This summer, mechanical problems with a water treatment plant in Hawaii left thousands of soldiers at multiple Army installations on Oahu without central air conditioning. Soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, experienced five to six weeks of unbearably hot temperatures in their rooms last year before AC was restored.

And just last month, soldiers assigned to Fort Carson, Colorado, reported sleeping in their cars to escape hot barracks rooms, Stars and Stripes reported.

Now, Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle is attempting to do something about it. Telle announced Monday at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting the creation of an enterprise-level Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning Task Force focused on soldiers’ quality of life.

The task force includes leaders from facility operations, contracting and military engineering who can “cut through bureaucratic silos,” the Army said in a Monday statement.

The announcement follows a directive from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last year to create another military-wide task force to improve barracks.

“Secretary of War Hegseth has said every service member deserves clean, comfortable, and safe housing,” Telle said at the annual meeting in Washington, D.C. “This has never been done before — we’re taking this for the first time to the national level, to deliver results across the country to soldiers.”

Jordan Gillis, assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy and environment, said in a statement that HVAC is the top quality-of-life complaint that leadership hears from soldiers.

The Government Accountability Office reported in August that the Defense Department does not request enough funding to fully meet its installation maintenance and major improvement needs, leading to a backlog of deferred maintenance at barracks. Hundreds of thousands of service members live in military barracks, with concerns about poor living conditions and management going back decades, according to the government watchdog.

Before the end of the fiscal year in September, the Army directed $15 million toward 44 high-priority HVAC projects across multiple installations, the service said in a statement.

“While that effort brought immediate relief to specific facilities, the [task force] leaders recognized that one-time emergency funding cannot replace a comprehensive, proactive strategy,” the Army said.

Members of the task force will work directly with garrison commanders to find HVAC projects for 2027 and 2028, the Army said. So far, it has identified more than $100 million in projects to be awarded in early 2027.

“This ensures ready-to-award projects are pre-engineered and priced as soon as funds become available,” the service said. “Additionally, the [task force] will utilize regional contracting approaches, utility energy service contracts, and commercial best practices.”

Within the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, or 2CR, new basics include unmanned aerial systems operation and employment, counter-UAS systems and unmanned ground vehicle usage, service officials said during a Monday discussion at the Association of the U.S. Army annual meeting, titled “Project Flytrap—Accelerating Offensive Maneuver through Data-Centric Kill Web.”

Project Flytrap is an Army counter-unmanned aerial systems initiative and multinational exercise, which has leveled up from the individual soldier to the squadron level with multiple iterations.

The most recent exercise, Project Flytrap 5.0, took place in Lithuania and was concluded earlier this year with partner nations, including the United Kingdom and Australia, and was led by the Army’s V Corps. The countries integrated and tested more than 50 industry-provided technologies, launched effects and unmanned ground vehicles and tested against a live opposing force.

“The American way of war is centered on maneuver, and counter-UAS cannot remain tied to static defense,” Col. Timothy Price, commander of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, said in a Tuesday release. “Project FlyTrap ensures we maintain mobility and offensive survivability in a highly contested, opaque operational environment.”

The 2nd Cavalry Regiment is expanding Project Flytrap into a battalion-level operational capability, adapting from small-unit field trials into tactical employment connected with operational objectives aimed at breaking through drone-saturated frontlines on Europe’s Eastern Flank.

“As we’re training our soldiers for the multi-domain operations, or multi-domain breeds, we talk about the new basics inside of 2CR,” Command Sgt. Maj. Jesse Clark, 2nd Cavalry Regiment senior enlisted leader, said during Monday’s discussion.

“With the new basics, we need to focus on sUAS, counter-UAS, camouflage for electromagnetic signatures … and how we’re going to do that so soldiers understand how to camouflage themselves with those spectrum options,” he continued.

Officials listed the previous basics to include topics such as marksmanship, map reading and navigation, radio etiquette and UAS and jamming reaction to contact.

Clark said the service needs to have disciplined unit training management in which personnel, time and equipment are included to ensure soldiers are proficient at the new basics. One way to complete this is to have a series of expert badges.

“Everyone needs to know these basics because it’s going to be required whether you’re on the frontline or you’re back in the rear because we’re going to have UAS all over the place,” Clark said.

The U.S. military has strived to incorporate UAS and counter-UAS training across all branches, with new units in the Marine Corps and the Defense Innovation Unit aiming to recruit service members with first-person-view drone experience to participate in the Pentagon’s Drone Dominance program.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth addressed AUSA attendees at the Project Agincourt panel on Wednesday, sharing that the Pentagon is requesting roughly $50 billion in reconciliation funding to support the push to scale autonomous and robotic systems.

This request is part of an effort to make the technology available in far greater numbers.

The figure is separate from the Pentagon’s fiscal 2027 budget request, which includes $53.6 billion for the Drone Dominance initiative. That request covers $16.9 billion for unmanned-system procurement, $14.4 billion for counter-unmanned systems, $13.5 billion for contested logistics, $4.5 billion for collaborative autonomy and $4.3 billion for institutional systems and personnel. The budget request does not establish that the reconciliation funding Hegseth cited is the same money or that it is dedicated entirely to drone purchases

Hegseth characterized the funding as a one-time investment rather than a recurring annual allocation, intended to accelerate the development and production of autonomous and robotic systems.

“Ultimately we will be dealing with hundreds of thousands of one-way attack systems this year and into the millions in years to come at a pace that this department’s never ever seen before.”

The Defense Secretary said the Pentagon must make it easier for new companies to compete in a defense market long dominated by established contractors and costly platforms. Traditional defense firms remain important, he said, but the department also needs lower-cost systems that can be manufactured at scale.

The Army’s Drone Dominance program offers a concrete measure of that ambition. In a December 2025 announcement, the Army said a $1 billion initiative would fund approximately 340,000 small unmanned aircraft systems for combat units over two years. The service said it expected to deliver tens of thousands of drones in 2026 and hundreds of thousands by 2027.

Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle said the service is broadening access to its programs for companies outside the traditional defense industrial base. The Army, he said, must make room for new entrants while continuing to work with established suppliers.

Telle also described plans to coordinate the Army’s autonomous-systems efforts while distributing capabilities to operational units. The service is developing an approach that incorporates drones, autonomous ground systems, autonomous fires and autonomous lift into future combat operations.

“We have an MOS in the Army, 390A, where warrant officers could keep the speciality and the skills over the duration to teach our soldiers how to do robotics,” Telle added.

Expanding access to Army test ranges is another part of that effort, Telle said. Greater access gives developers more opportunities to test systems and receive feedback from military users. He also described efforts to share lessons across the force rather than have individual units and organizations solve the same problems independently.

Hegseth said the department must remove bureaucratic barriers that slow the adoption of new technology, telling the panel, “I want you to tell me which rules can be signed away.” He urged officials to identify rules and directives that could be changed without involving new legislation to accelerate progress.

The Social Security Administration’s COLA announcement Wednesday sets the rate of increase for about 72 million Social Security beneficiaries, but also for military retirees and people receiving veterans benefits. The increase goes into effect in January and is 0.8% higher than the 2.8% COLA in 2026.

It’s the biggest increase in four years.

Officials estimate that on average, the monthly Social Security benefit will increase by $75.

As an example, a military retiree who receives $2,500 in retired pay will see a COLA increase of about $90 per month.

For a veteran receiving $1,500 per month in benefits, the increase would be about $54 in 2027.

In 2024, Congress passed legislation that ties increases in veterans’ benefits to the rate of Social Security increases. The cost-of-living increase applies to disability compensation, clothing allowances and dependency and indemnity benefits, as well as some other Department of Veterans Affairs assistance programs.

The COLA is designed to ensure benefits keep pace with inflation. The calculation is based on the Consumer Price Index, which tracks the cost of a wide range of items and calculates inflation and changes in the cost of living.

