The US Army recently awarded Northrop Grumman with a contract valued at USD1.4 billion over five years to produce its future battle command system.
The service announced the basic terms of the low-rate initial production and full-rate production deal on 23 December, and said two companies submitted bids for the Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) programme. Under the terms of the new deal, Northrop Grumman will deliver “up to” 160 systems to the army by late December 2026.
“IBCS is a keystone Army Futures Command programme that will provide a decisive battlefield advantage through weapon and sensor integration, and a common mission-command system across all domains, delivering an integrated fires to the warfighter while improving battle space awareness, decision timing, and protection against threats in complex integrated attack scenarios,” the army wrote in a statement.
More specifically, the network connects army radars, combines their targeting data, and passes on that data to whichever launcher that is best suited to take a shot against a target.
The service has been working on the programme for more than a decade and in 2016 it suffered a multi-year setback when it failed a limited user test (LUT), and the army revamped the effort.
Four years later, programme officials conducted another LUT at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico where two Patriot radars, two Sentinel radars, Patriot launchers, two battery engagement operations centres, and two battalion engagement operations centres communicated over seven different Integrated Fire Control Network relays within a 70 km area to down targets.
In January, then Pentagon acquisition chief Ellen Lord approved an IBCS Milestone C decision, a move that enabled the army to award a production contract.
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