U.S. Army picks BAE Systems to protect tanks from missiles and drones

The U.S. Army awarded BAE Systems a program of record contract to equip ground combat vehicles with an electronic warfare system that jams and confuses incoming missiles and drones before they can reach their targets, the company announced May 27. The Soft Kill Active Protection System program centers on BAE Systems’ ROOK system, a soft-kill countermeasure platform that disrupts the guidance systems of anti-tank guided missiles and unmanned aerial systems rather than physically intercepting them, preserving vehicle survivability without the limited ammunition supply that kinetic interceptor systems carry.

The distinction between soft-kill and hard-kill active protection matters enormously for how armies can actually use these systems in sustained combat. Hard-kill systems, such as Israel’s Trophy or the Army’s own Iron Fist, physically launch an interceptor projectile to destroy an incoming threat before it reaches the vehicle. They are highly effective against anti-tank missiles and rocket-propelled grenades, but each interceptor is a physical round that must be reloaded once expended, creating a magazine depth problem in engagements where a vehicle faces multiple sequential attacks. Trophy-equipped Merkava tanks have saved Israeli crews in Gaza and Lebanon, and the Army has been integrating Trophy on Abrams tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles following those operational results, but the reload requirement remains a genuine operational constraint. A soft-kill system that uses electronic emissions to jam or confuse an incoming weapon’s guidance system has, as BAE Systems describes it, an infinite magazine depth, because electronic emissions can be repeated as many times as power is available without running out.

ROOK works by detecting the electromagnetic signatures associated with incoming guided threats and then emitting countermeasures specifically designed to disrupt or deceive those guidance systems. Anti-tank guided missiles that home on laser designation or use infrared tracking can be confused by jamming the sensor or flooding it with false signals that send the weapon off course. The same principle applies to certain categories of drone threats that use radio frequency control links or optical guidance. Defeating the threat before it reaches the vehicle while leaving the vehicle’s own hard-kill interceptors reserved for threats that electronic countermeasures cannot address represents the layered protection concept that modern ground vehicle survivability doctrine increasingly treats as the standard rather than the exception.

Dave Gillespie, BAE Systems’ director of optics and countermeasure solutions, described what the system’s unlimited engagement capacity means for vehicle crews: “Modern ground warfare demands a layered defense, and soft-kill technologies are a critical, complementary component. ROOK offers a cost-effective, sustainable defense with an infinite magazine depth, continuously disrupting enemy systems.”

The drone threat dimension is where the ROOK contract’s timing becomes particularly significant. Anti-tank guided missiles have been the primary threat that active protection systems were originally designed to counter, and that threat remains acute given the proliferation of capable anti-armor missiles across conflict zones worldwide. But the Ukraine war has added a second, equally urgent threat category: the one-way attack drone and loitering munition that approaches a vehicle from above, often from angles and altitudes that traditional armor protection does not cover and that hard-kill interceptors struggle to engage cost-effectively at scale. A soft-kill system that can also disrupt the guidance and control links of drone threats addresses both categories with a single integrated system, giving vehicle commanders protection against the full spectrum of guided threats they face rather than requiring separate systems for missiles and drones.

The contract also funds further development of two additional countermeasure systems in BAE Systems’ portfolio. Stormcrow and TERRA RAVEN are described as next-generation countermeasure systems that will receive prototype development and vehicle integration support under the Soft Kill APS program, suggesting the Army is investing not just in fielding ROOK but in building the technology pipeline for the generation of soft-kill capabilities that follows it. That pipeline investment reflects a judgment that electronic warfare countermeasures for ground vehicles will need to evolve as adversary guidance technologies improve, and that sustaining a development program ahead of fielding ensures the Army does not fall behind on the threat timeline.

BAE Systems develops and manufactures its vehicle protection systems at its Austin, Texas facility, with research and development support in Merrimack, New Hampshire. The concentration of production at a U.S.-based facility directly supports the domestic industrial resilience priorities that the Army and broader Department of War have been emphasizing as they assess the industrial implications of a sustained high-intensity conflict. An active protection system that depends on foreign manufacturing for its core components introduces supply chain vulnerabilities that a domestically produced system avoids, and the Austin facility’s role in this program positions it as a long-term production asset for one of the Army’s emerging survivability priorities.