July 9,2005 - General Dynamics C4 Systems, a business unit of General Dynamics, and Lockheed Martin today said they performed the preliminary design review on the Army's Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T) program.

WIN-T is the Army's next-generation battlefield communications network. The program, currently estimated to be worth $7 billion through 2018, was awarded to a joint General Dynamics/Lockheed Martin team in September 2004.

During the design review, the Army analyzed the "first draft" of the WIN-T system design, including the top-level architecture and key component technologies, to determine that it meets the performance and engineering requirements documented in the development specifications.

The overall result of the review is that WIN-T is on schedule.

General Dynamics/Lockheed Martin team will now proceed with building a prototype WIN-T network, which will be used for extensive field testing in November of this year. Completion of that test, combined with the upcoming critical design review milestone in September, are essential requirements in advance of Army authorization for low-rate initial production of the WIN-T system, currently slated for March 2006, the companies said.

"This major milestone is an important step to achieving the vision of WIN- T: giving warfighters access to critical battlefield information, seamless connectivity to the global information grid, unified network operations, joint interoperability and security across a host of platforms and points of presence," said Bill Weiss, vice president of future force programs for General Dynamics.

WIN-T is a secure, high-bandwidth wireless communications network that will deliver mobile connectivity to soldiers across the battlefield. Integrating voice, data and video into a single network, WIN-T will keep troops in the field connected to joint and allied forces with unprecedented reliability.

In addition to General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin, the WIN-T program team includes Harris Corporation and BAE Systems - North America as collaborators on the transmission system.