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.
Type	Active protection system
Place of origin	Russia
Service history
Used by	Russia
Production history
Designer	Kolomna Engineering Design Bureau (KBM)
Designed	1993
Unit cost	US$300,000
Variants	Arena-E (export)
Specifications
Mass	1100kg

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.