Drozd

Drozd ("thrush" in Russian) is an active protection system developed in the Soviet Union, designed for increasing tanks' protection against anti-tank missiles and RPGs. It is considered the world's first operational active protection system, created in 1977–78 by A. Shipunov's KBP design bureau as Kompleks 1030M-01.

Drozd uses 24.5 GHz Doppler radar to detect incoming rounds travelling between 70 and 700 m/s (to avoid engaging small arms or other faster projectiles). Its computer determines when to fire a 107 mm projectile. When the incoming round is at 7 m range, the Drozd fragmentation warhead detonates, spreading 3-gram slugs to destroy the incoming round. The Drozd system was relatively complex, requiring a radar array and two launch tubes on each side of the tank turret, and a large electronics package on the turret rear.

One of Drozd's shortcomings was that it was only able to protect a 60-degree arc around the forward part of the turret. Each unit costs around $30,000, was 80 percent successful against incoming RPGs in Afghanistan, but proved to provide too high of a collateral damage issue to surrounding troops that were dismounted from their armored vehicles.

Drozd (surname)

Drozd is a Slavic surname. The word means "thrush" in Belarusian, Czech, Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, and Ukrainian. The surname may refer to:

See also

Drozd (disambiguation)

Drozd ("thrush" in several Slavic languages) may refer to: