Future Armoured Vehicles Protection 2022: EuroTrophy aims to provide APS security of supply

The Israel Ministry of Defense announced on 2 November 2021 that it and the German Ministry of Defence had completed the first series of live-firing tests in Germany of the Trophy active defence system integrated into a Leopard 2 main battle tank. (IMOD)

EuroTrophy aims to provide security of supply of active protection systems (APSs), the joint venture's managing director, Dan Kalfus, said on the first day of SAE Media Group's Future Armoured Vehicles Survivability 2022 conference held in London from 16 to 17 November.

Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW), Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, and General Dynamics European Land Systems (GDELS) announced the signing of the agreement to form the joint venture in November 2021 to market, sell, and produce the Trophy APS. EuroTrophy will also provide vehicle integration services and through-life support for the APS.

Kalfus placed the creation of EuroTrophy in the context of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. He said that Frankfurt was chosen as the seat of the headquarters over Berlin and Munich and that Trophy APSs would be produced in Kassel and Kaiserslautern, where KMW and GDELS, respectively, have plants. He added that the Trophy logistics and supply chain would be run out of Munich, taking advantage of KMW's presence there.

Kalfus said that 1,800 Trophy APSs had been contracted and 18,000 countermeasures had been supplied. He told Janes after his presentation that most of the Trophy systems were for the Israel Defense Forces and the US Army. The US ordered an earlier version of the APS to equip M1 tanks of four armour brigades, which Kalfus said have been deployed to Germany.