Tank protection

Army Adapts Aircraft EW To Protect Tanks: BAE RAVEN

As the Army races to modernize against the Russian threat, it’s adapting countermeasures used on aircraft to protect its armored vehicles from anti-tank missiles. Systems like BAE’s RAVEN jammer, which won a recent Army “rodeo,”could be a lot more effective than just bolting on another layer of armor on already overloaded vehicles — if the contractor can make what originally an airborne system rugged enough to function in in the mud, dust and clutter of ground combat.

We’re talking high-tech hardware here. RAVEN is a “soft kill” jammer that tricks missiles into missing. It would part of a second wave of upgrades to Army vehicles, following the Israeli-made “hard kill” systems – which physically shoot missiles out of the air – that the service is already urgently fielding. The Army wants both types for maximum protection.

So the service is pushing hard towards an integrated hard-and-soft-kill system. Last week, the service’s Ground Vehicle Systems Center – now part of the newly formed Army Futures Command — announced that BAE’s RAVEN had won a “Soft Kill Rodeo” last fall. The next step: intensive field testing on an M2 Bradley troop carrier fitted with both RAVEN (soft kill) and Iron Fist (hard).