Countless lives were saved during Operation Protective Edge, the IDF counter-terrorism offensive in Gaza due to the new “Windbreaker” active defense system installed on the military’s Merkava IV tanks. Defense Ministry officials are now reporting the military’s new Namer armored personnel carriers (APC) are equipped with an appropriate version of the “Windbreaker” system and in the future, all APCs will have the system on board.
The “Windbreaker” system can detect an incoming rocket and respond in the required time to neutralize the threat. In the case of the tanks, the system also directs the tank’s barrel towards the point from which the rocket was fired.
According to the recent media release, the “Windbreaker” system will be installed on all new Namer APCs as field testing on that vehicle continues. The deployment of the “Windbreaker” system is essential for APCs in the next deployment in Gaza for in the past, the older APCs that do not have the advanced active protection system on board were susceptible to incoming rockets and the price paid in the number of dead and wounded was quite high.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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Windbreaker is essentially the Trophy active defense system. Trophy was developed in the 1990s with joint funding from the Israeli Ministry of Defense (MAFAT) and the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
I had a lot of fun for two weeks in the Negev Desert in 1997, testing Trophy in support of DARPA. It is an excellent system.