The U.S. Army and its contractors say the revamped plan for the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WINT), a mobile communications system for ground forces, is unfolding as planned, but the U.S. House of Representatives is taking no chances on a development program that broke its budget in 2007 and had to be restructured. Under proposed legislation for 2009, defense officials would have to document progress on WIN-T in writing before spending the bulk of the dollar297 million allocated for the program's ambitious third phase, called Increment 3. In that phase, prime contractor General Dynamics and its partner Lockheed Martin are to build components to link the vehicles, soldiers and other elements of the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) into a seamless, mobile communications and intelligence network. Soldiers, down to the company level, would receive secure voice, data and imagery files while on the move over great distances and varied terrain. At issue is the size, weight and power of the hardware that would be installed on the FCS vehicles beginning in 2011 to make them the heart of the Army's vision for a fully networked force. House authorizers are concerned that equipment developed for Increment 2, which is intended to give the Army an initial networking-on-the-move capability, might have to be significantly redesigned for Increment 3.
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