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.