Army Lt. Gen. Bruce Crawford has said the service branch will stop the procurement of the second increment of a tactical communications platform by the end of fiscal year 2018 because its current network “does not meet the future warfighting needs of a high-end conflict,†Breaking Defense reported Wednesday.
The U.S. government has spent approximately $6 billion in funds to support development work on the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical Increment 2.
Crawford told lawmakers at a House Armed Services Committee’s air and land subpanel hearing Wednesday that the Army would use some of those funds to field “capabilities and elements†of the WIN-T Increment 2 program.
The Army will also immediately cease the acquisition of the Command Post of the Future system and the Mid-Tier Network Vehicular Radio, he said at the hearing.
The decision came after Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley ordered a review of the military branch’s network equipment, which Milley says appear to be vulnerable to hacking and jamming, and four months after a group of House lawmakers urged the service to accelerate WIN-T Increment 2’s deployment.
Crawford told House subcommittee members the Army will reallocate the savings generated from CPOF, MNVR and WIN-T Increment 2 programs to repair its current network through the addition of cyber and electronic warfare capabilities, the report added.