On September 28, 2017, the US Army Contracting Command issued a contract to General Dynamics for almost $10 million. General Dynamics Land Systems are to outfit a single M1A2 SEPv2 Armor Brigade Combat Team with Israeli-made Trophy active protection systems (APS) by March 29, 2019. General Dynamics Land Systems are contracted only to outfit and sustain Trophy systems, with the APS costs not included in the contract.
Outfitting a single M1A2 SEPv2 Armor Brigade Combat Team with the Trophy APS means full scale Army trials for the efficiency of the APS. Depending on its performance the decision will be made whether to outfit all US Army Abrams battle tanks with Trophy systems. Nevertheless the Trophy APS is considered to be a “temporary solution” until a modular APS is developed.
The Trophy APS also known as Windbreaker is a product of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aircraft Industries’ Elta Group. Since 2010 it is installed on the Israeli Defense Force Merkava battle tanks, and on the Namer APCs since 2014. The Trophy APS currently has a EL/M-2133 four-faced distributed active electronically scanned array Pulse Doppler radar, and it intercepts and destroys incoming missiles and rockets with a shotgun-like blast from two rotating launchers installed on the sides of the vehicle. It can intercept relatively low speed anti-tank rocket propelled grenades and anti-tank missiles, and can not intercept high speed missiles and APDS shots. Like many other contemporary active protection systems, Trophy seriously restricts the infantry near the tank outfitted with the system.
In August 2016 the US Marine Corps also considered testing Trophy APS for outfitting their M1A1 Abrams battle tanks.
