and TBMP T-15 Armata tanks and BMP B-11 "Kurganets" and K-17 "Boomerang", capable of intercepting even sub-caliber shells and high-speed ATGM, reflect threats from above and generally capable of performing miracles. It reflects only low-speed ATGMs and RPGs, although the Israeli developers are generous with promises to cover the upper hemisphere and achieve protection from BOPS, but they will not even have to wait three years for what they promised, but much more.
But in order to "pierce" it with such a weapon, you need to make a pair launch from one direction, or have, say, the RPG-30 "Hook" grenade launcher, which was created long ago against such a KAZ and created. But the troops need to be trained in this, and such work is being carried out. But it is also important that not only promising armored vehicles be equipped with KAZ in our army, but also vehicles of the previous generation, such as the T-72B3 / T-72B3 with UBH, T-80BVM or T-90M. And we have such a "simpler" KAZ - "Arena-M" in the internal version, and "Arena-E" for export. We have worked out the issues of installing it on tanks, the Arena-M complex underwent preliminary tests 2 years ago. All that is required is an appropriate decision and funding from the RF Ministry of Defense and an appropriate set of tests, including state ones, as part of protected armored vehicles. The Arena-M takes into account the comments to the old version of the Arena KAZ, in particular, the fact that the placement of the complex on the tank makes it difficult to equip the tower of the DZ tank (or makes it impossible), or that the antenna unit of the KAZ is very large and therefore visible and vulnerable. True, the number of protective elements has been significantly reduced.
"Arena-M" does not seem to provide protection for the upper hemisphere and protects the tank only from grenades and ATGMs and BCS, but this is a lot. KAZ is installed in bulletproof compartments outside the turret of the tank and operates in automatic mode, providing double protection in each direction of attack. The system carries out radar tracking and destruction of flying targets. The principle of operation of the complex lies in the defeat of the PTS with a directed stream of heavy fragments when a detonated striking element is detonated when approaching a tank at ranges from 20 to 50 m. "Arena-M" (and "E") operates in automatic mode and provides protection in sectors in azimuth up to 360 degrees and sectors in elevation from minus 6 to 20 degrees. For the first time, a mock-up of a tank with a model of a new KAZ was presented to the public back in 2012, and later the KAZ was demonstrated on the tank as well.
"Arena-E" in a new configuration on the modernized T-72 tank
The American hasty campaign to equip the KAZ will surely move the issue of equipping the Arena-M off the ground. However, the situation cannot be called a "dead point" - the command of the Ground Forces of the RF Armed Forces was interested in equipping the KAZ of the above tanks (and, probably, the BMP-3M too, although equipping light and medium armored vehicles with KAZ is a topic for a separate conversation) and earlier. Thus, the Design Bureau of Mechanical Engineering (KBM), the developer of Arena-M, was visited by the Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces, Colonel-General Salyukov, incl. on this issue, and more than once, and long before the Americans announced their decisions. The Syrian experience of operating the T-90 / T-90A and T-72B3, which is generally very positive, or the experience of fighting in the Donbas in 2014-2015, probably contributed to this. But just like that, no one will equip tanks from the bay, it is important to comply with all the requirements. The Americans nevertheless hurried and got a very strange looking design, which will clearly cause trouble in operation.
We will not be in such a hurry, although, obviously, the situation forces us to act more actively. So, it is very likely that we should expect a year so after two new modifications of the T-90M, T-80BVM and T-72B3 with UBH (or B4 / B5, etc.), with the "Arena-M" installed.
