Army Force Modernization: FY 2027 Defense Authorization, Future Years Program

Committee meets today to discuss the Army's modernization efforts with a focus on the fiscal year twenty-seven President's budget submission. I want to thank our witnesses, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, Mister Jesse Tolerson, and Acting Commander of the Army's Transformation and Training Command, Lieutenant General Miles Brown, for being here. Thank you both for your service and and for being with us today. The goal of army modernization is pretty straightforward, to ensure American soldiers have the most capable, survivable and lethal equipment possible to deter conflict and if necessary to win on the battlefield. The character of war is changing rapidly as we all know. We're watching it in in real time. Recent conflicts have demonstrated the growing importance of unmanned systems, electronic warfare, long-range precision fires. integrated air and missile defense, and resilient communications networks. At the same time, China continues to be the pacing challenge for the department of war, while Russia, Iran, North Korea, and violent extremist organizations continue to threaten US interests and global stability. But the army faces another challenge as it modernizes, modernizes, and that's adapting fast enough to keep pace with technological change. The battlefield is evolving in days or months, rather than decades. The army must balance affordability, sustainment, mobility and survivability while ensuring new capabilities can be fielded rapidly and of course at scale. Moderni- modernization cannot simply focus on developing exquisite systems, it must also prioritize production capacity, operational relevance and the ability to integrate emerging technologies into formations quickly. I believe army leadership recognizes this reality, and our moving the army in the right direction. The army's emphasis on transformation in contract, contact, experimentation with new formations, and integration of unmanned systems and counter-UAS capabilities reflects an understanding that future wars will demand adapt adaptability at every echelon. I might say current and future wars. Exercises like project convergence continue to demonstrate the value of joint integration, data sharing and human machine teaming across the battlefield. I look forward to hearing from General Brown about transformation and training command lessons learned and how those lessons are informing requirements, acquisitions and operational concepts. The Army has also made difficult but necessary modernization decisions over the past two years. The service continues to refine its portfolio to focus on capabilities that are survivable scalable and relevant for the times. Efforts to modernize combat vehicles, improve long-range fires, expand air and missile defense capa- capacity, strengthen the industrial base, and rapidly field counter drone technologies are critical to maintaining overmatch. I would ask Mister Tollerson and our witnesses to discuss how the Army is prioritizing modernization investments and ensuring programs deliver capability to soldiers faster. At the same time, we must recognize that modernization requires sustained and predictable funding. I guess that's kind of our job, right? The army continues to face growing operational demands around the world while modernizing for future conflict. Investments in munitions production, air and missile defense, counter-UAS systems, contested logistics and next generation networks will all be essential to readiness and deterrence. This committee will continue working to ensure the army has the resources necessary to meet those challenges. I thank you for appearing today and look forward to hearing your testimony. And now, give the uh, give some time to General Kelly, Secretary.

Got promoted.

