On Wednesday, July 30, 2025, the American company Northrop Grumman announced that it had completed the delivery of serial-configuration components of the Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) to U.S. Army units, where it will serve as the foundation of the Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD), under the Low-Rate Initial Production (LRIP) phase, valued at 1.4 billion USD.
Command and battle management EOC cabin at the EPIC (Enhanced Production & Integration Center) manufacturing and assembly facility in Madison, Alabama / Photo: Northrop Grumman
Under the December 2021 contract, from February 2024 to the end of the year, the company delivered 142 components of the IBCS system in Increment 2 version to the customer, along with additional equipment. This included 35 Engagement Operations Centers (EOC), each consisting of three elements: C-OPS (Current Operations IBCS EOC), E-OPS (Engagement Operations IBCS EOC), and F-OPS (Future Operations IBCS EOC). The delivery also included 32 radio terminals for the Integrated Fire Control Network (IFCN) and 75 Integrated Collaborative Environment (ICE) kits for operations in a virtual environment.
The company is providing product engineering and logistics support for the Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E) phase, which enabled the system to achieve Initial Operational Capability (IOC) as of May 1, 2023. Some of the LRIP-produced equipment was previously delivered to the first—and so far only—export user: Poland (6 EOC stations and 12 IFCN radio terminals). These units were manufactured at Northrop Grumman’s facility in Huntsville, Alabama.
“Northrop Grumman’s delivery of IBCS MEIs to the U.S. Army underscores our commitment to deliver cutting-edge technology,” said Jeremy Knupp, vice president, global command and control solutions, Northrop Grumman. “We have the manufacturing depth and capacity to deliver IBCS at speed, ensuring our armed forces are equipped to meet the challenges of modern warfare with enhanced situational awareness, decision-making precision and operational adaptability.”
On April 13, 2023, the company also received approval to begin Full-Rate Production (FRP) of the IBCS system in its Increment 3 version, under a five-year contract awarded later that December, valued at approximately 1 billion USD.
Northrop Grumman will now begin IBCS production under that contract at its state-of-the-art EPIC (Enhanced Production & Integration Center) facility in Madison, Alabama. This new infrastructure is designed to scale and accelerate the production of critical capabilities while boosting high-rate production capacity for major defense programs.
Within the U.S. Army, IBCS is being integrated with MIM-104 Patriot battalions and will also operate in coordination with THAAD batteries, future Enduring Shield systems, and potentially other current and future platforms (in the Polish Armed Forces, with medium-range Patriot/Wisła batteries and future short-range CAMM/Narew batteries).
On June 23 of this year, it was announced that earlier in 2025, Northrop Grumman had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with South Korea’s Hanwha Systems (part of Hanwha Aerospace) to collaborate on next-generation IAMD technologies. Beyond South Korea, other countries expressing potential interest in the IBCS system include Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Romania, Greece, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, Australia, and several unspecified Gulf nations.
We’ve completed MEI deliveries for IBCS under LRIP and transitioned to full-rate production for the U.S. Army at our state-of-the-art EPIC integration center in Madison, Alabama. With 175,500 square feet of production space, our EPIC facility has the capacity to deliver IBCS at… pic.twitter.com/ahjj8FzOjQ
— Northrop Grumman (@NGCNews) July 30, 2025
