The Sanders (a Lockheed Martin' Company) Missile Countermeasures Device (MCD) AN/VLQ-8A provides immediate protection to armoured fighting vehicles against a variety of Anti-Tank Guided Missiles (ATGM). Over 1,000 systems have been delivered to the US Army for installation on armoured vehicles. There are no known export sales of this system.

The AN/VLQ-8A system jams the ATGM and so prevents it from hitting the target vehicle.

It has a Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) of more than 400 hours and is claimed to be highly reliable, requiring virtually no maintenance at the organisational level. Turning the system on and off and wiping the dirt and dust off the system is the only crew activity required to operate the AN/VLQ-8A for extended periods.

The system is normally mounted on the turret roof of the vehicle and covers the frontal arc. Several systems may be mounted on the same vehicle if a wider coverage sector is required. Typical applications are the M1A1/M1A2 Abrams MBT.

Production as required. In service with the US Army.

Included in: Product Amount M1A2 Abrams (Main battle tank) 1