Iron Fist APS for Australian Boxer Combat Reconnaissance Vehicles


Among the news collected on 24 January at the International Armoured Vehicles 2019 conference taking place in London, the Australian Defence Force has asked Rheinmetall Defence to evaluate Israel’s "Iron Fist" Active Protection System (APS) developed by Elbit Systems’ IMI. Brigadier Greg McGlone, Australian Army Director General, Armored Fighting Vehicles, said.


Iron Fists APS for Australian Boxer Combat Reconnaissance Vehicles
BAE Systems Boxer demonstrated at DVD 2018 (Picture source: Army Recognition)


According to Brig. McGlone, the evaluation will include only the Iron Fist, as it is the only mature APS that meets the Boxer’s weight requirement (38.5-ton combat weight). Following the assessment, Australia plans to contract Rheinmetall to integrate Iron Fist on the Lance turrets being used on the 121 of the Block II (improved reconnaissance vehicles) Australia is buying under the Land 400 Phase 2 program.

The Australian army plans to conduct live fire testing of the system as part of the Block II improvements of the Australian Boxers. It surveyed using APS during the evaluation of Land 400 Phase 2 but did not require such capability from the competitors. Rheinmetall proposed the Boxer with its own ADS system. The Australians requested Rheinmetall, the Boxer manufacturer, to evaluate the scope of integration of the Iron Fist – Light, Decoupled (IF-LD) APS – the same system selected by the US Army to protect the Bradley Armored Infantry Fighting Vehicle (AIFV). The study could also consider the compact variant of Iron-Fist (IF-LC) which was selected to protect the Dutch CV-9035NL AIFVs.