Posted on 06/12/2017 12:49:38 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
The US Army is considering various systems to better shield tanks and armored vehicles from RPGs, antitank missiles, and other enemy fire.
But the latest version of the RPG, a staple in the arsenals of Russia and other forces, may already be a step ahead of the active-protection systems the US may soon adopt.
The Pentagon has purchased active-protection systems to test out on Abrams tanks and Bradley and Stryker armoured vehicles, and may even mount them on lighter vehicles, like the successor to the Humvee, according to a report from Scout Warrior.
“The Army is looking at a range of domestically produced and allied international solutions from companies participating in the Army’s Modular Active Protection Systems (MAPS) program,” an Army official told Scout Warrior.
The Army intends to outfit Abrams tanks with the Israeli-made Trophy APS and Bradley vehicles with the Iron Fist system, which is also Israeli-made. It plans to put the US-made Iron Curtain system on Stryker vehicles. (The Army leased several of the Trophy systems last spring, working with the Marine Corps to test them.)
“The one that is farthest along in terms of installing it is ... Trophy on Abrams,” Lt. Gen. John Murray, the Army’s deputy chief of staff, said in a statement.
“We’re getting some pretty ... good results. It adds to the protection level of the tank.”
The US’s look to APS comes as other countries adopt the technology.
Israeli’s Merkava comes standard with the Trophy, as does Russia’s new T-14 Armata. Both Israel’s and Russia’s tanks, as well as the UK’s Challenger 2, are considered by US officials to be close to or at parity with the US’s mainstay, the Abrams tank. (Though some officials don’t consider the Armata fielded.)
As militaries have adopted active-protection systems and other means to up-armor tanks, arms makers have looked for new anti-tank weaponry to counter them. Whenever US vehicles equipped with APS join similarly outfitted vehicles in the field, they will face a new challenge from an old foe, the RPG.
Russian arms manufacturers first introduced the RPG — short for Ruchnoy Protivotankovyy Granatomet, meaning “handheld antitank grenade launcher,” not “rocket-propelled grenade” — in 1949, updating it over the decades since.
The most recent variant, the RPG-30, unveiled in 2008, has a 105 millimetre tandem high explosive anti-tank round, and features a second, smaller-caliber projectile meant to bait the active-protection systems that have become common on armoured vehicles in recent years.
A tandem HEAT round carries two explosive charges. One neutralizes a vehicle’s reactive armour (which uses explosions to counter incoming projectiles), and the other is designed to penetrate the armour of the vehicle itself.
“The novelty of the Russian rocket launcher is that two rockets are fired at the target at the same time. One is a so-called ‘agent provocateur’ 42 millimetre in calibre, followed a bit later by a primary 105-millimetre tandem warhead rocket,” Vladimir Porkhachyov, the director general of arms manufacturer NPO Bazalt, told Russian state news agency Tass of the RPG-30 in September 2015.
The RPG-30 reportedly cleared testing and went into active service with the Russian military sometime between 2012 and 2013. At that point, according to a 2015 report by Russian state-owned outlet Sputnik, the Pentagon put it on its list of “asymmetrical threats to the US armed forces.”
The effectiveness of the RPG-30 against active-protection systems, and whether those systems need be upgraded to adapt to the RPG-30 and similar munitions, remains to be seen. But the RPG — though limited by the size of its warhead — has long been potent on the battlefield, even against modern tanks.
The previous model, the RPG-29, was introduced in 1991 and is still in service with the Russian armed forces. It fires a 105 mm tandem HEAT round and can also fire a thermobaric fuel-air round against bunkers and buildings.
Russian RPG-29s were used by Hezbollah in the mid-2000s, deployed against Israeli tanks and personnel during the 2006 Lebanon War.
According to a Haaretz report from the time, Hezbollah anti-tank teams using RPG-29s managed on some occasions to get through the armour of Israel’s advanced Merkava tanks.
In other cases, Hezbollah fighters used the RPG-29 to fire on buildings containing Israeli troops, penetrating the walls.
“The majority of Israel Defence Forces ground troops casualties, both infantry and armoured, were the result of special anti-tank units of Hezbollah,” which used other anti-tank missiles as well, according to the Haaretz report, published in the final days of the conflict and citing intelligence sources.
Those RPG-29s were reportedly supplied to Hezbollah by the Syrian military, which got them from Russia.
Moscow disputed those origins, however, with some suggesting they were exported from former Communist bloc countries after the fall of the Soviet Union. In August 2006, a RPG-29 was used successfully against a British Challenger 2 tank in southern Iraq.
During operations in Al Amarah, an RPG-29 rocket defeated the reactive armour installed on the Challenger, penetrating the driver’s cabin and blowing off half of one soldier’s foot and wounding several other troops.
