South African defence company Saab Grintek Defence is receiving a lot of interest from around the world in the latest version of its armoured vehicle Land Electronics Defence System (LEDS) 50, the Mark (Mk) 2. "We've received a lot of requests for proposals," reports company product manager: land self-protection systems Leon Ferreira. "The requirement for soft-kill capability has become more prominent in the past year or so. We're seeing increased interest."

The LEDS 50 Mk 2 is a significant refinement of the original LEDS 50 Mk 1. The Mk 1 was sold to a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) army. The Mk 2 is now in production for two customers, one being another Nato country and the second a Middle Eastern country. First deliveries of the Mk 2 system will start in October. It is now a military-off-the-shelf system, ready for other customers.

Self-protection systems for armoured vehicles come in two categories: soft-kill and hard-kill. Soft-kill systems confuse, distract ("seduce", in the jargon), block and/or jam surveillance, targeting and weapons systems. LEDS 50 is a soft-kill system. Hard-kill systems destroy incoming munitions. There are less than a handful of operational hard-kill systems in the world. (Saab Grintek Defence has reached an advanced stage with its LEDS 150 hard-kill system, but is now looking for partners to complete the project, because of the high costs involved.)

"LEDS 50 Mk 2 is a laser-based warning system," he explains. That is, it detects laser-based threats, including laser dazzlers, rangefinders, target designators, and laser-beam riding missiles. It will raise the alarm and automatically release fast-deploying multispectral smoke. Automatic release is essential, as a man-in-the-loop system would be too slow to react to the threat in time. Multispectral smoke is essential, to ensure it blocks all wavelengths. "This will break the beam. The incoming weapon will lose its track and miss the target." The system works equally well if the vehicle is stationary or moving.

There are different installation options for the system. It can be integrated into a vehicle's Battle Management System (BMS). Thus, the Nato army has integrated the LEDS 50 Mk 2 into the BMS of its BAE Systems CV90 armoured infantry fighting vehicles. In this option, the system would identify and report, either in an audio and/or visual form, the nature of the threat and the direction (both azimuth and elevation) it was coming from. To reiterate, activation of the smoke would be automatic.

A second option integrates the system to an onboard smoke control system (which can be from Saab Grintek Defence or from another company) and to the vehicle's local countermeasures dispensing controllers, which fire smoke grenades. This combination can also be set up to function automatically. In this format, the system can handle up to 48 grenade-launching tubes.

Furthermore, the LEDS 50 Mk 2 can be integrated with remotely-operated weapons stations, so that the weapons (or other systems, such as dazzling lasers) can be automatically slewed in the direction the threat is coming from, allowing suppressing fire to be put down. The system can also be mounted on small patrol boats and landing craft.

The system is modular, provides hemispheric coverage and enjoys redundancy because it uses multiple sensors. It can handle up to eight threats at the same time and is protected against false alarms, including light reflections (this particular feature is unique to the LEDS 50 Mk 2). The system has built-in test capability and is compatible with laser training systems.