The 2026 COLA was 2.8%, a few ticks higher than the 2025 COLA of 2.5%.

Those with personal “my Social Security” accounts can view their COLA notice online starting in late November, a few weeks earlier than those who receive paper notices in the mail, officials said.

Another 800 are on federal orders supporting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and “quite a few” are deployed to Washington, D.C., to support local law enforcement.

It all makes up more than three times the Guard’s true capacity, according to Maj. Gen. Robert Carruthers, assistant adjutant general of the Florida Guard. And that’s even after the activation in recent years of the Florida State Guard, a volunteer civilian military force, to support hurricane response and other state needs.

In a panel at the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting on Tuesday, the message of other Guard leaders was clear: The demands are unsustainable — and they need to stop.

“The governor’s become quite addicted to the Guard and how useful they are since COVID,” Carruthers said, referring, presumably, to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has been in office since 2019.

The effects are felt in equipment readiness and training, he said, particularly as funding has not followed the deployment of units and their gear.

“You’re going to have this cascading effect of breaking units downstream,” Carruthers said. “In the case of Florida, what are we going to lose first? Are we going to lose our transportation companies, which are critically important in hurricane [relief], or are we going to lose our aviation first? So it’s also important for us to plan for that aspect.”

The Florida Guard, Carruthers said, had ordered a “maintenance stand-down” to assess the status of infantry brigade combat team equipment sitting unused in motor pools. As a result of the assessment, he said, equipment readiness rates dropped from 90% to 27% within six weeks.

“It’s somewhere five degrees below combat-ineffective, right?” he said. “So that’s just the state of where we are, because the equipment sits … we are not funded to maintain it all the time.”

Maj. Gen. Jack James, commanding general of the New York-based 42nd Infantry Division, proposed a solution to push back on governors’ demands: a “broker” and a “traffic cop” to filter activation and employment requests and prioritize them.

“You hear what these guys are up against with their governors, right? And then what the warfighting commanders are up against with our, whether it’s the [U.S. Central Command] commander, [U.S. Pacific Command] commander, our Army components, right?” James said. “There’s inherent friction right there, so we need a brokering function. We need a traffic cop function. We need the arbiter of how those resource allocations are going to be made in a quick, timely manner, so we can get after it for the country.”

Carruthers acknowledged there would be “political pressure” and fallout as the Guard works to manage expectations and requirements in line with its actual capacity.

“There are probably homeland defense people who think they’re getting these dudes and dudettes, and all of the governors think they have all of their Guard because they’re not really led in war plans,” he said. “And the time of mobilization is not the time to adjudicate that. So that’s something we got to work now to include … trying to get our governor and our state leadership in on these plans at a classified level, so they understand.”

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 saw a historic mobilization of some 118,000 Guard troops at home and overseas.

And the start of President Donald Trump’s second term in 2025 kicked off a new wave of domestic deployments, both to quell unrest and support ICE enforcement actions in Democratic-controlled cities and to contribute to crime reduction in Washington, D.C. The D.C. deployments alone are expected to cost the country another $1.4 billion through January 2029.

While the increased role of National Guard troops in domestic affairs has been a point of concern for some time, Army National Guard Director Lt. Gen. Jonathan Stubbs said the current situation would force action, and even confrontation, within the next year.

“Hope is not a method in this case; there is no fail. We’ve got to figure this thing out,” Stubbs said.

“It’s going to require hard conversations between adjutants general and governors. There’s going to be a level of dialog, of informing and educating our state commanders and chiefs in terms of the prospect of … mobilization and what it could mean for their access to the respective National Guard service members when conflict comes,“ he continued. ”And then when conflict persists, as it expands and retracts, and at some point in time, what they’re going to have left inside the state.”

All of the information about your state’s requirements and deadlines for voter registration, ballot requests and ballot returns is available at the Federal Voting Assistance Program site, FVAP.gov, and at the U.S. Vote Foundation site.

Deadlines vary by location, but as of mid-October, individuals could still register to vote in some states. For the best results, use the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA), which allows you to register to vote, as well as request a ballot. Some states allow you to email or fax the FPCA.

Federal Voting Assistance Program officials are advising those who have requested a ballot from their state election officials and haven’t received it to fill out a Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot, or FWAB, and send it in. States are required to accept these ballots if they meet requirements.

The Federal Voting Assistance Program, a Defense Department program, is the organization that is tasked with implementing the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, or UOCAVA. This law applies to service members and their families living away from their voting jurisdiction, stateside, as well as overseas. It also applies to U.S. citizens living overseas.

The Federal Voting Assistance Program is required to be non-partisan and exists only to provide information and tools for service members, family members and overseas citizens to be able to vote. Voting assistance officers in military units and locations on military bases are also available to provide information.

Again this year, the military and U.S. Postal Service are providing free Priority Mail Express service for military ballots coming from the overseas APO and FPO origins to election offices in the U.S.

The Military Post Office personnel will attach the USPS EMS Label 11-DOD to the voted absentee ballot. This applies to military family members, too, but is only available at the APO and FPO locations. Post office personnel will provide a receipt with the tracking number, allowing voters to track their ballot all the way back to their local election office.

This year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has directed all commanders and supervisors across DoD to conduct a one-day stand down, no later than Oct. 15, to ensure time for service member training, processing and submission of the Federal Post Card Application, if they choose to vote by absentee ballot.

Military Times conducted a spot check of a few states’ UOCAVA deadlines, based on information on the FVAP.gov site:

California: Mailed registration requests postmarked by Oct. 19; online or fax registrations received by Oct. 19. No deadline for ballot requests.

Maine: Registration and ballot requests received by 12 p.m. Nov. 2.

Michigan: No registration deadline; ballot requests received by 2 p.m. on Oct. 31.

Minnesota: No timeline for registration or applying for a UOCAVA ballot, but voted ballots must be returned by mail.

Texas: Voters who haven’t previously registered can submit a FPCA by the Oct. 23 ballot request deadline.

Changes in the FPCA

Voting rights advocates have expressed concerns about changes defense officials made to the FPCA this summer before asking for public comment. DoD has since posted notices in the Federal Register for public comment on the changes, open through Nov. 9.

A new form removes one of the classifications that voters could check: “I am a U.S. citizen who has never resided in the United States.”

Some U.S. citizens who have never lived in the U.S. are legally eligible to vote under some state laws. Thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia allow U.S. citizens who were born abroad, but never lived in the U.S., to vote, said Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, president and CEO of the U.S. Vote Foundation.

Advocates are concerned that these voters who see their former category has disappeared may think they aren’t eligible to vote absentee. The voters are U.S. citizens who have spent most or all of their lives abroad and are passport-carrying taxpayers, she said.

This isn’t expected to be a huge change for military families, she said, but noted that military families are sensitive to changes in these forms which could affect voting rights.

Military voters are among those who have expressed confusion and concern about whether their old form of the FPCA still counts, said Sarah Streyder, executive director of the Secure Families Initiative. She’s assuring them they do count.

FVAP officials have notified state officials that the old form is still acceptable, and voters who have the old form on file don’t have to resubmit a new form. The old form and new form are both available on the usvotefoundation.org website.

That’s the essence of “How The Army Fights,” a new 46-page guide on how the U.S. Army can leverage the tactical to improve the operational.

“While [How The Army Fights] is focused on the operational and strategic levels of war, it will affect how tactical units execute warfighting at echelon,” according to the guide, issued by Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Christopher LaNeve.

How The Army Fights, or HTAF, is a farewell to the small-unit counterinsurgency warfare that shaped Army organization, equipment and structure for nearly two decades.

“These experiences created a generation of units that rarely had to maneuver under a contested sky, mask their electromagnetic signatures, or sustain high-tempo operations without contractor support,” the guide states.

Now, the Army’s operational concept is Multidomain Operations, or MDO, which features big-unit maneuver warfare waged by divisions and brigades rather than platoons and squads.

