Army Awards Northrop $289M For IBCS Missile Defense Network

By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.

Chief of Staff Mark Milley declared air and missile defense the Army's No. 5 priority -- one of the Big Six which the service is pushing to accelerate, if necessary at the expense of everything else in their budget.

UPDATED with contract details WASHINGTON: The Army just gave Northrop Grumman a $289.3 million vote of confidence in its much-criticized IBCS missile defense network, a major priority for major war. The award was announced — without even naming IBCS — on Friday, the last work day of the 2018 fiscal year.

IBCS is meant to link multiple Army air and missile defense (AMD) systems that weren't designed to work together — Patriot, THAAD, Sentinel radar, and the future IFPC anti-aircraft/cruise missile system — into a single network. (It's an awful nested acronym for IAMD Battle Control System, where IAMD in turn stands for Integrated Air & Missile Defense). The goal is to exchange targeting data so quickly and precisely over vast distances that any launcher in range can intercept incoming threats spotted by any radar. It's a capability of significant value against North Korea and vital for a high-tech war against Russia or China, which have massive arsenals of increasingly precise (non-nuclear) ballistic and cruise missiles.

Full article: https://breakingdefense.com/2018/10/army-gives-northrop-289m-for-ibcs-missile-defense-network