Having identified a range of methods for balancing the tank’s turret when installed, the Army will outfit a brigade’s worth of M1A2 Abrams with guided missile shields by 2020.

After about a year of installation and characterization of active protection systems (APS) on Abrams, the Army has decided the system provides sufficient capability to procure a limited number of systems to fulfill an urgent need to counter Russian guided missiles in Europe.

During rigorous testing against inert and live threats fired at an actual Abrams, Trophy “exceeded our expectations,” Col. Glenn Dean said during a press conference Oct. 9 at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual expo in Washington, D.C.

U.S. Soldiers, assigned to the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, secure their Battalion headquarters in a M1 Abrams Tank, during Decisive Action Rotation 17-04 at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, Calif., Feb 19, 2017. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. JD Sacharok, Operations Group, National Training Center)
U.S. Soldiers, assigned to the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, secure their Battalion headquarters in a M1 Abrams Tank, during Decisive Action Rotation 17-04 at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, Calif., Feb 19, 2017. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. JD Sacharok, Operations Group, National Training Center)

“Unlike prior APS tests where most of the ones you see are at a contractor test range, this was not a test rig,” Dean said. “This wasn’t a flyby shot. We’re shooting actual threats at actual units. I’m happy to say I tried to kill an Abrams tank about 48 times and failed.”

The decision to field Trophy on Abrams was all but a foregone conclusion until the Army Requirements Oversight Council hit the brakes in September because the system threw the turret off balance. Trophy consists of two modules — containing the sensors and countermeasures — mounted on either side of the Abrams turret.

“It turns out that when you add the Trophy to the vehicle, you add weight to the tank – not really a big deal from a weight perspective, but it did impact the balance of the turret,” Dean said. “There were some concerns that the shift in turret balance impacts utilization of the turret and impact our ability to engage targets.”

“We’re still optimizing the final configuration of the solution,” Dean added. “We came up with a range of solutions in terms of evaluating that, all of which we will pursue. Is that something we can deploy ahead of APS? In my view, certainly that’s possible.”

Maj. Gen. David Bassett, program executive officer for Ground Combat Systems, said a range of potential rebalancing solutions is available, though he has not settled on how exactly the issue will be corrected.

“The decision we got reflected confidence that we will get to a configuration that is acceptable,” Bassett said. “We showed a range of potential solutions in terms of weight balance. You can add weight on or take something off or maybe shift things around a little bit, but the turret already is kind of heavy. It’s not the heaviest turret we’ve every tested.”

A long-term solution could be to replace or upgrade the turret drive or gyroscopic mechanism, Bassett said.

“We’re confident even without that that we will get an acceptable configuration,” Bassett said.  

With a potential fix in the offing, focus shifts to producing and integrating Trophy systems on tanks headed to Europe. Dean hopes to have the entire brigade — 87 tanks — outfitted by 2020. With funding available, the only limitation is how fast industry can produce the systems.

General Dynamics Land Systems on Sept. 28 was awarded a $9.9 million contract to begin procurement and integration of the Trophy active protection system on a brigade set of Abrams destined for Europe. That contract is for designing and building physical mounting kits for Trophy, which is made by Israeli firm Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and distributed in the U.S. by Leonardo DRS.

Although the Army has approved funding to procure the brigade set of Trophy, it has not let a contract to DRS for the systems. Dean said he is prepared to field the systems as fast as DRS and Rafael can produce them.

“Right now, my critical path to deliver capability is production,” Dean said. “The sooner I can have production systems in hand, the sooner I can get them to the field.”

Mike O’Leary, director of survivability and lethality for DRS Land Systems, would not say at what rate Rafael is producing Trophy, but said meeting the Army’s 2020 deadline would not be a problem. Though DRS would like to increase delivery rates to the Army, it must negotiate with Rafael for systems coming off a production line running at near-capacity to fill Israeli Defense Forces requirements.

“I will tell you 2020 is not a limitation, but [Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley] wants them tomorrow,” Leary told Defense Daily at AUSA. “So somewhere between tomorrow and 2020 is where we’ve got to hit. … We have already provided them with formal information about what we can do with all of the natural, standard acceleration things – what if you doubled shifts – those standards kinds of metrics for increasing production.”

DRS likely can accelerate production by a month or two, but to go any faster than that would require major investment by Rafael. With only a brigade on order from the U.S. Army with no guarantee of future orders, the Israeli firm is unlikely to make significant investment to expand production capacity.

“Rafael has a production line that is 100 percent dedicated to IDF and [Israeli Ministry of Defense] requirements,” O’Leary said. “All that production is spoken for, so there is a percentage of capacity on the production line that is already spoken for. Could you double, triple production? Sure. But are you going to do that for a set amount and then cut it all off?”

The Israelis could be convinced to divert some of its production to the U.S. program, but that must occur above the program office level. A U.S. Army decision to equip another two brigades, which may or may not come before the first brigade is outfitted with Trophy, could entice Rafael to speed production, O’Leary said.

“You can go faster for three [brigades] for less money than you could for the one [brigade],” he said.