Senator.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, I join you in welcoming our witnesses and thank both of you for appearing before the subcommittee today, and look forward to hearing your testimony. Also wanna recognize the service members around the world who find themselves in harm's way as we meet today. While this is a modernization hearing, today's discussion is also relevant to all of them. I understand the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, Brent Ingraham, is in Europe finalizing some agreements with foreign partners, and that's a reminder that our allies and our partners matter. Mister Taliesin, we appreciate you testifying in his absence, and General Brown, thank you for being here. Uh, last October, Army transformation and training commander T-two-com was established to integrate force generation, force development, and force design under a single command to better posture the army to, and this is a quote, ensure readiness and the speed of relevance, unquote. General Dave Hodney was nominated and confirmed as its first commander because he was the right officer to take on the challenge of merging, multiple organizations into a unified headquarters. Then in April, Secretary Hegseth removed General Hodney. At the same time, he fired the Army Chief of Staff, General Randy George, both for no demonstrated reason. So I want to acknowledge the work and professionalism of the T two com leaders, uh, despite the complete and unnecessary disruption. General Brown, your experience in armies, in the Army Futures Command and Army Combat Capabilities Development Command positions you well to continue the challenging task of establishing T two com so thank you for being here today and I look forward to hearing an update on how T two com is enhancing the army's ability to modernize. The army is in the middle of a major modernization cycle. And what I want to understand is how the Army plans to manage all of these modernization programs to get capabilities into the hands of the soldiers more quickly because, as I think we all recognize, speed matters. Our adversaries, they move quickly. Technology is changing rapidly. And the Army has to be able to identify, develop, test, and then feel new capabilities as a pace that keeps up with the threats that we face. In particular, I'm interested in hearing how the Army's six capability portfolios, under the portfolio acquisition executives, are contributing to the accelerated delivery of war fighting technology. The Army's budget prioritizes major ground combat formations with significant investment in next generation tanks, and ground combat vehicles. Ground forces remain the military component capable of seizing and holding terrain. But that's not guaranteed. The battlefield is changing. And I want to better understand how the army is modernizing its concept of operations in an era of ubiquitous drone technology. The army is also looking at fires more holistically, offensive and defensive. and recognizing the criticality of layered systems. Operations in Ukraine and Iran validate both the importance of the exquisite systems, but also the importance of the complementary lower-cost munitions. And I'm interested in how the army is going to build a layered kinetic and non-kinetic capability that protects uh maneuver forces and contributes to the joint fight. The Army is also making significant investments in critical en enablers, including next generation command and control, next generation aviation and logistics capabilities for contested, and also maritime environments. As the Army increasingly experiments on the edge to field these new technologies, I look forward to learning how it is ensuring rigorous test and evaluation standards. And at the same time, modernization of enduring capabilities that will remain in formations for years to come must be part of the Army strategy. And I hope our witnesses will provide an update on Secretary Driscoll's Right to Integrate initiative, focused on accelerating data sharing on the battlefield. Our witnesses face the challenge of balancing support for ongoing operations, sustaining readiness, and modernization while preserving the technological edge critical to our military success. And I look forward to the discussion. Thank you, Mister Chairman.

Thank you, Senator Kelly. Again, thanks to both of you for being here. Um, Mister Tillerson, it's my understanding you have an opening statement. This would be a good time to share it. Then let me just also thank you for stepping in the gap like this. Appreciate that. You're recognized.

Chairman Kramer, Ranking Member Kelly, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, good afternoon and thank you for allowing me to sub in for my boss today. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the Army's fiscal year twenty twenty seven modernization request and our ongoing acquisition reform efforts. I'm pleased to appear with Lieutenant General Brown, the Acting Commanding General of Transformation and Training, command. He and his team have been essential partners in aligning requirements, experimentation, acquisition, training, and sustainment. I ask that our written statements today be entered into the record. The Army's request is designed to turn continuous transformation into battlefield advantage. Recent conflicts have reinforced that technology cycles are accelerating, Production capacity matters, and the Army must be able to integrate new capabilities faster than our adversaries. First, we are changing how the Army identifies, prioritizes, and delivers capability. The stand-up of Transformation in Training Command and the establishment of portfolio acquisition executives are central to that effort. T-two Com connects transformation, experimentation, requirements, and training, while PAEs are designed to provide portfolio-level accountability and the decision space to make informed trades across cost, schedule, performance, and risk. Together, T two comm and ASALT are integrating requirements, resources, acquisition, test, sustainment and training earlier and more deliberately. Consistent with the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year twenty twenty-six we are making the necessary changes to ensure full compliance with congressional direction and public law. First and foremost, all portfolio acquisition executives will be acquisition professionals who report directly to the Army acquisition executive. providing clear accountability and unity of effort across their portfolios. We are also applying le- lessons learned from the PAE Pathfinders as we implement the broader department's acquisition transformation strategy. Second, the Army is acting to expand and accelerate critical munitions production. Recent operational demands clearly demonstrate the need for resilient production capacity and affordable, scalable, competitive options. Our approach includes expanding the supplier base, addressing long-lead materials, modernizing production capacity through long-term, multi-year procurements, and fielding lower-cost munitions. We are also using commercial solutions openings, public-private partnerships, and enhanced use leases to strengthen the organic industrial base, onshore critical supply chains, and accelerate advanced manufacturing. Our objective is an industrial base that can sustain current demand and surge when required. Third, the request prioritizes the capabilities soldiers need to fight and win, and are fully r- resourced in this request. Those capabilities include next-generation command and control, or NGC-two, offensive and defensive fires, including long-range precision fires and counter small UAS systems. The MV seventy-five, multi-mission aircraft, and advanced crown combat vehicle platforms, such as the XM-thirty and the M-one E-three. These are not stand-alone platforms. but are being managed as a part of a portfolio. They must operate as an integrated network and be continuously upgraded, as threats and technology evolve. We will use commercial solutions where they meet the requirement, while also retaining purpose-built capabilities where decisive overmatch demands them. We appreciate Congress's partnership in all of these endeavors and look forward to continued collaboration in the uh future. Finally, acquisition reform must give the Army the right to integrate and the right to repair our equipment. We are expanding the use of commercial technology, modular open systems, shorter development cycles, and using more flexible contracting approaches. We also need appropriate access to interfaces, tech data, software, and tools necessary to integrate, update, repair and sustain our systems. Operation Jailbreak is bringing technical experts, operational units, acquisition professionals and industry together to break down barriers between systems and help accelerate integration. This approach fully respects legitimate intellectual property while ensuring the Army can adapt capabilities at the pace of conflict. We are also taking concrete steps to guarantee the Army has the right to repair and maintain its own equipment to ensure operational readiness. While we are doing everything we can on our own to secure our right to repair, we are also fully committed to working with Congress to make sure that there are no gaps in our statutory authorities and that we have all the tools needed to fully protect readiness. The Army appreciates the subcommittee's partnership and continued support for our soldiers. civilians and families. Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you today, and I look forward to your questions.