The guide represents an acknowledgement that the last thing the Army — or the American public — wants is the sort of stalemate seen in the Ukraine war. In that conflict, drones and long-range guided munitions dominate the battlefield to such an extent that maneuver has become the exception rather than the norm.

“Only ground maneuver can seize what the enemy holds and secure it against the enemy’s will,” the HTAF manual emphasizes.

To enable maneuver and the possibility for strategic victory that maneuver offers, HTAF highlights the importance of “the four elements of Army land power”: Convergence, Strike, Close Battle and Endurance.

During Convergence, U.S. forces disrupt enemy command, communications and sensor systems, according to the document.

For example, “a commander executes a kinetic strike against an adversary command post while electronic warfare assets jam backup communication systems,” HTAF states. “Concurrently, long-range artillery targets an enemy radar exposed while illuminating friendly aircraft, while friendly space and cyber capabilities degrade the broader integrated air defense network.”

The Strike element calls for the Army to unleash a variety of munitions, including artillery, rockets, missiles, one-way attack drones and loitering munitions.

“Strike acts as the deep operational shaper, employing medium- and long-range precision fires and uncrewed systems to disrupt, degrade, and dislocate enemy forces and logistical assets before they can influence the close fight,” the document states.

If Convergence and Strike phases achieve the objectives of leaving the enemy dazed and blinded, Close Battle can begin.

Throughout history, battles have culminated with troops advancing to destroy the enemy. But HTAF acknowledges the unprecedented difficulty of a modern battlefield where drones appear to see all and enemy fires can rain down at any moment.

Army units will therefore need to be adept at camouflage and deception, and possess their own defensive weapons against drones and other fires, HTAF states.

“Close Battle is built on highly lethal ground maneuver formations that cannot be formed over short periods of time,” the guide reads. “They are built on years of rigorous training, institutional expertise, and leadership.”

The Army’s ability to function despite enemy fire, particularly when it comes to logistics, is especially vital. This has become a significant issue throughout the Iran war, with strikes by the Islamic Republic on numerous U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf forcing American aircraft to rebase, and ships to sail thousands of miles to seek replenishment.

The Endurance aspect of HTAF involves protecting supply depots, medical facilities and vital infrastructure against enemies that have built anti-access/area denial, or A2/AD, capabilities to keep American forces at bay.

“This requirement is even more pronounced today: the absence of sanctuary across any theater of operations underscores the critical necessity of interior lines,” the guide states.

This also means ensuring that supplies can reach troops on the front lines.

“To achieve Endurance and sustain dispersed forces in contested environments, the Army must operationalize autonomous ground, aerial, and littoral distribution platforms to scale throughput while minimizing human exposure in high-threat corridors.”

Significantly, HTAF stresses the need for the Army to forward-deploy capabilities close to potential combat zones to enable troops to act immediately rather than await reinforcements from the U.S.

“Near-term priorities include constructing bulk fuel and munitions storage, stockpiling supplies, improving contingency sites, and establishing an enduring command-and-control architecture to neutralize the pacing threat’s A2/AD networks,” according to the guide.

HTAF also envisions troops making and fixing their own equipment at the forward edge, including “additive manufacturing and secured ‘right-to-repair’ authorities” that will spare the need to transport items from factories and depots thousands of miles away.

The document points to the importance of the Army’s plan to expand and modernize its organic industrial base: the 23 government depots, arsenals and ammunition plants that produce many crucial items.

“This ‘agile facilitation construct’ will allow production of numerous different finished products and repairs, evolving beyond historical ‘one plant, one output’ industrial models,” the guide states.

Similarly, the contractors in the U.S. defense industrial base must be prepared to surge production if needed.

“The industrial base must develop rapid replenishment solutions rather than relying on peacetime schedules,” the guide says.

Still, HTAF takes care to laud the human component.

“At the center of our operational elements remains the individual soldier. Advanced technology, uncrewed systems, and autonomous networks optimize kill webs, yet they can never replace the human judgment, tactical discipline, and physical courage of the soldiers executing the fight in the mud.”

Six people interrupted the speakers at various points during the beginning of the roughly hour-long panel, which was part of the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting. They shouted condemnations of the U.S. war with Iran and referenced the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

“You’re not a warrior, you’re a coward,” one person yelled, adding, “Children in Gaza are starving!” Another shouted, “You’re killing my family.”

The final protester yelled, “The world f—--- hates you.” “You’re a f—--- war criminal. You’re a Nazi. We’ll see you at the goddamn Hague. You should be ashamed of yourself,” as security pushed him outside of the packed ballroom.

Hegseth made a handful of quips addressing the initial interruptions, saying, “She thinks highly of me,” in response to the first protester.

He appeared to get more irritated as they continued.

“Appears we have a bit of a tactic,” he said.

The panel was intended to be a conversation about Project Agincourt, a Pentagon initiative to accelerate the development and acquisition of autonomous systems.

At one point, after a protester interrupted, a handful of spectators chanted “USA, USA, USA,” before quieting as the panelists continued speaking.

Speaking at the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting here Monday, Gen. Xavier Brunson, commander of United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command, and United States Forces Korea, said lessons from Ukraine prompted interest in changing the shape and structure of exercises there.

“I think what we recognize is that largely the two big exercises every year in Korea focus on large command posts; we’ve got to move away from that,” Brunson said, in response to a question from a Korean journalist.

“So, what we intend to do is take advantage of the knowledge that we have of the threats that exist or that prevail in the Ukraine fight,” he continued. “We’re trying to say how might we train differently, and so [Gen. Kim Sung-min, deputy commander of the Republic of Korea–U.S. Combined Forces Command] and I talk about how we would operate in a distributed fashion.”

In light of the distributed fight and scope of battle in Ukraine, Brunson suggested a training exercise that spanned from Jeju Island to Gyeonggi Province — a distance of nearly 300 miles across nearly the full span of the Korean peninsula.

“Just imagine if we trained across the entirety of the peninsula and got ourselves in a shape where we would say, ‘You can’t utilize the things that you’ve learned in the fight in the battlefield in Ukraine on us, because we learn the same lessons and we’ve distributed ourselves in such a way that we don’t make ourselves the target,” he said. “We won’t be moored in place, and that’s what I’m talking about when I talk about positional advantage. It might not be the same place through the continuum. It might not be the same place when you’re in a crisis or conflict or competition; we might have to change that, and that’s what we’re learning.”

His remarks acknowledged ongoing collusion and information sharing between U.S. adversaries, including Russia, China and North Korea, as Russia continues its war of aggression in Ukraine.

Also on the table, Brunson said, were additional exercises, or a different schedule.

“For a long time, we trained for two big exercises every year. What would happen if we trained in between those exercises?” he said.

He cited a recent exercise conducted without troops that drilled, on a small scale, on what a mass garrison evacuation would look like in light of a major threat.

“We’re there to protect the Korean people on the peninsula, and so we’re there to defend both homelands, the United States of America and the Republic of Korea. But what would it look like … if our environment changed?” Brunson said.

While Trump’s Aug. 16 Truth Social post suggested a broad reduction in exercises with Korea, another general, Lt. Gen. Joe Hilbert, said earlier Monday that the order pertained to only one exercise in August, Ulchi Freedom Shield.

Hilbert, who commands the Korea-based Eighth Army, said the live portion of that exercise was reduced by half and some elements that had been joint became unilateral. He maintained that joint training writ large

“We continue to train on the peninsula. We continue to train with the Koreans,” he said, adding that troops from the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division were currently training on South Korean ranges in a rotational deployment.

“So we’ll continue to train and we’ll continue to build readiness for U.S. forces on the peninsula throughout the year, except from that particular timeline and that particular exercise,” Hilber said. “As we all are observing and watching how the war is changing in Ukraine and in the Middle East, the North Koreans are absolutely doing that too. So rest assured, we pay attention to that, and we work to stay ahead.”

