Plasan Sasa Ltd.
Armor for land, sea and air, protected 4x4s and robotic modules.
Kibbutz Sasa bought a plastics process from an American supplier in 1985 and built an armor company around it. Plasan today runs three business units out of Sasa and Karmiel in northern Israel, with subsidiaries in the United States and France. Survivability Solutions is the oldest and the widest of them. Armored fighting vehicle protection covers blast and IED packages, energy attenuating seats sold as Terra, kinetic add-on armor for hulls and turrets, spall liners, passive RPG defeat screens, a top attack protection system and advanced explosive reactive armor. Light and medium vehicle protection is a separate catalogue built around armored cabins, kitted hulls and armored pods. Naval armor took the company to sea in 2012, when BAE Systems selected Plasan composite armor for the Royal Navy Type 26 frigate, a hull later ordered by Australia as the Hunter class and by Canada. Airborne armor covers cockpit, cabin and seat panels for the CH-47 Chinook, UH-60 Black Hawk, C-130 Hercules and AS 532 Cougar. Personal armor, the line the company began with, still ships plates and vests.
The Armored Vehicles unit sells the SandCat, a family that mates a Plasan kitted hull body to an uprated Ford commercial chassis rather than a purpose-built one. More than 1,700 have gone to about 16 countries. The current range covers the SandCat Tigris chosen by the Israeli military, the special forces SandCat MkV and the double cabin SandCat DC, and the same method produced the heavier StormRider, the Mercedes-based Hyrax and the ultralight Wilder. Plasan Re'em armors civilian Toyota and Ford platforms discreetly for close protection work. Integrated logistic support sits alongside, covering fleet maintenance, technical manuals, spares, training and transfer of technology to local partners.
Integrated Systems is the newest unit and the least expected. It handles electrical, hydraulic, mechanical and control integration on Plasan and third party platforms under the NATO Generic Vehicle Architecture, and it owns the ATeMM. That module is a battery powered driven axle that clips to a lead vehicle through a patented three point coupling, turning a 4x4 into a synchronised 6x6 with an extra 268 hp and roughly a tonne of payload, then unhooks and drives itself as a robot carrying logistics, sensors or effectors. Engineering supports all three units with modeling and simulation, prototyping, two indoor firing tunnels and blast ranges that have logged more than 45,000 ballistic tests. American work built the scale. Plasan supplied kitted hulls for the Navistar MaxxPro and the Oshkosh M-ATV, armored cabs for the Oshkosh MTVR fleet, and armor shipsets for the Zumwalt class destroyers, and Plasan North America was contracted in 2023 to supply cab components for AM General Joint Light Tactical Vehicle production. The company sells to platform builders as often as it sells to armies, which keeps its name off most of the vehicles it protects.
- Composite and ceramic armor design
- Blast, mine and IED protection engineering
- Kitted hull vehicle up-armoring
- Protected 4x4 vehicle design and production
- Naval composite armor for surface combatants
- Rotary and fixed wing aircraft armor kits
- Body armor plates and vests
- Ground robotics and electric drive modules
- Vehicle systems integration under NATO Generic Vehicle Architecture
- Ballistic and blast test laboratory operation
- Modeling and simulation of ballistic and blast effects
- Integrated logistic support and technology transfer
Tactical armored 4x4 on a commercial chassis, selected by the Israeli military, seating up to 11.
Special forces variant of the new generation SandCat with run-flat tires and optional mine protection.
Double cabin pick-up configuration of the SandCat carrying up to three tonnes of mission payload.
Larger and heavier SandCat derivative with all-wheel drive and independent suspension.
Light armored all-terrain 4x4 built on a Mercedes-Benz G-Class chassis.
Ultralight armored buggy-style vehicle using the kitted hull method on a monocoque chassis.
All-Terrain Electric Mission Module, a 268 hp battery module that converts a 4x4 into a 6x6 or operates as a robot.
Bolted and bonded steel and composite armor body fitted to an existing chassis in place of a welded hull.
Blast attenuating crew seats, delivered in large numbers to armored vehicle programs.
Floor-mounted footpads used with attenuating seats to reduce mine and IED blast loads on occupants.
Thin internal composite liners that contain fragmentation inside armored fighting vehicles.
Hybrid composite and metal bar armor at a fraction of the weight of steel slat solutions.
Roof and turret protection package for armored fighting vehicles against top attack threats.
Reactive armor modules for armored fighting vehicle and turret protection.
Protected cab for light and medium trucks and tactical vehicles.
Detachable protected module for carrying troops or equipment on light and medium platforms.
Lightweight ceramic and composite armor for compartments, subsystems and structural elements on warships.
Removable cockpit, cabin and seat armor for transport aircraft and helicopters.
Body armor vests and lightweight ballistic plates tested in the company's accredited laboratory.
Discreetly armored commercial platforms produced by Plasan Re'em to VPAM and STANAG levels.
Electrical, hydraulic, mechanical and control integration of weapons, C4I and mission systems on vehicles.
Fleet maintenance, spares, technical manuals, training and transfer of technology.
In-house firing tunnels and blast ranges accredited to ISO/IEC 17025 for armor qualification.
Finite element analysis of blast, fragmentation, shaped charge and kinetic threats calibrated against live fire.
Programs & Platforms
Kibbutz Sasa, Israel
Ownership
Privately held