Thank you, Mr. Tillerson. General Brown, um, you're recognized, but again thank you for the the time in my conference room. It was enlightening and I look forward to your testimony.

Thank you very much. Chairman Kramer, Banking Member Kelly, distinguished members of the subcommittee, good afternoon. I'm honored to be here with Mister Tolson and have appreciated the close relationship with Honorable Ingraham and the ASALT team. Thank you for the opportunity to testify about the Army's fiscal year twenty-seven budget request and how it supports the Army's comprehensive approach to transformation. United States Army Transformation and Training Command is eight months old. It enables the US Army to defeat all adversaries and adapt to the ever-changing character of war. There is the Army that fights, and we are the headquarters that builds the army that fights. We are the assembly line. And for the first time a single command owns that whole assembly line. To that end, the T two com headquarters is a flat, transparent, and truly twenty-first century organization. We're built on deliverables and data sets. Our subordinates are war- rewarded for integrating directly with each other and applying rigor to complex problems. Our number one deliverable is to get better equipment to soldiers and combat formations faster. We do that with a minimum viable bureaucracy that enables and integrates forced generation forced development and forced design across three major subordinate commands United States Army Recruiting Command responsible for the entire forced generation pipeline from first handshake to first unit of assignment they have already surpassed their FY twenty-six recruiting goals and were leaning forward for FY twenty-seven targets. United States Army Combat or Combined Arms Command, responsible for developing the force through army university, combat training centers, and our centers of excellence. Combined Arms Command took lessons already from ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and has immediately included them in our programs of instruction and training scenarios at our combat training centers right now. United States Army Futures and Concepts Command is responsible for develop- designing the force including experimentation, developing requirements, all of our army labs, and our concepts of employment. In accordance with title ten US code one three zero four, which grants responsibility for the development of capability requirements to the chief staff of the army, Futures and Concepts command has eliminated redundancy and reduced the number of requirements generating organizations from forty-six to nine. In a matter of weeks, we've worked with CENTCOM and GIATA four O one to move cutting edge capability, like counter-U counter-UAS tech, the bullfrog, and then other elements like Lucas or Prism to support operation Epic-Fury, all possible because of an emphasis on moving better equipment faster. As we bring capability forward, TtwoKom works in close partnership with ASALT. In short, we are a family. There is no daylight between us. We are also committed to independent, thorough test and evaluation. integrated with both experimentation and capability development. Thank you again for your support to our soldiers and civilians and to the army writ large. I look forward to your questions.

