Air Defense: All Together Now

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August 22,2008:  Taking a lead from the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Army is developing software that networks all the air-defense radar systems in a particular combat zone, and is then able to decide which anti-aircraft weapon would be best suited to attack any hostile aircraft detected. There is some urgency to this, because soon the army will have four such radars in operation (IBCS, a THAAD, Patriot and Sentinel), and different missiles supporting each. All this will be quite complex, and the army expects it to take about six years to get a working system to the troops.