Can Hezbollah's Tharallah ATGM defeat Israeli Merkava 4 Trophy APS?

Jun 15, 2023

The Tharallah ATGM system that was unveiled by Hezbollah, the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon, capitalizes on the Israeli Trophy systems' main weaknesses.

On August 11, the Lebanese Resistance, Hezbollah, unveiled a new anti-tank missile system it called Tharallah. The released video of the testing reportedly dates back to 2015. We will be discussing, in brief, the reasons behind the implementation of such a system in this article.

Wars usually force military forces and their commanders to reconsider their tactics, and incite parties to produce new technologies necessary to adapt to the changing nature of the battlefield. In other words, armies design their tactics and weapons based on a specific military doctrine that may be based on theories, studies, or expectations. Then wars follow, and they either modify the doctrine and its weapons systems or erase it.

For instance, the 1973 October War was a landmark event that inspired countries to reconsider the effectiveness of anti-tank weapons, as well as the way tanks themselves are perceived and used. Similarly, the July 2006 war on Lebanon was the first extensive field of experimentation with anti-armor weapons of the third generation. The events of the war established a new reality that raised the importance of anti-tank systems, which prompted countries to develop or purchase them. Another consequence was the race to develop efficient active or passive tank defense systems to try to deal with such threats.

So what are the third-generation Anti-Tank Guided missiles?

The first models of such systems began to appear in the 1980s and adopted guidance methods different from their predecessors, sometimes using laser-based guidance systems, as in the Russian-made Kornet, or thermal imaging in Fire & Forget systems, as in the case of the US made Hellfire or Javelin.

The Kornet is a beam-riding missile, i.e. the missile rides a laser beam launched by the system's laser designator, and continuously corrects its trajectory to remain centered using a passive laser sensor located at the back of the missile. It should also be noted that most of these missiles are equipped with Tandem warheads to deal with explosive reactive armor (ERA), as the first warhead ignites the ERA, followed by the second that pierces through the solid shield of the tank.

The Israelis were surprised when the Lebanese Resistance employed Kornet missiles in the July war. These missiles, along with RPG-29 launchers and IEDs, caused most of the Israeli armor losses during the war.

In the famous Wadi al-Hujair [Wadi Saluki] battle, the Resistance's anti-armor crews surprised the Israeli tanks from angles that tank commanders did not anticipate, given the large range that the system possesses, which is 5.5 km under ideal conditions. These missiles were more than enough to penetrate the armor of the Merkava tanks of the older generations and posed a great danger to the armor of the newer ones, such as the Merkava 3 and 4, which are precisely designed to deal with this type of threat.

Following the significant armor losses received by the Israeli forces in the July 2006 war, development started to reach a solution against the advanced 3rd generation ATGMs employed by the Resistance. The new system developed by the Israelis was intended by its developers to be a game-changer, allowing Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers to take back their primary combat role that had been degraded by the Resistance. The system in question is the Trophy active protection system (APS).

The vehicle-mounted Trophy APS targets incoming munition using a shot composed of shrapnel. The launch device is a mechanically operated arm installed on each side of the tank or vehicle. This system employs radars that detect the fired missile or rocket, and determine the launch location according to the missile's trajectory as well.

This system has proven its effectiveness since the Israeli military began installing it on its Namer APC and Merkava 4 tank models. There are several videos from the 2014 Gaza war that depict the successful interception of RPG-29 and Kornet missiles fired at tanks, and the Israelis are trying to market the system as the magic solution to all the problems that tanks face in the modern battlefield, but is it really invincible?

According to available information, the Trophy has several visible weaknesses. First, the Trophy has limited ability to counter projectiles that attack the tank at high angles from the top, which makes top attack munitions like top attack ATGMs and drone launch munitions, as well as guided mortar and artillery shells a viable option.

Secondly, the system has three shots on each side, and thirdly, the reload time between each shot is around 1.5 seconds per launcher, and both launchers can be fired independently, with both launchers being able to cover the front and back.

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The Tharallah ATGM system that was unveiled by Hezbollah capitalizes on the Trophy system's main weaknesses.

The system in question is composed of two 9M133 Kornet laser-guided ATGMs or Dehlaviyeh (which is the Iranian-made version of the system) mounted side by side and utilizing the same laser-beam-riding-guidance kit. The video of the test showed the missiles being launched at the same target with a small time gap of around a quarter of a second, and the missiles proceeded to hit the target with precision within the same time gap previously mentioned.

The Trophy system mounted on the Merkava 4M Windbreaker needs at least 1.5s between each interception to reload the firing mechanism. So under battle conditions, the first Kornet missile is supposed to be intercepted by the system and the second will proceed to hit the tank, which it is perfectly capable of destroying since it possesses a heavy tandem-shaped warhead capable of piercing around 1,2m of rolled homogenous armor (RHA) equivalent.

Like any war system, the efficiency is not guaranteed to be 100%, but it is as simple as a battle of countermeasures and counter-countermeasures, which characterized the evolution of military warfare. Nonetheless, the Tharallah system represents one of many possible systems that negate the advantages offered by the Trophy APS, bringing the balance of power to something similar to the eve of the 2006 war.

Since the system holds only three shots on each side, any prolonged engagement would deplete its ammunition very quickly by using older ATGMs and anti-tank munitions. In addition, the Trophy APS system does not solve in any way the big dilemma that the Israeli armored columns faced in 2006, which was the mountainous nature of Southern Lebanon, limiting the number of axes of advance, and making it easier for the defenders to mine these roads and trails. IEDs and anti-tank mines were responsible for a significant number of casualties in the Israeli mechanized forces in 2006.

In addition to the Tharallah ATGM system, there are many available options to defeat the Trophy APS. Whether or not the Resistance possesses such systems is still unknown, but one of them is the RPG-30, one of the systems specifically developed to counter active protection systems. The system follows a similar pattern to the Tharallah system, but the main difference is that it is unguided, shoulder-fired, has a much shorter effective range of 200m, and its first round is only a decoy, not a real missile like the Tharallah missiles.

Top attack missiles like the US-made Javelin or the Iranian-made Almas (which was inspired by the Israeli Spike ATGM) could be another solution for systems such as the Trophy, since they offer a high angle of attack that the APS is designed to engage, but this is a topic for another time.

While the anticipated battle between Hezbollah and the Israeli occupation's military will be fought with fire and iron on the ground, a big part of is is already won before the first shots are fired. That part is the ongoing heated minds competition that involves studying, planning, and developing adequate tactics to counter your enemies.

In 2006, "Israel" faced dilemmas it had to cope with in a very short amount of time amid the heated battle, but it seems that the battle was lost before it even began since the other party, Hezbollah, was better motivated, prepared, and cunning.

The fact that the video of the Tharallah system was filmed in 2015 leaves us with many questions, among them the nature of the new systems introduced in these eight years, but such questions will most likely remain unanswered for some time now, at least until the next war, or until Palestine is liberated.

The Tharallah system is definitely not the cheat code that will cancel the effectiveness of the Israeli armored formations in any future war, however, it shows that the Resistance is always on the lookout for solutions and countermeasures for whatever the Israeli colonial war machine is to bring upon the rightful owners of this land, and thus, the Resistance inches closer to bringing "Israel" to its ultimate defeat, and its occupation to its demise.