T-55AD with Drozd active protection system

Drozd ( rus, Дрозд, , ˈdrost, Ru-дрозд.ogg,

thrush ''The Man from U.N.C.L.E.'' is an American spy fiction television series produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Television and first broadcast on NBC. The series follows secret agents, played by Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, who work for a secret ...

) is an active protection system (APS) developed in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

, designed for increasing tanks' protection against

anti-tank missile An anti-tank guided missile (ATGM), anti-tank missile, anti-tank guided weapon (ATGW) or anti-armor guided weapon is a guided missile primarily designed to hit and destroy heavily armored military vehicles. ATGMs range in size from shoulder ...

s and RPGs. It is considered the world's first operational active protection system, created in 1977–78 by A. Shipunov's KBP design bureau as ''Kompleks 1030M-01''. Its chief designer,

Vasily Bakalov Vasily Ivanovich Bakalov (russian: Василий Иванович Бакалов; 18 April 1929 – 25 January 2020) was a Soviet and Russian military engineer and designer who worked on the designs of armoured vehicle defence systems and anti ...

, was awarded the Lenin Prize for his work on its development. Drozd uses 24.5 GHz

Doppler radar A Doppler radar is a specialized radar that uses the Doppler effect to produce velocity data about objects at a distance. It does this by bouncing a microwave signal off a desired target and analyzing how the object's motion has altered the fr ...

to detect incoming rounds travelling between 70 and 700 m/s (to avoid engaging small arms or other faster projectiles). Its computer determines when to fire a 107 mm projectile. When the incoming round is at 7 m range, the Drozd fragmentation warhead detonates, spreading 3-gram slugs to destroy the incoming round. The Drozd system was relatively complex, requiring a radar array and two launch tubes on each side of the tank turret, and a large electronics package on the turret rear. One of Drozd's shortcomings was that it was only able to protect a 60-degree arc around the forward part of the turret. Each unit costs around $30,000, was 80 percent successful against incoming RPGs in Afghanistan, but caused too much collateral damage to surrounding troops that were dismounted from their armored vehicles. The project was abandoned by the Army, but completed by the Soviet

Naval Infantry Marines, or naval infantry, are typically a military force trained to operate in littoral zones in support of naval operations. Historically, tasks undertaken by marines have included helping maintain discipline and order aboard the ship (refl ...

to increase protection for about 250 older

T-55 The T-54 and T-55 tanks are a series of Soviet main battle tanks introduced in the years following the Second World War. The first T-54 prototype was completed at Nizhny Tagil by the end of 1945.Steven Zaloga, T-54 and T-55 Main Battle Tank ...

tanks in 1981–82 (newer

T-72 The T-72 is a family of Soviet/Russian main battle tanks that entered production in 1969. The T-72 was a development of the T-64, which was troubled by high costs and its reliance on immature developmental technology. About 25,000 T-72 tanks h ...

s were problematic on landing craft, due to size and weight, and $170 million Drozd development was much cheaper than a commencement of an all-new time-consuming tank design). Tanks were upgraded to T-55M standard and equipped with Drozd at the tank rebuilding plant in

Lviv Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in Western Ukraine, western Ukraine, and the List of cities in Ukraine, seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is o ...

, Ukraine, and kept in war stores for secrecy. The rebuilt tanks were designated T-55AD, or T-55AD1 if they had the newer V-46 engine. Drozd APS was later replaced by the simpler non-APS Kontakt-5 explosive reactive armour. Drozd was also fitted to a small number of

T-62 The T-62 is a Soviet main battle tank that was first introduced in 1961. As a further development of the T-55 series, the T-62 retained many similar design elements of its predecessor including low profile and thick turret armour. In contras ...

s, which were designated T-62D or, if fitted with the V-46-5M engine upgrade, T-62D-1. Drozd was exported in small numbers to China and to an undisclosed Middle-Eastern client. It was subsequently discontinued. The Drozd-2 system was developed to give a 120-degree protection arc with more projectile launchers. It was intended to be installed on the then-upcoming T-80U main battle tanks. An even more sophisticated all-round active protection system is the

Arena Active Protection System 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 m ...

References

*Zaloga, Steven J. and Hugh Johnson (2004) ''T-54 and T-55 Main Battle Tanks 1944–2004'', pp. 24, 33. Oxford: Osprey. .

External links

Hard-Kill Active Defense Solutions
— ''Defense Update'' article on Drozd-2

at Vasiliy Fofanov's Modern Russian Armour page

description (in Russian)

at armor.kiev.ua (in Russian)

at armor.kiev.ua (in Russian)

at armor.kiev.ua (in Russian) {{APS Armoured fighting vehicle equipment Cold War weapons of the Soviet Union Soviet inventions Weapons countermeasures Land active protection systems History of the tank KBP Instrument Design Bureau products Military equipment introduced in the 1970s