TEWKSBURY, Mass., March 6, 2007 /PRNewswire/ -- General Dynamics C4 Systems, a business unit of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD), has joined a Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN)-led world-class team in a bid for the U.S. Army Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS).

Team IBCS will leverage its combined domain expertise while employing innovative, industry-wide best practices to provide the U.S. Army a transformational, affordable and extensible air defense solution for integrated air and missile defense.

"Team IBCS is about partnering with the best in industry to ensure we provide a revolutionary, best-of-breed IBCS capability to the Army by 2011," said Pete Franklin, vice president for Integrated Air and Missile Defense, Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems. "The addition of General Dynamics to the team is an example of 'OpenAIR™,' which is what we call our commitment to an open business model, enabling us to develop a revolutionary, cost-effective solution.

"The IBCS team will also partner with Defense Department stakeholders, academia, and large and small businesses to ensure our solution provides both affordability and the best technical approach."

The goal of the IBCS is to provide an open architecture that enables the warfighter to take advantage of any sensor and any shooter integrated fire control network. The Army's vision is to move toward a network-centric system- of-systems capability for integrating sensors, shooters, and battle management command, control, communications and intelligence systems for Army air and missile defense.

Integrated Defense Systems is Raytheon's leader in Joint Battlespace Integration providing affordable, integrated solutions to a broad international and domestic customer base, including the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, the U.S. Armed Forces and the Department of Homeland Security.

Raytheon Company, with 2006 sales of $20.3 billion, is an industry leader in defense and government electronics, space, information technology, technical services, and business and special mission aircraft. With headquarters in Waltham, Mass., Raytheon employs more than 80,000 people worldwide.

  Contact:
  Tom Saunders
  978.470.6404

SOURCE: Raytheon Company

Contact: Tom Saunders of Raytheon Company, +1-978-470-6404

Web site: http://www.raytheon.com/