What do you do when armour is not enough?
As the war in Ukraine has shown, even heavily armoured vehicles can be highly vulnerable on a battlefield saturated by drones and anti-armour threats. That has driven Russian and Ukrainian forces to do everything from adding defensive cages and structures to their vehicles for added protection, to just keeping the armour further away from the front, or screened and protected by other assets.
But this year, one small Russian attack caught attention for trying a slightly different approach. A small number of MBTs were sent forward
equipped with the Arena M Active protection system that proved capable of shooting down (some) drones before they struck the tanks.
Did the attack ultimately work? no
But it did put attention back one tool that might have a new role if the goal is to make vehicles at least slightly less vulnerable on the modern battlefield.
From Arena to Iron fist, let's talk active protection systems.
Source: Perun
