Army IBCS Kills Cruise, Ballistic Missiles
18th April 2016
The Army’s new plug-and-play network for missile defense passed its third flight test on April 8th. In a particularly complex exercise, the Integrated Air & Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS) controlled two types of radar and two types of Patriot missile shooting down two types of incoming missile in the same engagement, contractor Northrop Grumman announced today. Next up for the program — its “Milestone C” review to determine whether IBCS can move from development into production.
IBCS is intended to connect the current arsenal of stand-alone systems into a greater whole, one in which any shooter — including potential future weapons such as lasers — can get firing data from any sensor. In a previous test in November, for example, a low-altitude cruise missile threat evaded a Patriot radar but got picked up by a Sentinel — originally designed for short-range anti-aircraft fire, not missile defense. With both radars plugged into IBCS, the network fed the Sentinel’s targeting data to a Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3) launcher for a successful shoot down.