Thank you, General. Thank you, um, for for that statement. Um, you Mr. Tillerson, you brought up Operation Jailbreak and and General Brown, you and I talked a little bit about it, uh, earlier today. Um, maybe you you, cuz you r- recently had the first the hackathon right the the the and uh give me a sense of who all participate in that and maybe what the lessons learned are uh from that, I can start with you general then you can meet mister Tolson.

Yes sir so I appreciate the question, uh Operation Jailbreak was an opportunity for us to take uh all of I think it was eighty vendors uh we came in seventy eight of the eighty we were able to jailbreak or get access to their uh APIs and what that does is that allows us to integrate at the source. It's it's basically a modular open systems architecture exercise and so we built a systems integration laboratory in the mission training complex uh there at Fort Carson, Colorado. And what that does now is we have a list of seventy-eight vendors that have been identified as broken so they have access and and companies know they can work with these companies. Um, and what that does is that allows companies to build capability together, and teams of teams, as opposed to having a monopoly or a bespoke type of technology.

Excellent. Mr. Tillerson.

Yes, you know, sir, I think what we're really trying to prove out too is what General Brown was talking about in terms of MOSA. Everybody talks about it. It's just we've kind of yet to been able to truly operationalize it. And what drove Operation Jailbreak and this hackathon that we were doing was really what we were seeing in Epic Fury. you know, as far as being able to integrate quickly across our legacy fleet. So we picked a use case and it was gonna be counter-UAS and IA, IAMD. So we moved all those systems over to Fort Carson. We had great participation from industry, had all the engineers there, um, and it was successful in that we were able to actually break this capability. And now we have essentially what is an API marketplace, to where those APIs are now gonna be available. Now, we're still capturing what the lessons learned are,

Mm-hmm.

and that'll be what we're gonna be calling jailbreak one point five. And we'll be able to report that back to you, because what we wanna do is operationalize it. And what I mean by that is, now we need to deploy it. And, you know, our first step was to deploy it over to CENTCOM to make sure that everybody understands how you do a jailbreak and integrate together and share that type of IP that you're That's gonna be required.

Mm-hmm.

I think the expectation the secretary has is that we're gonna continue forward doing these exercises um as resources become available. Think our next step would be to go overseas and do something uh with our foreign uh partners. Um, so more to follow on that, sir. But that's where we landed.

Great stuff. Um, just out of curiosity, how how did the vendors How welcoming were they to the invitation? Obviously, I mean, he had a lot of that. But you, you know, this is a little bit of a culture clash. Um, at at paradigm shift, w- were they pretty open to it, or how, what was your sense?

So they were extremely open to it.

Yeah.

And I think what helped was that we had top-down leadership, you know, just making calls and telling them how important that this is to the warfighter. Um, everybody participated, everybody came, wanting to solve the problem. Yeah, you know, there were, I don't, I don't think anybody actually was objecting to what we were trying to do. So we had great, we had great cooperation. Um, I think, I think a lot will be in the details as what the next steps are, as to how we try to scale that. Because I do think there's probably gonna be areas where we're likely gonna have to negotiate, I think, with some of those vendors as far as how open and accessible those IPs are gonna be. Those IP PI's are gonna be and what we could put on that marketplace. But overall, great support from industry.

Senator, if I could jump in,

Please.

I what I thought was very interesting is how many of them thought that it would be really easy so they they looked at it and said of course like I don't have any, I don't have anything blocking you from accessing until you get in that systems integration laboratory and you start to work through that and you realize that. Actually, there are attack surfaces that are, uh, are, there are fire walls and they can't get through.

Sure. Great. Well, thank you, um, uh, I've got more questions, but later I'll turn over to Senator Kelly.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, so, armies need munitions, they need troops. In Iran, there were in excess of ten or twelve thousand strikes conducted, and then counter-strikes that we had to defend against, so I think it's fair to say we expended the force, the joint force expended a significant number of munitions. And a a number of munitions that are requested in the next budget are requested through the reconciliation process rather than the regular appropriations process for - for the army. So What is the Army's plan to procure these munitions that we have to replace and rebuild these stockpiles in the event that a reconciliation agreement is not reached?

