America's generals want a new tank, and General Dynamics (GD 0.22%) would love to build it for them.
On Wednesday, the armored-vehicle specialist announced that its General Dynamics Land Systems subsidiary, or GDLS, is "leading an effort to develop the first North American combat vehicle with a fully integrated Active Protection System," or APS.
Having recently and successfully completed the critical design review stage of APS, GDLS says it will now move on to integrate APS onto a Light Armored Vehicle III test vehicle to demo the system's operation.
The APS system consists of a gun turret that revolves 360 degrees horizontally and fires a shotgun blast of pellets at incoming rocket-propelled grenades, aiming to detonate them before they make an impact with the defended vehicle. The aim is to replace heavy (and gas-guzzling) vehicle armor with a lightweight defense system that reduces the need for heavy armor to defend a vehicle. Asserts the company: APS "is the only technology capable of defeating certain threats without significantly sacrificing vehicle mobility and transportability."
