Economic mechanisms, such as markets and auctions, offer a design language and mathematical concepts that might prove to be effective in addressing human incentives as first-class elements in the design of ultra large-scale systems. To study this possibility at realistic but controllable scale, we developed an emulation of a combat system tactical data network, and developed a variant of the Vickrey-Clarke-Groves mechanism to allocate network bandwidth for radar sensor fusion. The overall conclusion of the study is that economic mechanisms are a feasible and interesting alternative to traditional systems approaches to resource allocation in systems that are highly dynamic, and that involve many actors engaged in varying activities, and having varying and possibly competing, goals.