DSEI UK 2025: Boxer gets Trophy

The Boxer armoured fighting vehicle has been fitted with the Trophy active protection system (APS) in a new effort by EuroTrophy and KNDS to anticipate emerging market needs. Calibre Defence met with Dan Kalfus, managing director of EuroTrophy to learn more about the integration and plan behind it. 

The new prototype is a result of collaboration between KNDS Germany and EuroTrophy, together the companies settled on an armoured personnel carrier (APC) variant of the Boxer, which is the most common variant amongst all user nations. 

“The Boxer integration started about 18 months ago, after a series of meetings with Boxer customers in the UK, Germany, Netherlands, Australia and so on. We started an industry workshop with KNDS  to choose a variant and set a common goal as if we had a customer with timelines, milestones,” Dan explained, taking a break from meetings about the new concept to share the latest updates with me. 

“We set out as if it was a funded project with a concept phase, design review, system requirement review, and we also decided upon an end result for the development,” he continued to explain. It is common for companies to present new concepts during a defence exhibition, but the development levels of those vehicles can vary significantly. Some will essentially be a model of what could be provided, if the right customer selected that capability. Others are more mature solutions and the Trophy integration on Boxer fits into that category. The vehicle was kept in Germany as it is going through further development and trials. 

“We decided to have full functionality of the system at the end of the development, so a customer could take it now and test it,” Dan explained, before adding that a series of live fire trials is planned in the coming months. 

The EuroTrophy team also set the goal of using the same configuration, production line, and staff as the Leopard 2A8. The 2A8 comes with Trophy integrated as standard, and they found that the same team could install the system on Boxer without any significant modifications, and integration itself took two and a half weeks. 

The standard Trophy configuration has also been enhanced based upon the company’s observations of modern conflicts. “It includes new software upgrades to counter drones and top-attack munitions. We haven’t had a proper customer requirement for the C-UAS capability, but this is now the baseline software that is carried in the system.” Dan showed me a video of the system intercepting a large class 2 drone in tests late last year. The Trophy upgrade was presented at the International Armoured Vehicles conference earlier in 2025. 

Boxer, Trophy, and mission success

“We understand the boxer is shifting now from a battlefield taxi to the frontlines; we can see that in the UK and Germany, where they will be performing as a medium platform,” Dan told me, referring to the driving reason for the development. If Boxers are to be used more as infantry fighting vehicles, which typically involves driving right up to an enemy defence system, this creates a survivability dilemma for the user. It is well-protected from most ballistic threats across its frontal arc, especially for an 8×8, however, even a relatively simple shoulder-fired anti-tank weapon would be very likely to penetrate the armour from the front, and definitely from the sides. This is to say nothing of the more advanced and very lethal Russian anti-tank guided missiles like the Kornet family. The base version of Kornet has a range of around 5,500 metres and is fired from a tripod using a sight that is reported to be very effective. The tandem shaped charge warhead can penetrate at least 1,000 mm of rolled homogeneous armour and is designed to defeat explosive reactive armour. The blast effects of the warhead can also be very damaging to the crew, especially of a lightly armoured vehicle. 

Kornets and similar missiles have been provided to insurgent forces throughout the Middle East and Africa. They are a significant threat to armoured vehicles there as well as the peer conflict currently driving a lot of European procurement. Heavily armoured platforms are likely to carry enough protection across their frontal arcs to deal with them, but lighter platforms like Boxer do not. 

“We have to think about the potential cost in human lives, the cost of the vehicle, and the cost of the mission,” Dan added, reflecting on the concerns of armoured commanders. Mission planning will be shaped by the perceived ability of the vehicles and soldiers to achieve the stated objectives. If it is likely that many vehicles will be destroyed or damaged by a threat they cannot counter, then the approach to the mission and likelihood of success would change. 

“At the moment, the procurement process for APS on Boxer was not communicated formally to us as industry, but the operational need is well defined,” Dan said, addingt that the firing trials planned for next year, and the release of the platform during DSEI, had raised a lot of interest. 

Calibre comment

The importance of vehicle survivability grows significantly if a force has a limited number of vehicles and people to deploy them, as is the case for the British and German armies, although the latter is set to change. If attrition is acceptable and can be absorbed without risking defeat, then a force may not prioritise survivability to such a significant extent. But with the UK in particular placing a lot of faith in uncrewed and autonomous platforms preserving its crewed combat strength, increasing the survivability of platforms like Boxer is likely to be an appealing route. In the UK, however, it is growing abundantly clear that the financial situation for the MoD is dire, and new money to add capabilities may be hard to find. 

By Sam Cranny-Evans, published on September 11, 2025. Credit for the lead image is EuroTrophy. It shows the Trophy APS integrated onto Boxer. This article, published on September 11 has been updated with a correction clarifying the requirement for Boxer fitted with an APS on September 13.