Senator Kelly, thanks for the question. That's a great question. Um, you'll see that our missile procurement army budget, about eighty-two percent of the munitions that are requested are gonna be in the reconciliation mandatory bucket. Um, we fully support reconciliation. You know, obviously, we really need that to pass, so we can continue to expand our munitions production capacity and build out and restockpile. Um,

Mr. Tolstoy, was the thought to put it in there to increase the likelihood that a reconciliation process is successful because these are critical items?

Sir, I personally can't answer that question. Uh, that determination was made above my pay grade.

And what

But what I can tell you though is, sirs, that we are looking at options here in case reconciliation does not go through. It is a concern. Um, and I think we owe you more detail on what that plan B would would be. I think the I think what we would have to do is it was essentially we would we would work to get to the rate that we needed to get to that was requested in as part of reconciliation, whether that be through renegotiation with the contractor or just reprogramming funding to

Right.

I think that would be a good idea to have a contingency plan because,

to meet that rate.

you know, we need to restock these munitions. And then General Brown, how is the Army's efforts in identifying and incorporating some low-cost, long-range munitions that'll be complimentary to current systems.

Yes, sir. Thanks for the question. I'm, um, I'm, I'm actually pretty excited about where we are with, uh, with, you know, low-cost, uh, m- uh, cruise missile, and then you also talk about, uh, low-cost containerized munitions. Um, what we've done, um, is we've maintained the pace that we have with our current contracts and our current capabilities. At the same time, we've done really a sequel um to to think about what what can we what can we bring in. There is a lot of uh private money in defense right now. Uh there's a lot of uh capability. Uh what we've really started over the last two years is working the use cases, because uh when companies get ready to spend their internal research and development dollars we've gotta make sure we give them the right use cases and vignettes. Uh some of these companies are putting you know hundreds of millions of dollars into IRAD to be able to get after th- th- th- th- th- th- th- th- through IRAD. these capes capabilities. We're talking um we're talking a depth, magazine depth, that we've gotta work on. That's a that's a part of our formations uh in the future. Um so it's not just uh it's not just containerized munitions, but it's low-cost uh cruise missiles that could complement the programs that we already have, the programs of record. We see this as a we see this as a as a must-do. Uh this is part of the innovation ecosystem that we have to foster.

I was in a uh underground drone manufacturing facility where some of their drones now have ranges, this is in Ukraine, have ranges in excess of eight hundred kilometers. I think now that was a year, that was about fifteen months ago, and I think now they're even in excess of a thousand kilometers and they're pushing them out. Those things are basically cruise missiles at this point. I mean, they're much slower, right? They're subsonic. Um, and they, uh, especially over the last few days, you could see in open source the ability to hit and effectively hit refineries and do significant damage is increasing. We need to learn, you know, from that and incorporate that into our acquisition process to to build out, maybe not have them on the shelf right now, but to build the capacity to build them.

Senator, one thing to just to add on that, I think that there's a capability for us to recompete some of the capabilities that we already have planned. An example is PRISM increment four. We're doing just that in that space.

Very good, thank you. We could might go down that path a little more in a bit. Senator Blumenthal.

that, uh, is so impressive. Um, and I think we should have them on the shelf, not just the capacity, uh, because they are the probably the most cost-effective recent development in warfare um, and very much the future of warfare, not only obviously aerial drones but what Ukraine has done with undersea drones in the Black Sea, also enormously important. Um, uh, I want to just pursue the question that Senator Kelly raised about the reconciliation package. You know, this is your job. Uh, what what is your plan B?

Sure, I think on the munition space, I think we're still looking at that. So I think if reconciliation our I think our position right now is that we are fully supportive of of uh of of reconciliation passing and that would be our priority.

I I understand that, but viewing the difficulties that attended passage of the

Yes, sir.

last reconciliation pact and some of the public statements made by Republican senators about the prospects for the next possible reconciliation package, I think it's gonna be an uphill battle.