Forterra installed its AutoDrive autonomy software platform that powers unmanned maneuverability onto Hypercraft’s Razorback ground vehicle, yielding a product that can withstand the punishing logistics of combat without putting soldiers at risk.

“The point of an autonomous military vehicle is to deliver payloads to the point of friction,” Forterra Chief Growth Officer Scott Sanders said. “Razorback has the power, power generation and capacity to carry a wide variety of weapons systems without modification.”

Forterra’s AutoDrive autonomous driving system has become an industry standard, integrated on more than 200 vehicles in active service.

Meanwhile, the Razorback weaponizes 300 horsepower, 4,0000 volumes of payload range, a 500-mile range and up to 38 kilowatts of distributable power.

Forterra was the first U.S. ground autonomy company to be actively deployed in Ukraine and has completed 88 casualty evacuation missions to rescue Ukrainian soldiers from the front lines, according to Forterra spokesperson Kelsey Szablowski.

That mission to not put military personnel in harm’s way is part of Forterra’s mantra.

“Robots don’t bleed,” Szablowski said.

The Army has taken notice of the company’s approach.

In August, the service selected Forterra as a prime contractor for its Engineer Autonomous Breaching Capability program, a larger effort to field autonomous vehicles during mine-clearing missions.

The company outfitted a Ford F-250 with its AutoDrive technology and named it the Mobile Autonomous Uncrewed Lanemaker, or MAUL.

The MAUL, which hosts no human in the driver’s seat and can drive autonomously or be controlled by an operator, is made for reconnaissance, planning and clearing in mine-contested environments.

The autonomous vehicle deploys a rocket-propelled mine-clearing line charge, or MICLIC, to detonate explosives in an area before driving through.

In mid-August, Forterra demonstrated the MAUL’s capabilities during Project Sandhills at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in which drones attacked the vehicle as it attempted to mine-detect and clear.

The MAUL fought off and destroyed the drones with an onboard automated turret, while it navigated through the area autonomously.

The exercise took place from Aug. 17 to Aug. 28 and demonstrated the Army’s ability to tackle a myriad of mission sets using attributable autonomous systems that reduce risks to soldiers.

“Instead of relying solely on high-value, crewed assets, we can field semi-autonomous F-250s, sUAS swarms and autonomous c-UAS systems that are adaptable, scalable and resilient,” said Capt. Denny Drummey, Sandhills Project operations officer, during the exercise.

The service will pay a one-year total of $93.6 million, spread out across nine companies, to create applications for its Next Generation Command and Control, or NGC2, software.

“While the Army is providing capability we can deploy today, we’re also providing a blueprint and reference point for how industry can integrate in the future with interoperability and speed,” said Brig. Gen. Shane Taylor, portfolio management executive for the Command and Control Information Network.

The NGC2 will provide a shared network for technologies, weapons, sensors, devices and applications to operate within that will increase decision-making speed on the battlefield.

The chosen companies include General Dynamics Mission Systems, Air Space Intelligence Federal, Immersive Wisdom, LMI, Mente Systems, Stilman Advanced Strategies, Onebrief, Rune Technologies and AIR.

The applications will be hosted on the common data baseline, or software foundation, that Anduril Industries, Palantir, Raft and Striveworks have built in collaboration with the Army.

The NGC2 system, in conjunction with the applications the companies build for it, will allow information sharing that streamlines mission completion across the Army’s six warfighting functions of command and control, fires, intelligence, movement and maneuver, sustainment and protection, the service said.

The Army is currently in the process of delivering the NGC2 software to the I Corps, which commands service members in the Indo-Pacific.

The move will further test NGC2 software’s ability to host technologies and devices separated by thousands of miles, some in communication-contested environments.

The Army has spent the last year moving from the experimental phase to the fielding phase of NGC2, going from prototype development to placing software in the hands of soldiers at the 4th and 25th Infantry Divisions.

In July 2026, the Army hosted a 10-day event at Fort Irwin, California, entitled Project Convergence-Capstone 6, that asked 10,000 participants from U.S. and allied forces as well as industry partners using 90 technologies to test software for the NGC2.

The service conducted a joint force exercise shortly after in May at Fort Irwin that marked the end of the NGC2 prototype phase and came away stating that the new platform was ready to be scaled up.

The Army awarded Anduril Industries a $162.8 million contract on Sept. 30 worth up to 1.8 billion to continue refining the NGC2’s common data baseline, or software foundation.

The Cyber Mastery Incentive program debuted on Oct. 1, promising a new way of paying service members that rewards technology mastery and performance of demanding tasks. But reports emerged that the program wasn’t as financially enticing as advertised, with reductions in certain soldiers’ pay by up to $1,000 per month.

Lt. Gen. Christopher Eubank told audience members at the Association of the United States Army conference in Washington that wasn’t the case.

“Nobody’s losing pay,” said Eubank.

The new incentive plan was broken down into two tiers: skill incentive pay and special duty assignment pay.

The former provides a financial incentive to soldiers for their specific skill set, whether that’s basic, senior or master.

The latter pays soldiers who complete assignments that U.S. Cyber Command labels “exceptionally demanding.”

Analysts and operators at a basic level could reportedly lose $12,000 a year under the new C-MIP program, while developers could lose $850 a month, reports said.

Service members in the master tier could see their pay boosted between $100 and $250.

Eubank admitted that when the program first rolled out in June, the Army was in danger of putting a dent in soldiers’ wages.

But the service huddled with the Army’s Principal Cyber Advisor Brandon Pugh and Assistant Secretary of Cyber Policy Katherine Sutton and decided to sustain cyber assignment incentive pay for the next year to make sure soldiers’ wages didn’t dip.

Cyber assignment incentive pay offers between $200 and $1500 to soldiers based on skill level, assignment and certification, according to the Army.

The Army would use the CAIP program to fill the gap while it focused on refining the CMIC program over the next year, Eubank said.

It is not immediately evident where the money for C-MIP will come from since the Senate is still deliberating over passing the National Defense Authorization Act and Congress is currently in recess.

The Army instituted C-MIP to remodel how it retains and builds the military and civilian personnel that make up its Cyberspace Operations Forces.

Those in charge were focused on making sure that process was easy on the warfighter.

“Part of my job is making sure this is rolled out, that Army soldiers are being benefited and supported,” said Pugh, who also spoke at AUSA Monday. “If not, that’s going to be our job, to advocate to OSW so they can see where there’s been perhaps some challenges that we can try to course correct over the next year.”

The Panama course, back after a decades-long hiatus, resumed in 2025 as the U.S. military shifted its focus to the Western Hemisphere. In August, the Army confirmed it had approved the small arch-shaped patch — emblazoned with the word “Jungle” — for service-wide wear on the left shoulder. It joins the Special Forces, Sapper and Ranger tabs as wearable markers of additional skill identifiers.

Those who attended the course from 1990 to 1999 at Fort Sherman, now known as Base Aeronaval Cristóbal Colón, are authorized the tab retroactively, as well as those who attended the 12-day jungle school in Oahu, Hawaii, after Fort Sherman’s closure.

The 18-day course includes classes on flora, fauna, machetes, jungle first aid, fire-starting, shelter-building, and more, but showing up and trudging through muddy terrain in crippling Panama humidity is not enough to earn the tab.

“There’s a difference between graduating the course with the tab and finishing the course,” said Lt. Col. Andrew Eagan, the officer in charge of the Jungle Operations Training Course in Panama, or JOTC-P.

Even if students fail one part of the curriculum, as long as their failure presents no medical or safety issues, they must finish the course.

“We direct that you will come and you will do the X number of days of training. There are then five critical tasks across the course that you have to pass in order to graduate with the tab,” Eagen said.

Combat Water Survival Assessment and 5K

Early in the course, participants face physical fitness tests.

