The U.S. Army has decided not to purchase any additional Israeli-made Iron Dome air-defense systems because it cannot integrate them into existing U.S. systems.
The Iron Dome does not share targeting data with the U.S. network, and this limits the value of the two Iron Dome batteries that Congress pushed the army to purchase last year, the Breaking Defense website reported on Thursday.
Army Futures Command (AFC) head General Mike Murray told lawmakers during a Thursday hearing of the House Armed Services subcommittee: “We believe we cannot integrate them into our air-defense system based upon some inter-operability challenges and cyber challenges and some other challenges,” according to a report by Jane’s Defence Weekly.
“So, what we ended up having really is two standalone batteries that will be very capable, but they cannot be integrated into our air-defense system,” he said.
The army is going to host a “shoot off” and allow other vendors help decide “the best solution to provide that capability,” said Murray.