Several House members have urged U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley to expedite the deployment of a tactical communications platform across the service branch, C4ISRNet reported Thursday.
The report said a group of 178 lawmakers wrote in an April 10 letter that the Army should facilitate the acquisition of six additional sets of the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical Increment 2 in the next five years.
The procurement of six additional WIN-T Inc. 2 sets would equip 30 additional brigade combat teams and division headquarters by 2024 with the tactical comms platform that works to facilitate voice, video and data communications for dismounted troops.
The letter comes as the Defense Department works on its budget request for fiscal 2018.
The fiscal 2017 budget package allocated $114 million in additional funds to field WIN-T Inc. 2 to two additional BCTs, bringing the total budget for the platform to $406 million this year.
The Army has deployed the second increment of WIN-T to seven division HQs and 13 BCTs with a plan to bring the total number of deployed tactical comms capability to 56 BCTs and 18 division HQs.
Bill Weiss, vice president and general manager of ground systems at General Dynamics, said the company has begun to transition WIN-T for installation on Humvees and has collaborated with the military branch to reduce the size, power and weight of the Tactical Communications Node-Lite system to make them fit on military vehicles.