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EuroTrophy Wins €330m Contract to Equip Four European Leopard 2A8 Fleets With Trophy Defense Systems.
EuroTrophy has signed a €330 million agreement with KNDS Deutschland to supply Trophy Active Protection Systems for Leopard 2A8 tanks ordered by four European NATO members. The deal reflects a wider shift in European armored doctrine toward active defenses as anti-tank missiles and drones reshape modern land warfare.
On 19 January 2026, EuroTrophy GmbH announced in Frankfurt am Main that it has signed a €330 million contract with KNDS Deutschland to deliver Trophy Active Protection Systems (APS) for the Leopard 2A8 main battle tank programmes of Lithuania, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Croatia. This decision comes at a time when European armies are reshaping their heavy land forces around modernized Leopard 2 fleets and are confronted with a battlefield dominated by anti-tank guided missiles and drones. By making Trophy a common baseline for four new Leopard 2A8 users, the agreement signals a qualitative leap in NATO’s approach to protecting frontline armored units on the Alliance’s eastern flank and beyond.
EuroTrophy has signed a €330 million contract with KNDS Deutschland to equip Leopard 2A8 tanks for four European NATO countries with the Trophy Active Protection System, signaling a shift toward standardized active defenses against modern anti-tank threats (Picture Source: KNDS)
The contract between EuroTrophy and KNDS Deutschland covers not only Trophy APS kits, but also spare parts, training courses, associated logistics equipment and through-life support packages designed to keep the systems operational across the entire service life of the tanks. This multi-nation package is aligned with the broader Leopard 2A8 cooperative procurement framework coordinated by Germany, under which Lithuania, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Croatia are acquiring new-build tanks or joining German-led production batches. By integrating Trophy as part of the standard configuration of the Leopard 2A8 for these four countries, after earlier contracts for Germany and Norway, the deal effectively generalises a single active protection architecture across a growing community of European Leopard operators. For KNDS, it consolidates the Leopard 2A8 as a ready-made platform with factory-integrated APS, while EuroTrophy, headquartered in Germany, confirms its role as the European hub for the production, integration and support of a combat-proven, NATO-fielded active protection solution.
At the heart of the contract is Trophy, a hard-kill active protection system originally developed by Rafael in Israel and today manufactured in Europe by EuroTrophy for NATO customers. Trophy combines a set of four flat-panel AESA radar antennas that provide 360-degree coverage with a high elevation angle and a dedicated on-board computer that continuously tracks and classifies incoming threats. When the system determines that a missile, rocket or anti-tank round poses a real danger to the platform, it launches precisely timed countermeasures from rotating launchers on the sides of the vehicle, projecting explosively formed penetrators or other fragments into a narrow “kill zone” that disrupts or destroys the incoming projectile at a safe distance.
Trophy is designed to defeat a wide range of shaped-charge threats, including rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank guided missiles and tank-fired HEAT rounds, and newer iterations are optimised against top-attack profiles increasingly common in modern ATGMs and loitering munitions. Beyond physical interception, the radar and fire-control architecture also functions as a hostile-fire detection system, feeding shooter location data into the tank’s battle management and wider C2 network, enabling rapid counter-engagement by the broader combat group.
The Leopard 2A8 that will receive these Trophy systems represents the latest evolution of the Leopard family and has been conceived from the outset around integrated active protection. Building on the Leopard 2A7HU configuration, the 2A8 combines a high-pressure 120 mm L55A1 gun with advanced modular composite armour and additional protection on the turret roof and upper hull, reflecting the growing threat of top-attack munitions and drones. Add-on armour kits allow tailoring of protection for urban or open-terrain operations, while an all-round situational awareness suite and sensor-fusion backbone link day/night cameras, laser warning receivers and Trophy’s radar into a unified digital picture for the crew.
The 2A8’s upgraded powerpack and digital architecture are designed for high-intensity, networked operations, giving the tank the mobility and connectivity required to operate as part of larger joint and combined formations. With Trophy now embedded in its standard turret design rather than added as an external kit, the Leopard 2A8 is emerging as a benchmark NATO configuration where passive armour, soft-kill and hard-kill layers are engineered as a single system.
