Israel equips its tanks with anti-missile systems

After three years of going back and forth over the issue, Israel has decided to equip its most modern tanks, the Merkava IVs, with an anti-missile system. The reason: three years ago, twenty-two Israeli Merkava tanks were damaged by Russian Kornet anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM) in southern Lebanon during the July-August 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. Strategy Page reports that even before the end of the 2006 war, it was determined that most of the missile hits could have been averted if the tanks had been equipped with available anti-missile systems. Because of this, army armor commanders have been fighting, for over two years, to get the money to equip at least some of their Merkavas with the Trophy APS (Active Protection System).

Trophy consists of a radar to detect incoming missiles, and small rockets to rush out and disable the incoming threat. A complete trophy system weighs a ton. Russia pioneered the development of these anti-missile systems. The first one, the Drozd, entered active service in 1983, mainly for defense against American ATGMs. These the Russians feared a great deal, as American troops had a lot of them, and the Russians knew these missiles (like TOW) worked. Russia went on to improve their anti-missile systems, but was never able to export many of them. This was largely because these systems were expensive (over $100,000 per vehicle), no one had much trust in Russian hi-tech, and new tanks, like the American M-1, were seen as a bigger threat than ATGMs.

The Israeli Trophy uses better, more reliable, and more expensive technology than the Russian Drozd (or its successors.) For about $350,000 per system, Trophy will protect a vehicle from ATGMs as well as RPGs (which are much more common in combat zones). Israel is the first Western nation to have a lot of their tanks shot up by modern ATGMs, and apparently fears the situation will only get worse, as Hezbollah has apparently obtained a lot more Kornet missiles (which were mostly used against Israeli infantry, which coped by learning to maneuver differently). Israel also worries about Hamas obtaining Kornet ATGMs.

Israel first encountered ATGM, on a large scale, in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. These were the clumsy, first generation ATGMs. The latest ATGM, like Kornet, are more deadly, but not by a whole lot. Nevertheless, Israel is getting ready.

Israel, by the way, tried to sell Trophy to the United States, but so far without success.