Yeah, so I fully acknowledge that. And I think we're not uh, we are certainly not blind to that fact. So we are looking at contingencies. I think for us it would be we know we have to ramp up the rate, especially for things like PAC-three and the precision strike missile. So I think for us it would be going back and potentially trying to renegotiate with the with the vendors, or then looking at ways that we could then self-finance what that demand would be. It may not be the full amount that the Munitions Acceleration Council would be requiring, but we would look to at least in- inject those lines with additional funding that we would have available to us.

Um One of the uh takeaways of of my most recent trip to Ukraine was the importance of air defense. Pack-three interceptors, um, do we have stockpiles of air defense munitions sufficient to meet the needs of Ukraine, given what has been expended in Iran, in the Iran war?

Sorry, I would have to defer to OSW or to OSD on that question. Um, I think as far as the joint staff, as far as looking at what our overall inventories are in in that capacity, I will tell you that we are taking all the necessary steps to ramp up Pack-three production. You know, we have a strategic framework that is in place. Um, we certainly appreciate the committee authorizing a multi-year procurement authority last year and the in in the FY twenty-six budget request for a seven year deal. Um we're also looking at a low-cost interceptor program to where we're trying to shave off cost out of a pack three like type capability which we're really excited about we're we're gonna have an industry day here think June twenty third and you know we've already got about ninety industry partners that are looking to participate and the way we're gonna do that is really compete the components. um and essentially make it more like a prize challenge um to where we find the right components that are low cost and then we would potentially bring in a third party to manufacture that low low cost interceptor all of which is supplement our current stockpile of things like pack three pack uh pack three cri the whole family

so you're developing new sources, new manufacturers for

Yes, sir.

air defense.

We are.

Senator, if I could uh jump in here, we also, when we do these components, we do this in multiple other types of programs. We're doing we're trying to get after commercial supply chains. So many of our supply chains have been built only for defense. We did that for anti-tamper and other reasons. What we're finding now is we have the ability to use commercial supply chains to be able to get after some of these, and that really reduces the cost, sometimes by over three or four hundred percent.

Well, I would I would just suggest that whether it's Ukraine or Europe, uh, or our own servicemen and women, uh, air and air defense is gonna be a part of the drone technology challenge, because we need to be able to defend against the drones and missiles in the way that Ukraine is trying to do. Um, I think there'll be an escalation in Ukraine as Putin grows more desperate. Um, and, um, I think as a matter of simple humanitarian, not to mention military, consideration, we should really meet that need as quickly as possible. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Excellent. Thank you, Senator Blumenthal. Senator Peters.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, gentlemen, thank you, uh, for being here today. Uh, Secretary, uh, Taliesin, um, Army leadership, uh, has spoken to me positively about the, uh, infantry squad vehicle heavy program and, Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. uh, its, uh, unique, uh, capabilities. Uh, so my uh, as the Army shifts to mobile brigade combat teams, uh, units, uh, will need these vehicles that can carry both the power and the equipment required to provide command and control systems, uh, on the move. But despite this critical need, uh, the Army is still working, uh, to accelerate the ISV heavy program. So my question for you, sir, is how is the Army accelerating the fielding timeline for the ISV heavy, and what are the barriers that are standing in the way of accelerating this program? It seems to be a critical program, a tremendous asset, we need to get it in the field as quickly as possible.

I appreciate the question, Senator Peters. The ISV heavy is certainly a top priority for us. we are looking to accelerate and i i i do believe we are i think one of the things that's allowing us to accelerate is the fact that we have established paes and we have portfolios now we're working closely with our requirements community and that's allowing us actually to move out quickly with the competition that we're gonna hold for the isv heavy i believe it's gonna be in fourth quarter of this year actually is when we're gonna start to release the rfp Um, I'll get you the details on the full schedule. Um, but we're we're very excited about that program. We think there's gonna be some really good competition

Mm-hmm.

in that space. Um, we have an authorized objective of about just north of six hundred vehicles right now. And really what the ISV heavy is gonna be designed to do is it kind of fits that kind of niche requirement there between an ISV and then say a uh JL TV. And it's really gonna be focused on the power generation part of that. one of the things that we do have uh a critical capability gap on right now is power generation at that mobile

Yeah.

brigade combat team uh level. I would tell you though right now, sir, I don't think there's any any uh barriers that are in place right now for us to move move very uh quickly here.

