Army unveils sweeping XM30 push, $4B bet on NGC2 in newly released budget materials

WASHINGTON — The Army has unveiled plans for the future of its ground vehicle fleet, as well as what it refers to as its biggest modernization priority: Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2). 

The newly released budget documents reveal, among other plans, that the service is looking to procure over 100 XM30 vehicles in the coming years, provide hundreds of millions of dollars for the Mobile Tactical Cannon (MTC) program and invest almost $4 billion across consolidated NGC2 budget lines.

“The Army is in the midst of its most significant modernization in over 40 years,” Maj. Gen. Rebecca McElwain, director of the Army budget, told reporters during the Pentagon’s budget rollout Tuesday. “This involves developing and fielding new capabilities while adapting formations, training and concepts to the character of modern warfare.” 

Regarding ground vehicles, the Army is developing its seventh attempt at replacing the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, this time dubbed the XM30. The Pentagon’s recent budget request allocates nearly $547 million to procure 19 XM30 vehicles in fiscal 2027, and the justification books show the Army wants to procure a total of 108 by FY31. 

The projected budget figures come after the Army published a call to industry in February for ground combat vehicles. At the time, sources and analysts told Breaking Defense that Request for Information could signal the Army’s willingness to reexamine the XM30 program and find potential alternatives to the vehicles that are being developed by General Dynamics Land Systems and American Rheinmetall. 

Further, an Army spokesperson told Breaking Defense in February that the Army “is not going to rubber-stamp a process that has consistently failed to deliver the capabilities our warfighters need.” However, the justification books suggest the Army is prepared to move along with the program for the next several years, for which the two companies are slated to deliver a handful of prototypes this summer. 

Another part of the service’s plan to modernize is through the MTC program, a key part of the service’s Self-Propelled Howitzer Modernization effort. In the FY27 justification books for research, development, testing and engineering (RDT&E), the Army is asking for nearly $697 million for the program which could serve as an alternate to the Paladin system.

As Breaking Defense previously reported, procurement funding for Paladins decreased dramatically from $715 million in FY26 to $84 million in FY27. Tuesday’s justification books explain the sharp decrease is “due to FY 2026 being the final year of production contract awards,” adding that FY27 funding “will support vehicle fieldings as the program transitions toward sustainment.” 

Previous justification books from FY25, the last time future years defense program numbers were published before Tuesday, showed that the Army had planned to procure the systems until at least FY29. 

“As we see the changing nature of warfare, we recognize that a lot of the transformation efforts have reduced the number of ABCTs [armored brigade combat teams] that we have across the total force to reduce our number of Paladins when required for it, but more specifically, looking at more mobile and lighter artillery systems to allow us to operate in different environments at better speed,” Maj. Gen. Thomas O’Connor, director of the Army’s capabilities directorate, told reporters at Tuesday’s briefing.

Further, the Army is also looking to modernize its ground vehicle fleet through the M1E3 Abrams program, which is slated to replace the legacy M1A1 Abrams. McElwain said Tuesday that the justification books show there is $474 million for RDT&E funds for the new tank. The books also indicate that there is procurement funding for the M1E3 under the Abrams Upgrade line item, however, there is no separate line item for the M1E3 so it is unknown how much of the allocated $655 million for the Abrams Upgrade is for the new variant. The Army did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication on specific procurement funding for the new tank. 

NGC2: More Full Stacks On The Way 

Also unveiled Tuesday was the Army’s request for $3.78 billion across procurement and RDT&E for NGC2 and its network divestment efforts. In regard to NGC2 specifically, the Army requested $488.4 million through RDT&E funding for C2 applications; $306.1 million through both procurement and RDT&E for C2 data, $1.36 billion through RDT&E and procurement for C2 infrastructure; and $1.36 billion through RDT&E and procurement for C2 transport. 

Overall, research and development funds will go toward continuous integration and continuous delivery and prototyping, integration, deployment and systems engineering of the C2 applications, data, infrastructure and transport layers while procurement funds will go toward delivery, fielding and integration of capabilities and critical infrastructure, according to a two-pager from the Army. 

This year’s NGC2 requested funds saw a spike from FY26’s $2.95 billion. The $3.78 billion also includes what the Army is calling C2 Now, that aims to replace all the legacy Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T) equipment that is still in formations.

Additionally, the budget request will allow the Army to field two divisions with NGC2 full-stack capability in FY27. Currently, 4th Infantry Division is prototyping the full stack, which encompasses a transport layer, integration layer, data layer and application layer. The 25th Infantry Division is also prototyping NGC2 capabilities, albeit, the data layer, not the full stack.

The budget will also allow the Army to procure three additional division equivalents of NGC2 full stack capability for fielding in FY28 while procuring approximately 50 percent of the C2 Now hardware to be fielded in FY27 and FY28.

The newly released budget figures come as the Army has sought to consolidate budget lines associated with C2 to reduce stovepipes for delivering capabilities. The service said it consolidated line items roughly 50 percent in this portfolio from 12 major lines in FY26 to six in FY27.