WWMCCS was a complex of systems that encompassed the elements of warning, communications, data collection and processing, executive decision-making tools and supporting facilities.
The services' approach to WWMCCS depended upon the availability of both technology and funding to meet individual requirements, so no truly integrated system emerged.
The problems created by these diverse subsystems were apparently responsible for several well-publicized failures of command and control during the latter part of the 1960s.
During hostilities between Israel and Egypt in June 1967, the USS Liberty, a naval reconnaissance ship, was ordered by the JCS to move further away from the coastlines of the belligerents.
[21] A congressional committee investigating this incident concluded, "The circumstances surrounding the misrouting, loss and delays of those messages constitute one of the most incredible failures of communications in the history of the Department of Defense."
Furthermore, the demands for communications security (COMSEC) frustrated upgrades and remote site computer and wiring installation.
The result of these various failures was a growth in the centralized management of WWMCCS, occurring at about the same time that changing technology brought in computers and electronic displays.
An Assistant Secretary of Defense for Telecommunications was established, and a 1971 DOD directive gave that person the primary staff responsibility for all WWMCCS-related systems.
The Worldwide Military Command and Control System (WWMCCS) Intercomputer Network (WIN) was a centrally managed information processing and exchange network consisting of large-scale computer systems at geographically separate locations, interconnected by a dedicated wide-band, packet-switched communications subsystem.
The architecture of the WIN consists of WWMCCS-standard AN/FYQ-65(V) host computers and their WIN-dedicated Honeywell 6661 Datanets and Datanet 8's connected through Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc. (BBN) C/30 and C/30E packet switching computers called Packet Switching Nodes (PSNs) and wideband, encrypted, dedicated, data communications circuits.
Information cannot be easily entered or accessed by users, and the software cannot be quickly modified to accommodate changing mission requirements.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff issued JCS Memorandum 593-71, "Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation Program in Support of the Worldwide Military Command and Control Standard System."
The joint chief memorandum proposed what they called a Prototype WWMCCS Intercomputer Network (PWIN) pronounced as pee-win.
[24] Honeywell H716 computers, used as Interface Message Processors (IMPs) provided packet switching to network the PWIN sites together.