Yeah, general?

Yes, sir. Just the the requirements, the requirements are are there, so the requirements, you know, the the the thing that's great about the ISV is the ISV itself was the threshold. Uh, when we talk about threshold and objective values with requirements, the ISV heavy met - met another objective and went into another place that,

Right.

where, you know, the - the - the folks brought us this and said, " Hey, you didn't ask for this, but you know you could have this." And so what it did was it caused us to be able to go back and look at our requirements and make sure that, uh, we find a - a place for that. Uh, the capability that, uh, Jesse's talking about, it really helps us in terms of the power situation. And, uh, and the other part is Senator Blumenthal's question about - about air defense. We have now, when we built the, uh, PAEs for Pathfinder, we built a PAE for protection. And mobility is a form of protection.

Absolutely.

And so it allows us to be more, way more survivable.

Great. Well, that's good to hear. Secretary, the, uh, the Army has, uh, accelerated, uh, the development time-line for the, uh, M-one E-three Abrams tank, as I'm sure you're aware, uh, aiming to field a variant within, I understand, twenty-four to thirty months instead of the two thousand thirty uh that was originally planned. General George uh has also reportedly indicated that the Army intends to field four M-one E-three Abrams prototypes in twenty twenty-six for testing uh with the First Cavalry Division receiving uh those prototypes uh I believe this fall. So my question for you, what is the status uh of the w- one M-one uh E-three acceleration uh effort, and does the Army have additional updates on the current delivery of the prototypes and whether they'll still be delivered this fall as uh was previously indicated. Are you still on that time line?

Senator, we are still on that time line. Uh, we're very excited about this program. Everything is moving forward. We have the funding behind it. So right now we're, it's just a matter of getting the vehicles delivered and then uh just filled in to that division. And so we can start capturing feedback and then moving forward with a very aggressive schedule for the M-one E three.

Right.

General.

Uh, Senator, the only thing I would mention is the the thing that's great about the M one E three is this we're not just bolting on another piece of kit to the next generation. We went through the M one E three represents a reset. It's lighter, it's more mobile. It has a vehicle protection system built in. It's more protected. Um, and it's a lot more lethal. And we can use it as a as a base kit because it'll have drive-by-wire technology in it, so I could put I could make it autonomous or semi-autonomous.

Right, right. So, Dr. A., as you know, too, the in fiscal year twenty-seven budget request includes five hundred and forty-seven million for the XM-thirty, uh, the replacement for the Bradley, uh, infantry, uh, vehicle. Uh, this funding allows for the production of nineteen of these, uh, of XM-thirties, indicating a transition from prototyping to now operational, uh, fielding. So, given its critically importance, how are you ensuring that the XM-thirty program stays on track in terms of engineering development? and plan fielding uh timelines uh and cost growth.

Senator, I think right now the XM thirty is on schedule. It is meeting costs. Uh, I think it's the way we've run this program from the start. This is before I got to my position, but we probably have more information about the XM thirty than we ever have, just based on the digital designs that each each of the final two uh uh each of the final two OEMs were able to provide. We feel confident that we'll stay on schedule. I think the biggest question for us is just uh going forward, making sure that we sufficiently resource the effort.

OK, very good. General?

Sir, I've been a part of it for five years. I'm pretty excited about it. The thing that's great is uh both the XM thirty and the M one E three represent that reset to be able to build they'll be the base piece

Mm-hmm.

of our close combat formations on the heavy side.

Right.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Yeah. Thank you, Senator. Um, couple of things that have come up that I I kinda wanna reconcile. We I think we talked a little bit about this in general in in my office, but you you both have you both referred to, you know, the acquisition, the contracting, sending demand signals that attracts capital, five year for example, or multi-year contracts, but also the need for speed in terms of the transformation itself, the i- the innovating itself. How how do you s- see reconciling you know, the long-term contract on the one hand, uh and on the other hand, making sure that what's being produced is relevant for the moment. Maybe you start with you, General, then go to Mister Tillerson.

