As has been known for sometime & widely published in video it was successful in live tests. FCS was canceled and its horse was tied to that lagoon...been thru this before....
LIve tests are a step toward maturity but they're not maturity itself. While the engineering work is heavier earlier in a project, on a time scale often there's more time between live tests and service-ready maturity, than between project start and live tests.
This is particularly true for APS as the technology clearly exists, is proven, yet many projects exist which seemingly passed live tests many years ago, even decades ago, and are still in some phase of development and not in service.
Army wasn't on some crusade against QK. They wanted a domestic APS. They delayed Trophy acquisition for it. It just never materialized.
And if RTX want to blame FCS for it, even though other APS designs are perfectly fine being fitted on a variety of vehicles, then that's fine but it could cost them the market.
As in the vid. Trophy is vulnerable to direct MG fire.
It was in the early, pre-production variant the US Army evaluated. It isn't anymore. All standard Trophy systems come with a metal shutter that opens and reveals the interceptor munition only moments before launch.
It doesn't defeat the flying crow bars.
It doesn't need to. Fun fact: It could, back in its development period in 2006. The IDF explicitly asked not to do it, so Rafael dropped it.
IMI kept proposing the same anti-APFSDS design and ultimately lost the competition. And that's how Trophy became #1.
Now under Elbit (absorbed IMI), Iron Fist is offered in several variants including an anti-KE one. But so far customers only want the non-KE variant.
Now, why would anyone not want an anti-KE capability?
Because interceptors are heavier, hence response time is slower, hence success chance is lower.
At some point the IDF raised the issue and asked for an anti-KE capability. But this hit a brick wall. Again, why? Because it also wants APS to be even faster than they already are. And there's the conflict again. Whenever there's a dilemma, customers prefer speed.
It's magazine is limited.
You don't honestly think QK shoots out fairy dust, do you? Its missiles are in fact finite. And they are larger than every individual Trophy interceptor. Theoretically you can fit more Trophy munitions than QK ones.
One Rafael representative once said in an expo that the system holds 6 munitions total. 3 per side. Why? Because those are the requirements.
Can customers demand there be a total of 8? Or 10? Or 12? Yes. And there'd be room for that. I actually peeked inside the Merkava's Trophy system. Quite a bit of un-utilized space.
So why not just put as many as you can fit?
The reason is there's no need. 6 munitions are as effective as 10, or 20, or 100. And that's because interceptions aren't clean. And by that I mean they're extremely violent. Always you'll have fast debris or a detonating warhead with residual penetration, and they're going to inflict some superficial damage. This damage is usually enough to start disabling external components including the APS itself.
By the time you may need the 7th munition, you're likely to have taken enough damage for the APS to not work anymore.
Usually it's the radars. You got a metal sheet protecting the munitions but you can't do that with a radar without also making it completely blind.
Defeating the complex attack iis not even near being managed.
What complex attack?
Covering ur vehicle in upgraded claymores aint the way.
Well what is the way then?
