Army Awards Contract for its Integrated Battle Command System: Production Starts 2023

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By Kris Osborn – President & Editor-In-Chief, Warrior Maven

Incoming enemy cruise missiles, rockets, artillery and even hostile aircraft will now be much more likely be seen detected and potentially destroyed or intercepted in coming years due to the Army’s fast moving progress with an emerging networked air and missile defense system.

Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS)

The Army has been developing its Integrated Battle Command System for many years and has just awarded an initial Low Rate Initial Production contract to Northrop Grumman to build the first 160 systems. 

IBCS breaks new ground for the Army by virtue of networking otherwise segregated or dispersed radar and sensor nodes into a single, network system of meshed and interconnected nodes. This means a Sentinel radar system can, for instance, detect a threat from a specific operational envelope and then quickly share real-time information with a Patriot missile system radar such that defensive action could be taken quickly.

Identifying otherwise undetected incoming threats by sharing real-time threat information introduces a paradigm-changing ability to strengthen defenses and give commanders a much faster ability to make determinations about which countermeasure, defensive strategy or counterattack method might best suit the situation.

“IBCS is a keystone Army Futures Command program 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 capability to the warfighter while improving battle space awareness, decision timing and protection against threats in complex integrated attack scenarios,” an Army statement said.