The Combat Water Survival Assessment, or CWSA, requires participants to complete a variety of survival tasks in the water, including swimming in combat gear, ditching their equipment and dropping from a meters-high diving board.

The 5-kilometer run — only 3.1 miles — has proven one of the course’s toughest obstacles for many jungle school candidates. While a 5k might sound like an easy morning workout for most soldiers, the Panama 5k route covers uneven terrain underneath dense, humid canopy. Service members have 40 minutes to complete the run outfitted with full canteens, gear, a rifle and boots. Eagen said the schoolhouse saw a pass rate of 45% to 55% in the first three iterations.

Now that word is spreading about the route, the pass rate is improving. More than 80% of candidates are passing it now, Eagen said. “They’re not undervaluing the difference between 5k here and 5k at the Fort Benning course,” he mused.

Master Sgt. Dale Taylor, a former Ranger School instructor who attended the course in September, said that people approach the run mistakenly thinking it will be a Thanksgiving Day turkey trot. “It’s nothing alike,” he told Military Times from a mosquito-infested bench at the jungle school. “Never in any other assessment in the military do you know for a fact that you will walk a portion of the run,” he said, alluding to the heat, humidity and steep hills. Only “a handful of people,” he said, “could have ran that course from start to finish.”

Knots and Rope Systems

Jungle school students must also pass individual tests on knots and rope systems. Seven knots are tested, Eagan said, and they are used throughout the course. One example is the bowline knot service members tie around their chests to secure themselves on a one-rope bridge across water.

On a sunny practice day after minimal rain, the knots felt like an added step in an already tiresome water squad crossing. But participants know things can change quickly in the jungle: That gentle, bubbling creek could become a rushing waterway after a storm.

Jungle school students must also qualify independently on rope systems.

“You have to pass rope systems, which is individually being able — in a time standard — to tie a one-rope bridge and the Z-pulley system,” Eagen said. A Z-pulley system, he added, can move a dead or injured soldier in unforgiving terrain that does not lend itself to easy casualty evacuation.

The Green Mile

Water movements, traversing uneven terrain and ropes are all part of the final crucible participants must complete to earn a Jungle tab. The notorious Green Mile — in the heart of Panama’s “Green Hell” — is a more-than-four-mile gauntlet at the end of a days-long field training exercise that separates damp, dirty students from graduation.

Squads must run through muddy ground, wade through coastlines, climb dizzyingly steep hills — often with the help of ropes — carry a hasty litter and shimmy under barbed wire, all while carrying heavy rucksacks, water jugs and ammo cans.

Movements that might have been easy, even enjoyable, with a full night’s sleep and a cool temperature turn into damp, arduous slogs in the jungle. By the time the squads are stepping off for their final tasks, each person is running on minimal food and sleep. The hours-long trek reflects the course’s demanding nature and relentless bodily strain.

“The biggest difference between a student on day one and the last day is the physical toll the environment took on them,” Eagen said, adding, “[I] haven’t yet seen a student that didn’t lose double digits in weight. They are excessively skinny by graduation.”

Representatives of Canada, Croatia, Egypt, Japan, Kuwait, Morocco, Albania and Panama signed a statement of intent to join the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Marketplace during a ceremony Tuesday at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Retired Gen. Robert Brown, president and CEO of AUSA, said that the signing brought the total number of participating nations to 33. The marketplace was launched in March 2026 with nine European signers and continues to grow across regional allies and partners.

“With today’s signing, the marketplace is now truly a global effort,” said Brent Ingraham, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology. “It’s not a concept or a pilot program or some distant future. It is live.”

Since the marketplace was stood up, it has processed $800 million in transactions.

More recently, the Army awarded counter-UAS contract vehicles worth $7 billion through the marketplace, Ingraham said. The Army also operates a C-UAS Marketplace developed and operated by the Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF 401) for digital procurement of counter-drone systems.

The initiative comes in response to a rapidly evolving drone threat in which inexpensive drones have forced U.S. and allied militaries to answer with expensive missiles, Ingraham said. He emphasized a collaborative approach with partners and layered drone defense, including sensors, command and control, electronic warfare, interceptors, directed energy and rapid adaptation.

“There is no silver bullet,” Ingraham said. “None of us can do it alone.”

The marketplace is intended to deliver validated commercial capability to U.S. and partner forces at speed. Soldiers can browse and purchase UAS equipment based on specific tactical needs, evaluate system performance data and provide operator feedback.

The digital platform operates as a government-to-government framework to create a “fast lane” for foreign military sales of equipment that has been pre-vetted for cybersecurity and exportability, according to Ingraham.

Acting Secretary of the Army Adam Telle, who attended the signing ceremony, said the drone marketplace was “connecting soldiers directly with builders and removing the bureaucratic middlemen.” Telle’s comments follow a Monday address to AUSA where he touted Army efforts to streamline acquisition.

The acting secretary further emphasized that the global drone marketplace builds on the Army’s demand for open architecture systems.

Telle said the Army needs to elevate open architectures beyond the tactical systems to “the strategic level,” saying the drone marketplace is a “great step forward” in sharing tactics, techniques, procedures and equipment with partners.

The soldiers, drawn from across the force, voluntarily applied and were selected to reclassify as MOS 40D Tactical Space Operations Specialists, the Army said.

“We had nearly 3,000 soldiers apply, and selected over 600 of the most capable, professional soldiers in the Army,” Command Sgt. Maj. Rickey Jackson, command sergeant major of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, said in the release. “We drew talent from Military Intelligence, Air Defense Artillery and the Signal Corps, but the 40D MOS is open for anyone to apply.

“Ultimately, we are looking for soldiers who master their current jobs and consistently stand apart from their peers.”

The Army announced in January that it was opening applications for the specialty to soldiers in grades E-4 through E-9 across the active-duty Army, National Guard and Army Reserve.

Previously, the service temporarily pulled soldiers from other specialties to help with space operations. However, the soldiers’ experience was often lost when they returned to their original branches.

“For too long, enlisted soldiers with specialized space training and experience rotated through critical space assignments, eventually returning to their basic branches,” Lt. Gen. John L. Rafferty, commanding general of U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, said in a separate release. “The rotational system served the U.S. Army well in the past but will not meet the demands of the future, which requires a professional and sustainable approach to training, career progression and leader development for Army Space soldiers.

The Army’s Space Operations Branch was officially established in June, bringing together the newly-created enlisted occupational specialty and functional area 40As, the Army’s Space Operations Officers. Though 40As have been part of the force since 1999, they have not had enlisted peers until now.

The newly minted Tactical Space Operations Specialists will receive training at the Space and Missile Defense Center of Excellence in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

“Our space operations soldiers bring unmatched value to the Army and joint force because of the education and training they receive to execute space integration and interdiction missions — specifically counter-SATCOM, stratospheric warfare, navigation warfare and counter-sensing,” Col. Felix Torres, commandant of the Space and Missile Defense Center of Excellence, said in the release.

Space systems, the Army said, help soldiers with navigation, weather, communication and early warnings.

Soldiers in the 1st Space Brigade, the Army’s only singularly-focused space unit, have theater missile warning capabilities and long-distance satellite communications, for example.

Operation Jailbreak, which began in May and concluded in late August, staged two major events that brought contractors, operational units and Army technical experts together to fast-track the future of unmanned tactical networks.

“The completed effort dismantled longstanding system silos, proving that autonomous platforms, sensors, weapons, and command-and-control (C2) technologies can exchange real-time data seamlessly across disparate vendors,” the Army said after the final initiative concluded.

The first three-week event began in May, bringing 600 people and 50 defense companies to Fort Carson, Colorado.

Former Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said the idea for the initiative came after he traveled with then-U.S. Army Europe and Africa Commander Gen. Christopher Donahue to allied training sites in Germany to observe how Ukrainians integrated drones, sensors and shooting platforms onto a single network.