Trophy’s credibility rests on a substantial operational track record that distinguishes it from many competing APS concepts that remain at the prototype or limited-deployment stage. The system entered service with the Israel Defense Forces in the late 2000s and achieved its first combat interception in 2011, when a Merkava Mk 4 tank on the Gaza border survived a missile attack without damage. During subsequent clashes, including the 2014 Gaza conflict and more recent fighting, Trophy fitted to Merkava tanks and Namer APCs has repeatedly intercepted Kornet and other advanced anti-tank missiles in dense, urbanised environments. The U.S. Army has since selected Trophy HV to protect Abrams M1A1/M1A2 tanks, while demonstrators have been integrated on Stryker and Bradley vehicles. In Europe, Germany’s earlier decision to equip its Leopard 2A7A1 and then its entire Leopard 2A8 fleet with Trophy created the conditions for series production in EuroTrophy’s German facilities and for its selection as the de facto standard APS for new Leopard 2A8 customers.
The integration of Trophy on the Leopard 2A8 fleets of Lithuania, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Croatia addresses the core vulnerability that heavy armour has faced since the proliferation of advanced anti-tank weapons and top-attack munitions, as starkly illustrated in the war in Ukraine. By detecting and engaging incoming missiles within milliseconds and ensuring 360-degree coverage, Trophy gives tank crews a significantly higher probability of surviving first contact in ambush-prone environments, urban areas or along narrow forested axes typical of Central and Eastern Europe.
The system’s ability to discriminate between genuine threats and projectiles that will miss allows it to conserve countermeasures and reduce the risk to nearby infantry, while the shooter-location function helps the combined arms team rapidly suppress missile launch teams that might otherwise relocate after firing. For Leopard 2A8 units, this translates into greater freedom of manoeuvre, improved survivability in the face of massed ATGM teams and loitering munitions, and the option to rely less on ever-thicker passive armour that would degrade mobility and strain logistics.
The multi-nation contract marks a significant step in the standardisation of NATO heavy forces around a common tank and active protection architecture. Lithuania’s order for 44 Leopard 2A8s to form its first modern tank battalion, Croatia’s decision to acquire 44 tanks under a German-led joint procurement scheme, and the Czech Republic’s and the Netherlands’ plans for new Leopard 2A8 fleets all point to the emergence of a shared European heavy armour baseline centred on KNDS production lines in Germany and, increasingly, national industrial contributions in partner countries.
By ensuring that these fleets are equipped from the outset with a European-produced, NATO-fielded APS, the EuroTrophy–KNDS contract reinforces both interoperability and the resilience of Europe’s defence-industrial base. It sends a clear signal that NATO intends to field armoured brigades along its eastern flank whose survivability is built not only on passive armour, but on layered, networked protection against precision anti-tank threats. In a context of heightened tensions with Russia and growing concern about the vulnerability of armour in high-intensity war, this move contributes directly to deterrence by complicating adversary planning and increasing the expected cost of any attempt to neutralise NATO heavy forces.
The decision by Lithuania, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Croatia to join Germany and other partners in fielding Leopard 2A8 tanks equipped with Trophy APS confirms that active protection is moving from experimental add-on to core requirement for NATO main battle tanks. With a €330 million contract that couples industrial production in Europe to a combat-proven system and to a new generation of Leopard 2A8 fleets, EuroTrophy and KNDS Deutschland are helping to define what “standard protection” will mean for European heavy armour in the 2030s. The step now taken by these four nations is likely to shape future upgrade roadmaps and procurement choices across the Alliance, as more armies recognise that heavy forces deployed on contested fronts will need the combination of mobility, firepower and active protection embodied in the Leopard 2A8–Trophy pairing to remain credible on tomorrow’s battlefield.
Written by Teoman S. Nicanci – Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group
Teoman S. Nicanci holds degrees in Political Science, Comparative and International Politics, and International Relations and Diplomacy from leading Belgian universities, with research focused on Russian strategic behavior, defense technology, and modern warfare. He is a defense analyst at Army Recognition, specializing in the global defense industry, military armament, and emerging defense technologies.