The interior of the IBCS Interactive Collaborative Environment. (Northrop Grumman)
The US Department of Defense (DOD) has officially given the US Army's Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS) the green light to enter into full-rate production, allowing army personnel to begin planning for eventual deployments of the advanced command-and-control (C2) capability.
The full-rate production approval decision comes months after the system cleared the Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E) milestone in late 2022, according to a 13 April statement by IBCS prime contractor Northrop Grumman. The company was awarded a USD1.4 billion production deal to build the IBCS in December 2021.
While company officials are now cleared to begin building production-rate IBCS variants, the system has yet to receive initial operating capability (IOC) status from Pentagon and army officials. “Initial operational capability for IBCS is on track for a declaration in 2023,” company officials said in the statement.
Poland has already adopted the IBCS into its armed forces, the statement noted, adding that as the IBCS is fielded “by more US allies and partners, [it] will enable high levels of coalition forces interoperability and network integration”.
As designed, the IBCS is an integrated air- and missile-defence C2 system that will integrate current and future air- and missile-defence systems via open-architecture applications, enabling users to employ a range of sensors and weapons during combat operations.
Aside from open-architecture applications, the IBCS leverages common software and standard interfaces to expand potential sensor and shooter combinations via its integrated fire-control network. Combat systems that will be integrated into the IBCS include the Patriot air-defence system, the Surface-Launched Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (SLAMRAAM), the Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor Sensor (JLENS), and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) platform.
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