An anti-tank missile is launched toward a tank. From the moment it is fired, a race lasting only seconds begins: detect the threat, determine where it is heading, decide whether it is going to hit, and, if so, stop it before it reaches its target.
That narrow window is exactly what Trophy, the active protection system developed by Israeli defense technology company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, was designed to address. On a battlefield where only seconds may separate launch from impact, the ability to detect an incoming threat and neutralize it in midair can fundamentally change the equation.
Trophy Active Protection System
(Video: Yaron Sharon)
The race to protect tanks has been underway for decades. As armor became stronger and more sophisticated, the missiles designed to penetrate it became increasingly advanced as well. Adding more armor is one solution, but it comes at a cost: additional protection means additional weight for vehicles that already weigh tens of tons, eventually reaching physical and operational limits.
Rafael began exploring a different approach as early as the 1980s: Could a tank be protected by a system that does not simply absorb an incoming strike, but actively responds to it? Following lessons from the Second Lebanon War, a decision was made in 2007 to develop and integrate an active protection system into the IDF’s Merkava Mk. 4 tanks.
To accomplish that, Trophy must complete an entire sequence of actions within seconds. Radars mounted on the vehicle continuously scan the surrounding area for threats such as anti-tank missiles and rockets. Once a threat is detected, the system tracks it, calculates its trajectory and determines whether it is actually expected to hit the vehicle.
That distinction is critical. Trophy does not attempt to intercept everything fired in the vicinity of a tank. Its countermeasure is activated only when the system determines that the incoming projectile poses a genuine threat. When it does, Trophy launches a countermeasure designed to neutralize the threat before it reaches the armor.
Meanwhile, the system can identify the direction from which the attack originated and provide that information to the crew. The tank therefore gains more than another layer of protection: it gains a system capable of detecting, assessing and responding to threats in real time, while helping the crew understand where the attack came from.
The Trophy Active Protection System in action
(Video: Rafael Advanced Defense Systems)
Trophy was declared operational in the IDF in 2009. Two years later came its most important test. On March 1, 2011, an anti-tank missile was fired at a Merkava tank near the Gaza border. Trophy intercepted it before it struck the vehicle — the system’s first operational interception.
Trophy was subsequently used during Operation Protective Edge in 2014, and that same year its development team received the Israel Defense Prize. Since then, the system has accumulated extensive operational experience alongside thousands of tests, evolving from a new technology that had to prove itself in combat into an established component of the protection surrounding Israeli armored vehicles.
International recognition followed. In 2018, the U.S. Army selected Trophy for its Abrams tanks. The system later expanded its presence in Europe, with Germany integrating Trophy into Leopard 2 tanks.
(Photo: Rafael Advanced Defense Systems)
In 2025, Rafael also signed an agreement with Hyundai Rotem to cooperate on integrating Trophy into the K2 tank and the K2PL variant intended for Poland. The technology has already been adapted to a wide range of armored platforms.
A solution originally developed in response to an Israeli operational need has thus become one of the world’s most prominent active protection systems — and another example of how Israeli technology can reshape an entire approach to active defense.
But Trophy by Rafael represents more than another system mounted on a tank. As battlefields become increasingly saturated with drones, sensors, precision-guided missiles and advanced anti-tank weapons, the way armored vehicles are protected is changing as well. Rather than relying solely on layers of steel and composite materials, protection is increasingly becoming a combination of armor, radar, software and real-time computation — all working together within fractions of a second.
(Illustration: Rafael Advanced Defense Systems)
Trophy does not make a tank invulnerable, nor does it mean that heavy armor is about to disappear. Instead, it has changed the equation in a different way: a tank’s protection no longer has to simply withstand an impact — it can try to prevent that impact from happening in the first place.
More than four decades after the idea first began to take shape at Rafael, the race between missile and armor continues. But today, armor no longer waits for the hit.