Breaking Defense

The Israeli-made Iron Dome can’t share targeting data with existing US radars, launchers, and command posts over the service’s new IBCS network. That drastically limits the combat value of the two Iron Dome batteries that Congress effectively compelled a reluctant Army to buy last year.

But Iron Dome isn’t entirely a dead end, Gen. John “Mike” Murray told me here. The service will hold a missile defense “shoot off” next year open to all comers, including the Israelis, and components of Iron Dome may win a place in the Army’s future Indirect Fire Protection Capability (IFPC).

Murray, who leads Army Futures Command, gave a brief update on Iron Dome this morning in a hearing before the Tactical Air & Land Forces subcommittee of House Armed Services.

“It took us longer to acquire those two batteries than we would have liked for a lot of different reasons,” Murray told the legislators. Now, he said, “we believe we cannot integrate them into our air defense system based upon some interoperability challenges, some cyber [security] challenges, and some other challenges. So what we ended up having is two stand-alone batteries that will be very capable, but they cannot be integrated.”

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