http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18356061/Experts contradict Pentagon on anti-RPG tests
Independent report cites Trophy system as tops in class
NBC video
Did the Army play contractor favorites?
May 6: The Army blocked plans to battle-test an Israeli weapons system, opting instead to hire Raytheon to build a similar system from scratch. A new study now raises serious questions about the Army’s decision. NBC’s Lisa Myers reports.
Lisa Myers
Senior investigative correspondent
• Profile
WASHINGTON — Last September, NBC News first reported on a fierce debate within the Pentagon over Trophy, an Israeli-made weapons system, that literally shoots down rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and even more deadly anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs). There were plans to battle-test Trophy in Iraq, but the U.S. Army blocked them and instead hired a favored defense contractor, Raytheon, to build a system from scratch.
Now, a new congressionally-mandated review — obtained exclusively by NBC News — raises serious questions about the Army’s decision and what Army officials have told Congress.
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Over the last three years, U.S. commanders in Iraq have issued a series of urgent pleas for a defense against RPGs — a favorite weapon of insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Technologies which combat RPGs and ATGMs are technically referred to as Active Protection Systems (APSs).
In the summer of 2005, the Pentagon's Office of Force Transformation (OFT), which was created to cut through red tape, asked a team of Army and Navy engineers to analyze six different Active Protection Systems. Their conclusion? Trophy was the "best candidate," the "most technically advanced" and the "most technically mature system." [.PDF link]
Built by Rafael, Israel’s Armament Development Authority, Trophy works by scanning all directions and automatically detecting when an anti-tank weapon is launched. The system then fires an high-speed interceptor that destroys the threat safely away from the vehicle. Trophy has undergone more than 400 tests in Israel against nearly every RPG and ATGM in existence.
In March 2006, Pentagon testers at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Va., put Trophy through its paces and found it remarkably effective at killing RPGs. An official involved with the tests told NBC that Trophy “worked in every case. The only anomaly was that in one test, the Trophy round hit the RPG’s tail instead of its head. But according to our test criteria, the system was 30 for 30.â€
As a result, OFT moved forward with plans to battle-test Trophy — which cost $300,000-$400,000 per system — on several Strykers headed to Iraq in early 2007.
But the U.S. Army scuttled the effort. Why? Pentagon sources tell NBC News — and internal Army documents seem to confirm — that Army officials came to see Trophy as a threat to the Army’s effort to field an RPG defense system as part of the biggest procurement program in Army history, the $200 billion Future Combat System (FCS).
CONTINUED: Trophy: A threat to the Future Combat System?