Driscoll resigned on Aug. 31, after allegedly butting heads with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Donahue unexpectedly relinquished command of U.S. Army Europe and Africa in July and retired in August.

Driscoll and Donahue observed Ukrainian military utilizing one network that allowed different systems and technologies to exchange data and information without any software barrier.

This, in turn, sped up the ability to identify and destroy targets.

Within 30 days of the first Operation Jailbreak event at Fort Carson, the Army began fielding system integrations with service members in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility.

Alex Miller, the Army’s chief technology officer for Operation Jailbreak, lauded the strides in technology by describing a nightmare hypothetical involving everyday power adapters for civilians.

“Imagine if every accessory you have—light bulbs, toasters, TVs—had a different way to connect,” Miller said at a May 28 media roundtable. “You couldn’t just plug the light bulb in; you had to go find a special cord to plug it into the wall.”

Miller likened the scenario to the siloed information exhanges, explaining that it placed too much pressure on soldiers to act as the adapter and said communication between unmanned machines could change that.

The second and final exercise, Operation Jailbreak Falcon Fury, concluded on Aug. 28 in Tampa, Florida, after a several-week sprint that began on July 27. Seventy companies utilized more than 150 pieces of technology.

Major defense contractors took part, including Epirus, which showcased how its Leonidas high-powered microwave system, which melts drones, could integrate into a wide command-and-control network that hosts other autonomous systems.

Despite massive technological shifts, that paradigm still holds, which is why the U.S. Army and Navy have teamed up to keep systems operational — even in the extreme cold of the Arctic.

As the Department of Defense eyes greater operability in the far north, these low temperatures can wreak havoc on equipment and machinery (and toilets), with ice becoming enemy No. 1.

Which is why the Naval Facilities Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center, or NAVFAC EXWC, and the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, or CRREL, began working with both branches to field a rapidly deployable Triple Container rigid-wall shelter system usable in temperatures as low as -50 degrees Fahrenheit.

The already fielded version can operate in temperatures as low as -15 degrees Fahrenheit. The team focused on different configurations of thermal wrappings, insulation and other components to ensure that parts of the kit’s components that are particularly vulnerable to cracking and freezing — hoses, valves, bladders and pumps — were able to withstand the greater threshold for cold, according to a recent Army release.

The result, per the release, far exceeded the objectives, with the TRICON-based system staying operational down to -65 degrees Fahrenheit.

Testing took place in CRREL’s New Hampshire-based Extreme Cold Chamber, a 288-square-foot cold room capable of reaching temperatures as low as -90 degrees Fahrenheit, per the release. While military units typically have to wait until the Alaskan winter reaches its peak to simulate similar conditions, the controlled environment allowed the research team to create conditions similar to those of the real world.

“Our armed forces live and operate in extremely cold and difficult conditions, so having these facilities operational is important for their physical and mental health while serving in the Arctic and other high-north environments,” said Dr. Dan Tague, a research chemist at CRREL, one of seven U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center laboratories.

In 2024, the DoD released its “Arctic Strategy,” citing “Major geopolitical changes are driving the need for this new strategic approach to the Arctic, including Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the accession of Finland and Sweden to the NATO Alliance, increasing collaboration between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Russia, and the accelerating impacts of climate change.”

The region, according to the report, had become “a venue for strategic competition,” and a space where the United States intends to build a more persistent presence.

The latest successes with TRICORN-based systems provide, beyond the obvious comforts for personnel stationed in the Arctic — Toilets! Laundry! Showers! — an expanded operational footprint for the U.S. military as a whole, according to James Pilkington, a project manager in NAVFAC EXWC Expeditionary Technical Department.

“This extends the operational range of base camps in terms of geographic locations and durations,” said Pilkington. “In turn [it] extend[s] force posture.”

The test, or Neurocognitive Assessment Tool, is computer-based and records neurological activity, such as attention, concentration, reaction time, memory, processing speed and decision-making. Testing started in 2024 in response to reports about the effects that routine weapons training can have on the brain, including traumatic brain injury.

Active-duty, National Guard and Reserve soldiers in high-risk military occupational specialties, including combat engineers and explosive ordnance technicians, as well as troops operating heavy weapons systems, must take the assessment every year, starting soon after they enlist. All other soldiers are required to test every three years.

Medical professionals use the data to monitor service members’ cognitive health throughout their military careers, allowing them to spot significant changes, including potential brain injuries.

“[The NCAT] is an important part of taking care of soldiers, but what this does is, it sets a baseline for reaction times and for memory,” Jordan Gillis, assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy and environment, said in a release. “By establishing a baseline for all soldiers, we’re able to monitor brain health, as well as … let medical providers help with treatment, if required.”

According to the Sept. 30 release, the Army is expected to publish a directive about the Neurocognitive Assessment Tool and a broader overpressure program, which includes hazard assessment, exposure tracking, risk mitigation, cognitive monitoring, information management, illness and injury reporting and training and education.

“The takeaway is we are trying to take care of soldiers and monitor their health,” Gillis said. “And if there is an impact, we’ll be able to treat them.”

Reaching the milestone of 97% of soldiers being tested on the NCAT “demonstrates our commitment to cognitive safety, medical readiness and warfighting capability,” Gillis added.

The announcement of the milestone came just one month after the Government Accountability Office released the findings of its investigation into the ability of military services to provide the baseline cognitive assessments. Across the services, the Defense Department is hampered by staff shortages and a lack of technology needed to conduct the assessments, the GAO found.

The Pentagon announced in April that it will begin a one-year pilot program to test a new cognitive assessment tool, an app that service members can use to complete assessments. DoD officials said the app will be less resource-intensive than current assessments and will help improve the services’ ability to track exposures.

But according to the head of U.S. Army Recruiting Command, the new soldiers struggled to hold up their end of the deal.

The service’s decades-old Hometown Recruiter Assistance Program has been suspended, Lt. Gen. Johnny Davis confirmed at a forum hosted by the Association of the United States Army.

And while he said it’s being “looked at” for possible next steps, he also described the built-in problems keeping the service from getting its money’s worth.

“I would tell you, when the program was initiated and really delivered to the Army years ago and executed, that we had some good return on investment — about, you know, one or two percent,” Davis said in response to a question at the forum.

“But, bottom line, what we’ve learned over the years is that 20, 30,000 young superstars, when they were headed back home, were good; they got to go home,” he added. “But they weren’t really working with the recruiters as much as we wanted them to.”

Davis said leaders understood the “human element” of what was happening, in that new graduates were eager to reconnect with family and friends in what amounted to additional uncharged leave. But, he added, the Army had to consider what it was getting out of the arrangement.

Likewise, he said, the Army has in the past allowed National Guard and Reserve soldiers to return home for non-charged leave during the holiday break known as the Christmas Exodus on the understanding that they would support Army recruiting as ambassadors during that time.

“During that Christmas holiday, was there a lot of recruiters in the recruiting stations working with them? No,” Davis said. “So we’re really thinking through: is this return on investment, and is it worth the cost to the Army? Or can we take those funds and spend them in other ways to help our men and women.”

Davis said leaders were now “looking at other ways” to help soldiers get coveted hometown leave apart from the hometown recruiting program.

Army recruiting social media pages began discussing the suspension of the Hometown Recruiter Assistance Program in January, though the service has not publicly addressed the move until now.

HRAP dates to the 1980s. In its most recent form, soldiers had to be selected and approved for the program by a company commander.

In a 2022 Army news release, a recruiting center station commander in Missouri, Staff Sgt. Colton Dunbar, said the success of the program came down to “how the soldiers are leveraged.”

“We try to get the most out of them while they’re here by bringing them to the high school where they graduated and their communities to show everyone that this person was in your community six months ago as a civilian, but look at them now,” he said in the release. ”It helps to break down any barriers because they know that person in uniform — it helps show we are people just like everybody else.”