Yes, sir. I think as we partner with uh because we uh not only does T two com do the requirements side but we also manage all the science and technology. And so as we discover uh opportunities and we discover technology, we're constantly in connection. And I don't think that that's always probably been our strong suit. It may be something that we kinda protected. Most of our our labs now are a lot less about building the building the watch themselves as about reporting out on the watches that are you know that are at the jewelry store and I think what we see now is there's capability in in so many different places but we have to make sure that we let uh ASALT know when we're talking that all the time not only do we have to maintain programs of record, but we have to be able to recompete whenever new technology matures. And then we have to build formations that can accept that technology.

Just tell us.

You know, I would just echo those uh comments, sir. I think a part of this is just by the way that we've structured the uh PAEs,

Mm-hmm.

you know, and and that we have the situation where the acquisition core, the material developer is really nested with the requirements developer and then we have the enablers that are sucked in underneath. So what we've been able to do is we also established sort of a stand-alone organization pathway to innovative technology. Um, and that's where we're trying to operationalize the acquisition piece of this, to where we're forward deploying people. That's acquisition at the tactical edge, you know, to where we're tied in, um, not only to, say, VC companies that are coming up with emerging disruptive tech, but also getting close to each one of those divisions who have their own innovation labs. Um, and then having that connectivity going back to the actual PAEs to where there could be a transition plan that could happen quickly. And getting back to my earlier comment about having us nested so closely together within the uh PAEs that really allows us to look at the capability from a holistic standpoint. So we're looking at it from a dot mel PFP position as in instead of just one innovative, disruptive technology, how does it fit into the formation, how does it fight? what do soldiers really need, what's the problem that we're trying to solve.

Yeah.

So, we're doing that all up front, and then with the PAE's being empowered, we can do capability trade councils where we go in and we really look at that requirement, and we figure out exactly does this meet the problem, or do we need to revise the requirement just within the boundaries that have been set. So, I think I think the structure that was mandated by the NDAA has really set the conditions well for us. to move forward to make sure that whatever innovative capability that we start focusing on it will stay relevant.

Well

Hey sir, if I could just add one one other thing uh to tie in what Jesse said. Uh, Senator Kelly asked about, you know, low-cost uh munitions and things like that. Just recently in the last sixty days we've identified that there's an opportunity with discovery, and we made a requirements change within a week.

Wow.

That's n- you know, those are usually things that are nine months, you know, and you know, we have Council of Colonels, General Officer of Steering Committee, we made a requirements change in a week. And and that's because we're all wearing the same patch.

Mm-hmm. Excellent. One of you referenced earlier, maybe it was you General, I I can't remember, but one of you talked about international partners and you sort of glanced over it as sort of the next phase perhaps or a next opportunity. Could you elaborate a little bit on on that? I mean I have some pretty strong feelings myself about the the lost opportunities of the synergies of of of more allied partners in the mix early, but um just be interested in your take on that, maybe start with you secretary.

Sure, I would say that we're laser focused on FMS and bringing in more security cooperation and co-production co-co-delve co-development interoperability, especially with our NATO partners and with our Indo-Pacific partners. So, what we're also trying to do We're running a pretty significant FMS reform effort that's ongoing right now, yeah, in terms of trying to fast track things. We do have a pilot that that's in place where we're where we're gonna create a UAS, counter-UAS marketplace where we will have foreign partners as part of that marketplace. So, one of the things that we've been talking about for the next jailbreak would be to do something that would be with our partners, OCONUS. Um, we're still working out the development on on On that I would say nothing is definitized yet, but we do acknowledge that we've got to uh bring in the partners here, cuz interoperability, any conflict that we get into is gonna be a joint fight.

General, did you wanna add to that while while there's only two of us here, or

Yes sir, uh just real quickly,

is there a request?

uh we mentioned earlier uh today, when we do requirements we think about a few things. Number one, we think about what are the formations, not just what are the platforms,

Mm-hmm.

what are the formations that are gonna fight.

Mm-hmm.

And then what are those formations for, and then where are they gonna fight, and who are they gonna fight with. And when we do that, then we actually get what the real requirement is.