Army sets up battle for WIN-T

The Army last week awarded a pair of contracts that will let two vendor teams battle it out for the multibillion-dollar Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T) program, a tactical intranet that will use commercial technologies for wired and wireless voice, data and video communications.

Lockheed Martin Mission Systems in Gaithersburg, Md., and General Dynamics Corp.'s C4 Systems in Taunton, Mass., were each awarded the first increments of contracts worth more than $70 million to define, validate and test the architecture and technology that will make up the core of the WIN-T system.

WIN-T, which is worth more than $6 billion, is a 15-year systems integration program to develop the Army's tactical communications network for offensive combat and joint operations for the Objective Force, which will transform the Army's armored forces to make them better able to survive an all-out fight.

WIN-T will be mobile, secure and survivable and will integrate ground-, airborne- and satellite-based capabilities into a network infrastructure and will support the Army's Future Combat System (FCS), which is envisioned to create an integrated battlespace, where a network of information and communications systems provide a competitive edge to soldiers in the field and commanders in the control room.

The three-year down-select contracts are divided into two phases. During the first phase, which will last one year, the teams will define the architecture for WIN-T, focusing on risk management, technology readiness and coordination with FCS and other transformational systems. During the second phase, which runs 23 months, the teams will demonstrate modeling and simulation of the WIN-T architecture and develop a prototype system for Army users to test.

The Army Communications-Electronics Command (Cecom) in Fort Monmouth, N.J., is the contracting office for WIN-T, and the production contract award is expected in 2005.

Lockheed Martin is the lead systems integrator for Team WIN-T, which includes Harris Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., ACS Defense Inc., SRI International, CACI Inc., Innovative Logistics Techniques Inc. and Integrated Solutions Inc.

The General Dynamics team includes a number of its own business units, as well as BAE Systems, BBN Technologies, DynCorp, Northrop Grumman Corp. Information Technology, Rockwell Collins Inc., Research Triangle Institute, Veridian Corp. and others.