Northrop Grumman graphic

The IBCS network connects previously incompatible radars and launchers into a unified air and missile defense system (Northrop Grumman graphic)

UPDATED from Army briefing WASHINGTON: Four years after a disastrous Limited User Test forced the Army to reboot the program, the IBCS missile defense network has gotten its second chance and it’s hitting the targets — even with one of its communications relays being jammed. Early this morning, the Northrop Grumman-built system successfully orchestrated the interception of a pair of low-flying MQM-178 target drones designed to simulate incoming cruise missiles.

Army photo

Gen. John “Mike” Murray

“What happened today was multiple sensors, multiple shooters, and a command and control system that identified, classified, and passed a track to the right shooter,” said Gen. John “Mike” Murray, chief of Army Futures Command. While it’ll be months before all the terabytes of test data are fully analyzed, he said, “I’m comfortable with where we are and what we’ve learned — [and] to be honest with you, I wasn’t that way three months ago.”

Now, this isn’t the first time IBCS has successfully shot down a target. It’s not even the first time IBCS has shot down multiple incoming targets at once (that was in December). But this is the most demanding test it’s ever done. In the Limited User Test, IBCS being operated not by contractors but by regular Army soldiers, under intense scrutiny by independent Army evaluators, and facing active interference from an “enemy” jammer as it tries to connect a larger set of systems than ever before.

While there’ve been previous live-fire tests, “this certainly has been the most complex to date,” said the Army’s missile defense modernization director, Brig. Gen.  Brian Gibson.

Army photo

Soldiers operate an IBCS command post during the Limited User Test.

See, IBCS, in and of itself, is not a weapon. It’s a computer network that makes weapons work better. (IBCS is a nested acronym for Integrated Air & Missile Defense (IAMD) Battle Command System). Specifically, it’s designed to connect previously incompatible Army radars, combine all their targeting data into a single high-fidelity track, and pass that data to whichever launcher is best able to take the shot. This latest test, conducted at the vast White Sands Missile Range, used seven Integrated Fire Control Network (IFCN) relays — one of which was shut down by radio jamming, forcing the network to work around it — to share data among 10 different elements spread out over 50 kilometers (31 miles) of desert:

    • two Patriot radars,
    • two Sentinel radars,
    • two battery command posts, formally known as Engagement Operations Centers,
    • a battalion EOC (overseeing both batteries),
    • and three Patriot launchers, which fired two PAC-3 missiles to take out two targets.

Two Patriots intercepting two targets is a big deal. Why? Because current Army doctrine calls for firing two Patriot interceptors at each incoming enemy missile. That reduces the risk of a miss, but it also spends your expensive Patriots quickly, and in a major war, you’d likely run out of defensive missiles before an enemy like China, Russia, North Korea, or even Iran ran out of offensive ones.

With IBCS, however, the Patriot batteries aren’t limited to using their own radars to guide their missiles, because the network feeds them data from other radars with different angles and distances to the target. In this case, the Sentinel radars were positioned far ahead of the Patriot batteries, so they saw the threat incoming earlier. That additional time and data, Army officials said, allowed the air defense commander to fire just one Patriot at each target, not the usual two, and still be confident of intercepting them both.

Army photo

An IBCS Engagement Operations Center (EOC) set up at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, for the Limited User Test.

The Limited User Testoriginally set for spring but delayed by COVID-19 —  is far from over. A second live-fire test is scheduled for later this month, this time against a near-simultaneous attack from both a cruise missile and a ballistic missile, which follow radically different trajectories. That’ll be followed by further tests of the system’s resilience against cyber and electronic warfare threats.

IBCS must pass its LUT to finally move from R&D into production. The go/no-go review, formally known as Milestone C, will be held November 20th by the Pentagon’s acquisition chief herself, Ellen Lord.

Even if IBCS passes the LUT and enters production, it has years to go before it fully fulfills the Army’s vision. The current version connects Patriot and Sentinel, and the new LTAMDS radar and IFPC launcher will be IBCS-compatible from the start. But other systems like THAAD, IM-SHORAD, and the Israeli-made Iron Dome will all have to be upgraded to work with IBCS.

Those are all Army systems – but IBCS has already shown its ability to share data with Air Force F-35 fighters. So senior officials and commanders have high hopes that IBCS could evolve into a crucial piece of a future Joint All-Domain Command & Control Network linking all the services across land, air, sea, space, and cyberspace.

There’s a lot of work going on with other Army programs and the other services on how to integrate different systems into IBCS, Brig. Gen. Gibson said. In some cases, as with the F-35, a specific integration has already been demonstrated to be feasible; others are funded in whole or in part to happen over the current five-year budget plan; and others remain unfunded ideas, at least so far.

“They’ve shown me the list, and it’s long,” Gen. Murray said. The IBCS program will prioritize which Army and non-Army systems to integrate first, he said, based on estimated cost, availability of funding, the maturity of the technology, and which are most urgently relevant against real-world threats.

Whatever the details of those decisions, he said, “this is absolutely a key piece of what will become the Army’s contribution to Joint All Domain Command & Control.”