UK military officials were accused of a cover-up in 2007, after it emerged that they hadn’t reported the August 2006 incident.
Two years later, during fighting in Baghdad’s Sadr City — a Shiite neighbourhood in the Iraqi capital — a US M1 Abrams tank was damaged by an RPG-29. (The US has long avoided reactive armour systems but accepted them in recent years as a cheap, easy way to up-armour vulnerable parts of the Abrams, particularly against RPGs.)
During fighting in Iraq, RPG-29s penetrated the armour on the Abrams tanks twice and the Challenger once, according to The National Interest. Other Abrams tanks in Iraq were knocked out by anti-tank missiles, like the Russian-made AT-14 Kornet.
The threat goes beyond tanks. Seven of eight US Army helicopters shot down in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2009 were brought down by RPGs.
RPGs remain in service around the world, filling the arsenals of both state and non-state actors, according to the Small Arms Survey. The weapon and parts for it have popped in arms bazaars in Libya in recent years.
The RPG-7, the RPG-29’s predecessor, would be or would likely be used by forces in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, as well as Central, South, and East Asia.
Regular and irregular forces in Latin America also have RPGs, and the weapons have made their way into the hands of criminal groups in the region. The Jalisco New Generation cartel reportedly used one to down a Mexican military helicopter in early 2015.
I laughed and shook my head at the sheer stupidity of what they were selling as anyone with a little sense knows it's better to stop an incoming threat far away vs literally under your nose!
The PENTAGON should just buy everything that Israel makes for their army and dump the jokers they have developing for them. Just remember that old classic movie "The Pentagon wars" which is a comedy of the history of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle .
>I remember watching a video about a earlier version of America’s version of Trophy and how it created a blast curtain 1 inch from the door and they touted how the blast will deflect the incoming missile “safely to the ground”.
>I laughed and shook my head at the sheer stupidity of what they were selling as anyone with a little sense knows it’s better to stop an incoming threat far away vs literally under your nose!
Considering that the anti-tank payload of an RPG is an pencil shaped jet of copper then splattering it towards the ground at 1 inch away should render it just as useless as it would at 20 feet as long as it disrupts the shape of the copper.
Would a minature verson of what I think the Navy calls a CWIS, that looks like R2D2 work for this or would it be too heavy?
Wouldn’t that be like hitting a bullet with a bullet?
That barrier was intended for HMMWVs and would not stop a modern tandem-warhead antitank RPG or missile. It’s Textron’s TRAPS system; TRAPS cannot defeat ATGMs, longrod KEPs or EFPs.
http://below-the-turret-ring.blogspot.com/2017/01/hardkill-aps-overview.html
No multi-hit capability and all it can defend against is simple RPGs - like the 7 through 16. Nobody’s adopted it.
Too big, too heavy, too inflexible (has too *much* range). Check the link on my post above for a summary of most existing APS systems.
Both the Israelis and Russians have gotten it to work on their tanks. Their latest systems can actually in some cases take down a full-house tank main gun APFSDS long rod penetrator.
We’re about 10-15 years behind. And still waiting for the Pentagon to actually buy something that’s not vaporware.
I was just mocking the boilerplate criticism of missile defense.
Unfortunately, it’s a considerably more valid criticism of tank active protection systems. They’re literally attempting to hit 120mm bullets with other sorts of bullets in some cases - though most don’t try, they’re just trying to stop RPG, ATGM and EFP threats. Only recently have there been significant successes in knocking down 120mm main gun rounds with APS gear.
A big limitation to fielding APS at least on the US side has been the threat it poses to dismounted troops around the tank.
some countries are extremely sensitive to that, others less so.
DRPA build some kind of blast curtain for humvees.
You’re right about just buying it from the Israelis. They seem to do a lot of defense things better, faster and cheaper than the money grubbing defense industry and the inept pentagon procurement system. Crooked and dumb. You can’t find a more disastrous combination.
The new RPG may be able to fool active measures, but I don’t know that its HEAT warhead can penetrate the DU reinforced Chobham armor on the M-1 after it defeats the active measures.
Captain Obvious says “But our tanks have young women in them, right?”
ground troops around the tanks can be an effective protection screen for a tank in some cases
People have been saying that the tank is obsolete since the 1973 Yom Kippur war.
But you see we agree; that’s what I’m saying.
the aps system deploys and can in some cases kill those supporting troops.
We need to develop a force field. Duh!
Oh, and flying cars.
Israelis have also been using chains effectively to counter these rpgs, it doesn’t work against high angle of attack missiles but it is a cheap counter.
absolutely, tanks usually serve as cover for troops, they are hugging the rear of the tank and usually march within 20 feet on the sides and rear so they can take quick cover and guard the tank against infantry attack
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