Leonardo DRS Inc. and partner Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. of Israel announced that they have successfully completed a lengthy live-fire qualification process for key elements of the lighter weight TROPHY Vehicle Protection System (VPS).
Leveraging material and component upgrades, as well as lessons learned over 21+ years of development, TROPHY VPS achieves up to 40 percent weight reduction and improved power management, depending on how it is integrated on a platform. The updated system retains its proven ability to protect against the full range of direct fire, anti-armor rocket and missile threats, with performance equal to TROPHY systems currently in the field.
“Leonardo DRS and our Rafael partner have listened closely to our customers and these achievements represent our continuing investment in meeting their needs,” said Aaron Hankins, vice president and general manager of the DRS Land Systems division. “We are leaning forward to bring added capabilities to TROPHY for the Army’s VPS program.”
Conducted at an official test range in Israel, the recent round of testing was monitored by subject matter experts and program officials from the U.S., NATO and other allied nations. It included over 250 live scenarios challenging key aspects of the system’s upgraded hard-kill defeat mechanism, bringing the total number of live tests of TROPHY to over 4000 since the start of the program. Threat defeat performance was in excess of 95 percent and demonstrated TROPHY’s automatic networked Fire Source Location ability. Integrated on a Bradley Fighting Vehicle for this test campaign to highlight its immediate relevance for that platform, TROPHY VPS will next be demonstrated in the U.S. on the Stryker platform at the request of the Stryker program office. Meanwhile, DRS and Rafael are continuing a parallel effort to bring about TROPHY’s compliance with the US Modular APS standard.
“Rafael is encouraged by the extensive presence of U.S. and international visitors at the tests,” said Moshe Elazar, executive vice president and head of Rafael’s Land and Naval Division. “It shows the growing understanding that system maturity is not just a phrase. We are guaranteeing lower programmatic risk to our customers by leveraging proven performance and broad integration experience on main battle tanks, IFVs, 8 x 8s and other platforms.”