But from early on in the program, a lack of success metrics and specific service requirements have limited HRAP’s success.

A 1983 study from the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences found that it was hard to evaluate the usefulness of program participants, because it was hard to track their impact outside of foot traffic to the recruiting office.

It also suggested, though, that there were nevertheless non-quantifiable benefits to having new soldiers present and visible in their hometown.

“Aides are credited for individuals they brought to the recruiter who subsequently enlist, but the total effect of the aide’s efforts is more subtle than the sum of their recruits,” the study found. “For example, aides can ‘plant seeds’ or lay the groundwork months in advance of an enlistment decision and receive no credit for an enlistment that occurs months after his or her departure.”

The Army hasn’t said when it will make final decisions on the way forward for HRAP.

Anduril previously helped develop the prototype for the service’s Next Generation Command and Control, or NGC2, for the 4th Infantry Division, using its proprietary AI-powered operating system Lattice.

“A common data layer allows the Army to integrate new systems without rebuilding the underlying architecture for every sensor, application, or weapon, so new capabilities can be fielded on the same foundation as those already in use,” Anduril said.

The Army awarded $162.8 million to Anduril to continue working on NGC2’s common data baseline, or software foundation, as it begins to implement it across the service’s I Corps, which commands service members across the Indo-Pacific.

The contract contains options that can grow its value up to $1.8 billion.

Anduril, along with Palantir, Raft and Striveworks, have helped build out the baseline.

The NGC2 system will allow technologies, weapons, sensors, devices and applications from across the force to operate on the same network and increase decision-making speed on the battlefield.

By expanding the NGC2 system to the I Corps, technologies will have to figure out ways to connect to the same network despite being separated by thousands of miles and experiencing interrupted or degraded connectivity.

This will provide the Army and Anduril an opportunity to test how well information flows between the systems as they access the NGC2 framework in a myriad of environments.

During a July 2026 ten-day event at Fort Irwin, California, entitled Project Convergence-Capstone 6, the Army asked 10,000 participants from U.S. and allied forces, as well as industry partners using 90 technologies to test software for the NGC2.

Afterward, the Army awarded a contract to Anduril to develop the software prototype for NGC2 for the 4th Infantry Division.

Over the past year, Anduril has conducted several operational exercises in collaboration with the Army to test the NGC2’s common data layer baseline.

In May, Anduril deployed its NGC2 system at Fort Carson and Pinon Canyon, using over 160 tactical edge computers, over 2,500 devices and 40 applications while navigating simulated cyber and electromagnetic attacks.

Two months later, after a joint force exercise at Fort Irwin, the service said the battlefield command system was ready to be scaled.

The NGC2 is set to replace the Army’s first-gen command-and-control system, which helps control fire, logistics and airspace on the battlefield.

The Army has made it clear that it wants to implement the NGC2 as soon as possible.

“We know the biggest risk to our national security and our national defense is not moving too fast. It’s not moving fast enough,” said former Army Secretary Dan Driscoll. “The side that can sense a target, process the data, and deliver a kinetic effect the fastest, wins. That is the decisive advantage this capability provides.”

Acting Army Chief of Staff Gen. Christopher LaNeve said that the Futures and Concepts Command has been redesignated as U.S. Army Futures and Autonomous Systems Command, or FASCOM. The change comes as the Army aligns its weapons purchases, force structure and training around new “How the Army Fights” guidance, which was published last week and explains how the service intends to wield land power in future wars.

“We are not walking away from modernization,” LaNeve said, addressing the industry partners directly at one point in his speech. “We are sprinting towards, it,” he said, adding “and we are doing so responsibly with a recognition that resources are not endless.”

LaNeve has charged FASCOM with developing corps-level autonomous capabilities through experimentation and testing.

According to a Tuesday release, the three-star command will have “capability-based formations centered on autonomous long-range fires, protection, tanks, logistics and obstacle breaching,” and will include some of the Army’s first 390A Robotic Technicians, which were activated this month.

The Army said it chose those capabilities based on their ability to affect maneuver and their alignment to the “four elements” of land power outlined in last week’s guidance: convergence, strike, close battle and endurance.

“This goes beyond drones,” LaNeve said in the release, “FASCOM will pioneer operational concepts that harness autonomous capabilities across all warfighting functions.”

The Army has come under fire recently after shuttering its experimental drone battalion in Europe less than a year after launching the novel unit to test how such a formation could operate. According to The Wall Street Journal, the decision to end the experiment — the brainchild of LeNeve’s predecessor, Randy George — came as part of LeNeve’s broad “back-to-basics” approach.

In September, a bipartisan group of lawmakers signed a letter expressing concern about eliminating the 600-member “Unmanned Assault Battalion,” which was created as part of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. The legislators questioned how the U.S. would continue to learn drone warfare from Ukraine.

In a September media roundtable, Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, the acting Commanding General of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, said the future of the U.S. Army’s drone warfare is spread across formations, not condensed into one unit.

“In Ukraine and Russia you’ve seen those armies create brigades and entire unmanned systems forces, whereas the U.S. Army’s approach has been to decentralize; to accelerate learning across all units,” he said, adding that the Army is aiming to push one-way attack drones to the squad level in the near future.

The international defense company introduced the Multi-Domain Artillery Cannon System, or MDACS, and the High-Power Microwave, or HPM, as complementary systems for protecting critical installations and field units.

Travis Langer, BAE Systems’ communication manager, explained to Military Times that the systems together fill a capability gap created by evolving technological threats and the military’s traditional procurement process.

“Both products complement existing air defense systems, but each offer a more cost-effective solution for defense against high-volume, low-cost threats allowing the preservation of high-value missiles for the most critical targets, which extends the life and effectiveness of the entire missile stockpile,” Langer said.

The Multi-Domain Artillery Cannon System

According to BAE Systems, MDACS forms the kinetic layer of the defensive shield, using precision-guided munitions called Hypervelocity Projectiles, or HVPs, for both offensive and defensive operations.

“It fills a gap that traditional artillery cannot, providing a scalable layer of protection that complements existing high-tier systems,” Langer said, adding that it allows the Defense Department “to maintain a sustainable defense without draining the budget on every single engagement.”

He explained MDACS combines high-accuracy guidance with the extreme velocity of the HVP. “We reduce the time-to-target and the window the enemy has to maneuver,” he said. “We are collaborating with the Army to integrate the organic sensor network and IBCS to ensure the system remains lethal even when GPS is unavailable.”

Compared with traditional missiles, HVPs are smaller and less expensive, allowing troops to carry tens to hundreds of rounds in a magazine. Rather than relying on a rocket motor, the projectiles use what the company describes as a “low drag aerodynamic design” to achieve high velocities, maneuverability and extended range.

For offensive operations, MDACS will fire the Scorpio-XR, the latest addition to the HVP family. Designed for artillery units, the projectile is expected to double the range of existing 155mm cannon-launched precision munitions, according to the company.

Langer added that MDACs will use HVP rounds to engage air targets, counter-missile and Counter-Unmanned Aircraft System, or C-UAS, while the Scorpio-XR round will be used to defeat fixed and moving ground targets in contested environments.

BAE Systems secured an Army agreement to develop a prototype of MDACS in January 2025, according to reports. The Army had planned to spend approximately $646 million on the project through fiscal year 2027.

The High-Power Microwave

BAE Systems describes its HPM system as a “scalable directed energy weapon” built with an emphasis on affordability. The company said 99% of the system’s components are commercial off-the-shelf parts.

Unlike kinetic weapons, the HPM uses “focused electromagnetic energy” to neutralize airborne threats, specifically “high-volume, low-cost” threats, such as drone swarms, that can strain conventional air defenses.

A video simulation of the system shows the HPM mounted on a trailer in a field. Its sensors automatically detect an approaching swarm of drones, prompting a large magnet to shift into position before the system unleashes what the company describes as “billions of pulses” at the airborne targets.

