KOLOMNA, Moscow Region, February 21 (AVN) - Installation of the Arena active protection system on the BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) will be completed in May 2001, Nikolai Gushchin, chief constructor of the Machine-Building Design Bureau, said on Wednesday.
Arena has been fitted only on tanks in the Russian army's inventory so far, Gushchin told the Military News Agency. It helps increase a tank's combat efficiency two to four times depending to the conditions and type of warfare.
The Arena active protection system enables combating any types of antitank guided systems, including promising ones. Its radar detects incoming shells at the distance of 50m from the tank in the sector of about 270 degrees from all directions.
After that, the system carries out primary selection of the targets and defines the trajectory of the attacker no matter if it is guided or unguided. If a shell or a missile poses a threat for the tank a protective element is fired at a calculated moment of time, and target tracking continues while the element is flying.
Following that, the system gives a command to activate the element. It falls into pieces that pose no threat to the tank or to the attacking infantry with the exception of one sector where a field of high-speed offensive elements is formed. The elements are falling down on the incoming shell three to six metres from the tank. The time span between the target detection and elimination is 70 milliseconds.
The system working in the automatic mode is ready to hit the next attacker in 2.4 seconds. Information on the number of shots and the number of munitions in stock is indicated on the commander's display.
Used munitions are easily replaced in silos after the combat. The crew needs about 15 minutes to fully recharge the system.