Feature: Indo-Pacific countries ramp up integration of active protection systems

Hanwha Aerospace's Redback IFV will be fitted with Elbit Systems' Iron Fist APS. (Hanwha Aerospace )

As the war in Ukraine approaches its fourth year, many Western armed forces and particularly those within the NATO alliance are implementing measures to better protect armoured vehicles across an increasingly complex battlespace.

As has been witnessed in Ukraine, threats to armoured vehicles, including those operating in depth, have become significantly more prevalent given the rapid pace of innovation when it comes to precision strike weapons.

Active protection systems (APSs) have emerged as a key capability to enhance the survivability of main battle tanks (MBTs), armoured personnel carriers (APCs), and infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) facing these growing precision-strike threats. These APSs employ a ‘system-of-systems' approach to defend platforms against a wide range of threats, but the capability often comes with a trade-off – limited magazine depth.

An APS typically uses electro-optical and radar sensors to detect, identify, and track threats, and employs a series of different types of kinetic and non-kinetic effectors to disrupt, destroy, or neutralise incoming munitions including anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs), rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), tank rounds, armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and loitering munitions.

Current efforts to integrate APS onto armoured platforms are not limited to NATO armed forces operating in the European theatre, where lessons have been drawn from the Russia-Ukraine conflict. In the Indo-Pacific region, militaries from a markedly different operational environment are also beginning to recognise the advantages offered by APS technologies.

A defence source told Janes that some Indo-Pacific countries have witnessed the success rates of the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF's) Trophy APS, developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, in recent operations in Gaza where it has been filmed sufficiently disrupting incoming RPG rounds, often shot at very short ranges.