Arena (countermeasure)

Arena
Арена
Arena on T-80UM-1 at Omsk circa 1998. Elements of the Arena Active Protection System include ring of explosive panels at lower margin of turret ring and radar on turret roof.
TypeActive protection system
Place of originRussia
Service history
Used byRussia
Production history
DesignerKolomna Engineering Design Bureau (KBM)
Designed1993
Unit costUS$300,000
VariantsArena-E (export)
Specifications
Mass1100kg

Arena (Russian: Арена) is an active protection system (APS) developed at Russia's Kolomna-based Engineering Design Bureau for the purpose of protecting armoured fighting vehicles from destruction by light anti-tank weapons, anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM), and flyover top attack missiles.[1] It uses a Doppler radar to detect incoming warheads. Upon detection, a defensive rocket is fired that detonates near the inbound threat, destroying it before it hits the vehicle.

Arena is similar to Drozd, a Soviet active protection system from the late 1970s, which was installed on several T-55s during the Soviet–Afghan War. Drozd was followed by Shtora in the late 1980s, which used an electro-optical dazzlers or expendable so (smoke/IR smoke) to confuse the seeker head or defeat the user. In late 1994 the Russian Army deployed many armoured fighting vehicles to Chechnya, where they were ambushed and suffered heavy casualties. The effectiveness of Chechen rocket-propelled grenades against Russian combat vehicles prompted the Kolomenskoye machine-building design bureau to devise the Arena active protection system in the early and mid-1990s. An export variant, Arena-E, was also developed. The system has been tested on the T-80UM-1, demonstrated at Omsk in 1997.

  1. ^ Adam Geibel (1 April 1997). Learning From Their Mistakes: Russia's Arena Active Protection System (PDF) (Report). Defense Technical Information Center. Archived (PDF) from the original on 7 April 2023. Retrieved 6 April 2023.