In the conditions of modern war, the use of complexes of active protection of armored vehicles is a necessity. Russia in this case has, what to be proud of: it was the Soviet tank building that became the pioneer in the field of active protection of tanks.
The need to develop and use active protection systems was discussed back in the late 1940s.. In the late 1950s, this idea was formulated more specifically by specialists from the Tula Central Design Bureau-14. The system was developed by the Central Design Bureau of Sporting Hunting Weapons, and the direct management of the project was carried out by Vasily Ivanovich Bakalov. As a result, to 1977-1978 gg. in the Soviet Union, the Drozd active protection system was developed, which became the first such system in the world, launched into mass production.
AT 1982-1983 gg. active protection complex 1030M "Drozd" has successfully passed state tests, has been field tested, after which with 1983 g. they began to install it on T-55A tanks. This tank was the first in the world, equipped with a complex of active protection. KAZ "Drozd" was produced more than 6 years. Its production was discontinued after, how the Soviet leadership signed an agreement on the reduction of conventional arms in Europe. The T-55 tank was included in the list of weapons eliminated by the USSR. After this decision, work on the modernized version of the KAZ "Drozd-2".
The development of the "Arena" active protection complex was also suspended., in which the main emphasis was placed on solving the problem of defeating one's own motorized infantry when destroying an attacking ammunition with fragments of an anti-missile or rocket-propelled grenade. As a result, the specialists calculated the flight trajectory of the protective block as follows, to minimize the area of continuous defeat, simultaneously destroying the attacking ammunition.
However, already in the 1990s, after numerous losses of Russian tanks during the assault on Grozny, the leadership of the RF Ministry of Defense recognized, that these losses were the result, including, and insufficient protection of combat vehicles. As a result, work on domestic active protection systems was continued.. AT 1997 g. the first T-80UM tank was demonstrated, equipped with the "Arena" system and intended for export to the Republic of Korea.
Unlike the USSR and even post-Soviet Russia, Western countries failed to achieve significant success in providing their tanks with active protection systems. Understands this perfectly, for example, United States Army Command, which recognized the existing deep problems in the field of active protection of armored vehicles of the American army.
An attempt to install the KAZ "Iron Fist" developed in Israel on the BMP "Bradley" was unsuccessful: combat vehicles did not have such a supply of electricity to power numerous sensors, there are risks of failures in the general power supply network, increase in fuel consumption. Besides, on tests it was found, that the interceptor shells could not fire or hit the target.
As a result, 2020 g. the American military department announced the delay in the integration of the Israeli active protection system on its armored vehicles. by the way, Israel, developed the "Iron Fist" and "Trophy" systems, is one of the few countries, which already have serial production of tanks with modern KAZ installed on them.
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Wherein, since the development of strike weapons also does not stand still, increasingly, world military experts talk about the need to improve existing active protection systems, even about the creation of a new generation of KAZ, that would be able to withstand, At first, armor-piercing feathered subcaliber projectiles, and secondly - projectiles flying up from above, released from unmanned aerial vehicles. They plan to use a laser against drone strikes, missile-capable, flying into the tank from above.
Also, the introduction of electromagnetic armor can be attributed to promising ideas in the development of active protection systems for tanks. When a projectile or cumulative jet will pass through an armor plate, a powerful current pulse will lead to the destruction of the damaging element. In addition, electromagnetic armor allows using radars and sensors to choose the most reasonable way to protect against an attack..
Now designers are faced with another major problem - how to protect the numerous radars and sensors themselves., installed on the tank. After all, one burst from a machine gun and a simple enemy infantryman will disable them, thereby violating the entire system of active protection of the combat vehicle. Therefore, the field for further research and development remains simply huge..
Ilya Polonsky
