JERUSALEM — With the recent deliveries of two Leopard 2A8 tanks integrated with the Trophy Active Protection System (APS) to Norway, EuroTrophy — the joint venture between Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, KNDS and General Dynamics European Land Systems — is looking to expand further across Europe.
“This procurement of Leopard tanks to Norway came at the right timing with the rebuilding of German armed forces and their tank fleet and we could join with KNDS and [the] German and Norwegian government[s] to create the new baseline of the Leopard,” Managing Director Dan Kalfus told Breaking Defense.
The Leopard 28A is what Kalfus calls a “benchmark,” and the system is expected to now be used on Leopards in Germany, Norway, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Lithuania and Croatia, according to Kalfus.
Kalfus estimates that overall, the system will be on around 200 tanks for Germany and Norway, and another 200 for the other four countries.
“Already some of them are produced. This is our major program, our main customer with KNDS and the German government,” he noted, adding that “any Leopard 28A that rolls out from the factory will have Trophy on it.”
EuroTrophy was established four years ago, and incorporates the same Trophy system that has had success for more than a decade on the Israel Defense Forces’ Merkava tanks as well as on American Abrams’.
“The whole idea was a European hub for the wonder called Trophy and try to Europeanize it as much as possible, to create a European hub for the APS,” said Kalfus. He noted that the evidence of the success can be seen in the integration on the Leopard and other European platforms.
The future of Trophy in Europe is expanding. The existing deals will mean setting up logistics and infrastructure to support the countries that receive tanks with the system, Kalfus said. For example, EuroTrophy is working with Ritech in Norway to install the APS on the turrets of tanks in Norway.
With Lithuania and Norway acquiring tanks with the system, this potentially provides a future for Trophy in both Scandinavia and the Baltic states, Kalfus said. On a recent trip to Finland, Kalfus pointed to the CV90 and the Patria 8×8 armored vehicle as other platforms that could one day receive the APS.
“In 2025 we did an integration study and put Trophy on the AMVXP Patria, the Armored Modular Vehicles. He added that EuroTrophy understands there is a big customer base for Patria vehicles in countries such as Poland, Slovakia and Finland. The integration and “proof-of-concept” that was demonstrated in Lapland, Finland, is intended to tap into those customers.
With so many users of the Patria, including Poland, Slovakia and Finland, Kalfus said he sees a large potential customer base. The Ukraine war has also shifted defense priorities in places like Poland and Finland.
Kalfus said that future work for EuroTrophy should follow what is done in Germany, which has a hub and infrastructure to support the APS. This model could be followed in Norway, Lithuania and other regions.
“This will be more of a NATO standardization we are trying to do,” Kalfus said.
In addition to Leopards and CV90s, EuroTrophy has also done an integration of the system on a Boxer.
The mounting of the system on a Boxer is different from putting it on the turret of a tank, but Kalfus describes the relative ease of putting it on different armored vehicles. “A lot of companies talk about commonality and interoperability; we have shown in such a system as complex as Trophy that has radar and hard-kill, we are the one that did it.”
The Boxer is used by Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and Lithuania among other states. “We are aiming for these nations,” Kalfus said. “They are early adopters which are more prone to adopt this technology and have it on tanks so it makes sense … there is a high potential of APS inside some of the Boxer programs.”
