Active protection system

From Freepedia

An active protection system, or APS, protects a tank or other armoured fighting vehicle from incoming fire before it hits the vehicle's armour. There are two general categories: soft kill systems, which use jamming to confuse a missile's guidance system, and hard kill systems, which attempt to detect and destroy incoming projectiles.

Soft kill systems were (unsuccessfully) deployed by Iraq in the Gulf War. These were essentially strobe lights fitted to Iraqi tanks, which masqueraded as the guidance beacon on the back of a TOW missile. The multinational force was aware of their use, and adjusted the frequency of their guidance systems so they wouldn't be confused. A soft kill system currently in service is the Russian Shtora, deployed on Russian and Ukrainian tanks.

Hard kill systems are activated when a millimetre-wavelength radar or other sensor detects an incoming projectile. In considerably less than a second they launch a counter-projectile in an attempt to physically damage or destroy the incoming round. Examples include the TROPHY Active Protection System, Drozd, Arena and Zaslon.

In popular culture

In the film Die Another Day, James Bond's modified Aston Martin Vanquish was portrayed with twin bonnet-mounted automatic shotguns as a hard-kill system to destroy mortar rounds.