France to upgrade command functions
Thales has been selected by the French defence procurement agency to upgrade the command functions of the French Army and Navy, it announced on 16 February. The contract forms a part of the SIA information system transformation programme.
Under the contract, designated SIA C2, the navy and army’s legacy command information systems will be replaced with a single Thales system over the coming two years. The system will meet the growing requirement for interoperability with joint and coalition forces.
Until the SIA C2 system is rolled out across the two forces, legacy systems will be maintained and supported.
The army's current command information system is SICF, in service at tactical levels 1-3 for over a decade. It is used on over 3,000 workstations and in remote theatres of operation. SIC 21 is the navy's current system, installed in most of its vessels. It is used for the command and control of naval operations in an international and joint forces context.
The overall SIA programme aims to deliver a full tri-service operational information programme to improve ministry organisation, operational efficiency and system technical maturity.
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