Although the system remains in the prototype stage, BAE Systems said it has reached Technology Readiness Level 6, or TRL 6. That designation means a technology has been demonstrated in a relevant environment beyond laboratory testing.

Layered air-defense

Langer explained that the two systems are not specifically designed to be used together, but they could complement each other if the mission set requires it.

“MDACS is C-130 transportable, allowing it to deliver rapid, high-rate firepower wherever the fight demands. It is designed to protect critical assets from drone attacks and missile threats, providing a scalable and efficient layer of protection,” he said.

Whereas he called the HPM “an effective layer of wide-area protection” that can complement existing kinetic and missile systems. Langer said it creates “a comprehensive shield for armed forces installations and forward-deployed units.”

As for when soldiers will begin fielding these new systems, Langer said they’re still prototypes. “Final testing and qualification decisions are made by the government,” he concluded.

During Project Sandhills 2.0, soldiers planned flight routes and operated Bumblebee V2 small unmanned aircraft systems at Range 63.

The project tested how unmanned systems could support contested obstacle breaching, while soldiers and industry partners collected feedback to inform future Army capabilities.

The Army said the effort included autonomous trucks, robotic breaching payloads, drone swarms, mine detection and counter-UAS tools operating on the same problem.

A counter-UAS turret used a human-authorized effector, underscoring that autonomy did not mean removing people from critical decisions. Human decision-making remains central to the Army’s approach.

The experiment illustrates the larger question raised by retired Army Col. Dave Rowland and retired Command Sgt. Maj. Brian Hester in a Sept. 29 Modern War Institute analysis: Autonomy becomes consequential not when the Army adds an individual robotic system, but when it has enough autonomous systems, performing enough missions, to change how an entire brigade fights.

That difference becomes more consequential as autonomous systems are integrated across a battlefield shaped by drones, sensors, electronic warfare and precision fires.

Rowland and Hester argue that persistent observation and long-range fires make large formations easier to find and attack, threatening the maneuver that allows combined-arms forces to concentrate combat power.

They envision autonomous systems moving ahead of manned formations to identify enemy positions, obstacles and usable routes. Other systems could provide counter-drone, electronic-warfare, sensing or deception capabilities, while autonomous platforms could move supplies through exposed areas.

Beyond experimentation

The Army is moving beyond experimentation into acquisition and organizational changes, with its fiscal 2026 budget justification including an “Autonomy Formation” effort intended to accelerate robotics for armored and infantry formations.

In July, the Army selected four companies for its Engineer Autonomous Breaching Capability program, which calls for prototypes capable of breaching complex obstacles and minefields under direct observation and fire using beyond-line-of-sight autonomous control. An assessment of the unit is planned for early 2027.

On Oct. 1, Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle signed a memorandum directing the establishment of the U.S. Army Futures and Autonomous Systems Command, or FASCOM. The Army announced the move Oct. 2, saying the command will integrate autonomous capabilities into aviation, armor, fires, sustainment, engineer and training formations.

It will also prioritize autonomous fires, combat vehicles, watercraft resupply, breaching, reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition, and crewed-uncrewed teaming for acquisition and fielding by fiscal 2028.

But the Army’s own research shows why turning that ambition into battlefield capability won’t be simple.

In a Sept. 30 Army Research Laboratory study, 13 soldiers operated a mixed air-ground formation during a two-week simulation. The formation included a manned control vehicle, two robotic combat vehicles, a Future Vertical Lift platform and shared launched effects, operating against a human-controlled opposing force under contested conditions.

Researchers found that the formation adapted rapidly, developed effective coordination patterns and maintained stable subjective workload as mission complexity increased. The findings suggest that air-ground teaming was feasible under the conditions tested and that soldiers could integrate autonomous capabilities without an unsustainable cognitive burden.

However, the study did not demonstrate autonomous maneuver by an operational brigade. It tested a specific human-machine formation in a simulation under defined conditions.

Another Army Research Laboratory study examining autonomous reconnaissance and screening identified soldier-robot trust, communications, shared understanding and cognitive load as areas requiring further research. Those issues become especially important when communications are degraded or denied.

That is where Rowland and Hester envision a fundamental change in command.

A brigade cannot scale autonomy if every unmanned vehicle requires a soldier continuously controlling it. The retired Army leaders describe a progression from operating individual systems, to supervising multiple systems, to coordinating mixed manned-unmanned teams and eventually commanding autonomous formations through mission command.

Ukraine offers evidence of what unmanned systems can already do, but also a warning against overstating the technology.

Rowland and Hester point to Ukrainian use of unmanned ground systems for logistics and casualty evacuation while noting that most remain remotely operated or have only limited autonomy. Their use demonstrates the value of shifting dangerous work from people to machines; it does not establish that fully autonomous formations are ready for combat.

Acquisition isn’t the only issue

The Army faces a problem bigger than acquiring machines alone. It must determine how many systems formations can absorb, how soldiers should supervise them, how networks can support them under attack and what happens when a machine encounters circumstances its programming does not anticipate.

Rowland and Hester argue the Army should learn those lessons before the technology is perfected. They call for brigades to train with meaningful quantities of autonomous systems at home stations, identify failures and refine tactics before those systems reach combat training centers.

The Army is now aligning its organizations, acquisition efforts and training around that broader push. The unresolved question is whether those efforts can produce something more difficult than a successful demonstration: a repeatable way for a brigade to see, survive, sustain and maneuver when an adversary is actively disrupting its communications and attacking its forces.

Since then, Rivet has raised $55 million in Series A financing and delivered its first 70 prototypes to the Army, according to co-founder and chief executive Dave Marra.

While the other contractor, Anduril, developed a headset resembling the original Integrated Visual Augmentation System, or IVAS, which it had also helped develop, Rivet took a different approach: a pair of militarized smart glasses called the Rivet Hard Spec.

Marra explained in an interview with Military Times that the idea behind the Hard Spec is helping people who “do hard jobs in hard places.”

While the initial goal was to give infantrymen actionable information for targeting and navigation, the application has expanded to other tasks, including technical and mechanical work that soldiers may not perform regularly.

He explained that the idea isn’t to turn an infantryman into an IT specialist or mechanic, but rather, the glasses could give a trained professional the correct procedures for a task without requiring a physical manual.

“So it’s not just like, ‘Hey, we want to create one solution for every military occupational specialty,’” Marra said. “[It’s] what you want to do as a multifunctional soldier or Marine or airman. And this kind of technology is a great accelerator to exactly that.”

He added that Rivet is also adapting the technology for other fields, primarily aerospace manufacturing and aircraft and motor pool maintenance.

“If you happen to forget or you’re not 100% proficient in this role or you don’t do this particular procedure every single day, you can very easily see how a step could be overlooked, especially when you’re in a high-stress environment,” he said.

The company’s longer-term goal is even more ambitious: enabling soldiers to use the glasses to command AI agents that can control robots and drones on the battlefield.

Marra said that means moving beyond using AI to provide a reasoned response to a complicated question.

“I’m asking an agent to go do something on my behalf,” he said. “What we want to get is where an agent and a robot can task each other.”

He said soldiers should be able to communicate with those systems “in common language, not command language.”

For example, he said, a soldier could tell a drone: “‘Hey, there is a target over that hill. Please orbit over that hill and reconnoiter it and send me back the video.’”

If that sounds familiar, it’s because the concept is almost identical to the MacGuffin in the 2019 film Spider-Man: Far From Home. In the movie, Spider-Man and the villain Mysterio fight over a pair of glasses that connect the wearer to an AI-enabled global defense system.

“And the best way to do that today is having a pair of glasses that has eyes and ears on [the AI],” Marra said. “So in many cases, I would say that we’re putting eyes and ears on AI, and then allowing this kind of agentic ensemble to happen within the human workforce.”