Tanks with the Arena APS have been spotted in service, but is there reason for optimism?
Recently, photographs have appeared on the Internet tank T-72B3M, based on the old "A-shka", with the active protection system (APS) "Arena-M", modified to destroy FPV-dronesThese photos, it must be said, are far from the first—vehicles with this APS have been spotted before—but the current footage is notable for its clear identification of the operators.
We're talking about the Center Group of Forces, which received a certain number of these tanks—perhaps as many as ten or more. The accompanying texts for these photographs state that these tanks are being used for military training, but there is some reason to believe that Arena-M-equipped tanks have already seen combat in the Northern Military District.
What can be said about this?
On the one hand, I suppose we can be happy. Frankly, we haven't had any active protection systems suitable for military use since the collapse of the USSR. And now, finally, the Arena has been perfected—it's now not only a regular fixture in commercials and exhibitions, but also a genuine drone fighter, which, albeit in limited production, has already been produced and is in full use by the military.
Tank T-72B3M (based on T-72A) with a modernized KAZ "Arena-M" GV "Center"
On the other hand, there's little reason for optimism. And this is worth discussing in detail, as the modernized Arena-M is still a representative of the old KAZ concept, which has been retrofitted with functionality it wasn't originally designed for.
Effective against drones, but not against all of them.
Although the Arena is still positioned today as a fresh and innovative active defense system, its development was the result of scientific research in the second half of the 20th century, and it wasn't adopted into service until the early 1990s. Therefore, the list of offensive weapons it was designed to counter was initially limited to classic anti-tank weapons. missiles, grenades and cumulative projectiles.
Later, of course, a modification called "Arena-M" was developed, which added the ability to counter missiles aimed at the tank's upper hemisphere. However, the overall architecture of the system remained the same. It reacts and responds only to objects with a dangerous trajectory, that is, to munitions flying directly at the tank (or dangerously close to it from the roof).
Without changing these principles, domestic designers have upgraded the Arena-M, which we see in recent photos, to combat FPV drones. This upgrade involves the introduction of a "close-in detection" mode, where the system periodically switches to search mode. drones by their propellers, which create a Doppler effect due to rotation (more about this here: How the Arena KAZ attempted to teach kamikaze drones to detect).
Tank T-72B3M (based on T-72A) with a modernized KAZ "Arena-M" GV "Center"
There seems to be no doubt about the effectiveness of the detection method—it's truly effective, considering drones can hover in the air. However, they are only intercepted if they're flying directly at the tank. The vehicle is not protected from munitions dropped by a drone hovering several meters above it—neither the Arena-M's radars, nor its computing system, nor the counter-munitions it uses to destroy dangerous objects as they approach are designed for this purpose.
That's why, despite the presence of the Arena-M on board, the tanks featured in the photographs are equipped with standard factory "grills" covering the turret roof. These, of course, also serve as convenient shelves for storing all kinds of equipment, such as EW, but first of all they cover the “hole” in the upper hemisphere of the tank.
There is not enough ammunition
The counter-munitions fired by the modified Arena-M, which destroy a tank attack with a directed fragmentation stream, are also a major problem. There are simply not enough of them, even catastrophically so, in a single system's ammunition loadout.
The problem is that there are only three counter-munitions per defended sector of space. Previously, this was sufficient. After all, the Arena's logic was built around intercepting a relatively limited number of the most dangerous incoming targets—anti-tank missiles, grenades, and other munitions aimed at the vehicle along a specific trajectory.
Situations in which several ATGMs or grenades hit a tank in the same sector in quick succession are certainly possible, but they're not the norm. Therefore, in the old APS concept, such ammunition seemed like a perfectly reasonable compromise between weight, size, and effectiveness.
But in the realities of today's war, where a single aircraft can be subject to nearly a dozen FPV drone incursions, this reserve will no longer be sufficient. Even if some drones are destroyed, while others miss or are blown up by external structures, an intense air strike will quickly consume the entire system's lifespan. And then comes the unfortunate, yet entirely logical, outcome: the Arena-M can survive the first wave of attack, and perhaps a second, but with the massive use of drones, its ammunition supply will be exhausted too quickly.
There's another nuance that's usually only considered afterthought. The Arena-M itself completely precludes the installation of full-fledged "grills," which today are often installed not only above the turret roof but also extending out to the sides to more or less cover the tank from all directions. An active protection system (APS) requires clear fields of view for radar detection and the proper operation of counter-munitions, meaning that excessively extensive overhead structures around the turret simply become an impediment.
This creates a dual picture. The presence of the Arena-M on a tank is certainly a plus, as it provides protection not only from drones but also from heavy anti-tank missiles, against which grills alone are far from a panacea. While grills and canopies can disrupt a drone's attack, trigger a premature detonation, or prevent it from reaching a vulnerable point altogether, this is often insufficient against powerful ATGMs with enormous armor penetration: even if the warhead detonates at a distance from the armor, its effectiveness is not reduced to zero.
However, the downside is also obvious. The Arena-M itself will only be effective against drones for a limited period of time, until it exhausts its small ammunition supply, after which the tank, deprived of a full-fledged all-round "grill," could find itself in an even more vulnerable position.
Conclusions
In short, the most important thing to say is that the very availability of the Arena-M, upgraded for counter-drone capabilities, even in a small series, is certainly a good thing. Regardless of how you look at it, we're talking about a real system, fully operational, not mockups, exhibition models, or endless promises. This alone seems like a positive development, especially given how long the domestic APS project has essentially been stagnant.
But, frankly, there's no point in being overly optimistic about this. The limitations of the concept itself are too obvious, and they quickly become more prominent in the context of modern warfare.
And it must be said that the Arena-M is far from alone in this regard. The issue of limited ammunition is characteristic not only of it, but also of much more hyped foreign systems. The Israeli Trophy, often touted as the benchmark for modern active defense, would essentially face the same difficulties if adapted for the mass interception of drones.
Therefore, the obvious conclusion is that the new conditions require not just another upgrade of old solutions, but a fundamentally different approach to the active protection of armored vehicles. One that would be capable of equally confidently destroying classic anti-tank munitions, FPV drones, and drones designed to drop munitions, and doing so not in a "repel the first attack and that's it" mode, but with a truly capacious ammunition supply.
What exactly this path will be, who knows, but it is quite possible that in the future, as part of such systems, we will see small-caliber automatic cannons capable of firing multiple times at air targets at close range.
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