The US Army’s blueprint for the future of combat moved from concept to field test in California’s punishing desert heat, where thousands of soldiers evaluated advanced weapons, artificial intelligence tools and battlefield networks that commanders say could reshape modern warfare.
The trial, known as Project Convergence Capstone 6, was held at Fort Irwin in the High Mojave Desert. Over nine days in late July, troops tested more than 90 emerging technologies in what ranks among the Army’s most ambitious experimentation efforts so far.
Senior military officials described the exercise as successful, but the harsh environment exposed real-world challenges. Some soldiers dealt with spotty connectivity and equipment that overheated under the intense sun, Axios reported.
At the center of the exercise was the Army’s Next-Generation Command and Control system, or NGC2. The platform is being developed to link troops, sensors, drones and weapons across the battlefield, giving commanders a faster way to make decisions while units remain mobile.
Rather than depending on traditional, fixed command posts, NGC2 relies on artificial intelligence, battlefield sensors, reconnaissance drones and communications gear to rapidly collect data on both friendly forces and enemy positions.
That information can then be distributed in real time, helping commanders spot threats, organize long-range strikes and assign the response to the unit best placed to act.
The technologies under review also included autonomous robots designed to operate with infantry soldiers, specialized reconnaissance drones called “launched effects” that help find targets for long-range fires, upgraded battlefield sensors, contested logistics tools and communications systems intended to connect forces across land, sea, air, space and cyberspace.
Army leaders say the goal is to help scattered units keep fighting while on the move, reducing reliance on stationary headquarters that can be easier to detect and strike. If successful, the approach could make forces harder to target while sharply accelerating decisions in combat.
“What really worked was the common visualization: our ability to see where the soldiers were on the battlefield, where we perceived the enemy to be on the battlefield, and then that enabled us to bring fires to bear, to maneuver forces faster,” Maj. Gen. Patrick Ellis, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, said after the exercise.
The effort is part of the Pentagon’s broader Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control, or CJADC2, initiative, which aims to seamlessly connect every branch of the US military so the right information reaches the right force at the right time, regardless of where it is operating, reported C4ISRNET.
If successful, military leaders believe the system will fundamentally change warfare by allowing forces to rapidly share intelligence, coordinate attacks across multiple domains, react faster than adversaries and ensure the best-positioned and best-equipped unit takes the first shot.
But the futuristic battlefield did not perform perfectly. Some soldiers battled connectivity issues during the exercise, while others dealt with overheating equipment as temperatures soared across the Mojave Desert.
“It does not replace what a commander has always had to do and will always have to do — but it enables them to do it on the move and while distributed, which is incredibly important,” Gen. Christopher LaNeve, the Army’s vice chief of staff, said.
The Army’s push to modernize comes as military leaders monitor conflicts overseas and prepare for future threats from countries including Russia and China while trying to avoid the failures of previous modernization efforts that never reached widespread deployment.
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Project Convergence began as a relatively small Army experiment in Arizona in 2020 before expanding the following year to include the Air Force and Navy. In 2022, allied militaries joined the effort, with Australia and the United Kingdom participating directly while other nations, including Canada, observed.
Army Secretary Christine Wormuth later questioned whether holding the event every year gave officials enough time to analyze the enormous amount of information generated.
“Digesting all of that data and analyzing what it really meant was a major undertaking,” Wormuth said, adding that she worried officials might be “rushing through this.”
Rather than holding one massive demonstration every year, the Army shifted toward smaller experiments throughout the year before culminating in larger capstone events. That approach also allows defense companies to test new equipment in realistic battlefield conditions before the military purchases it.
More than 60 companies, including Anduril Industries and Lockheed Martin, contributed technology to this year’s exercise.
Across the broader Project Convergence program, more than 100 defense companies have participated, including Northrop Grumman, whose Integrated Battle Command System has been evaluated during previous events.
“It’s always useful to have a real warfighter kick the tires on your capability,” Northrop Grumman Vice President Adil Karim said. “That’s always been true in exercises.”
Project Convergence is now conducted in two phases.
One phase takes place at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton and focuses on the Indo-Pacific, where troops practice coordinating operations across air, sea, space and cyberspace domains while improving offensive and defensive fires and ensuring battlefield sensors deliver information to the right forces.
The second phase is centered at Fort Irwin, where the Army focuses on land combat and trains alongside foreign troops.
Lt. Gen. Ross Coffman, deputy chief of Army Futures Command, said the lessons learned extend far beyond California.
“This is an Army effort, and it’s going to take the entire Army, the joint force and our coalition partners to really learn the lessons that we need to so that we can transform together and win on future battlefields,” Coffman said. “The lessons we learn are applicable globally. They can be applied to Europe. They can be applied to Africa. They can be applied to the Pacific.”
Army leaders said Next-Generation Command and Control will soon begin being distributed to larger Army formations, with Washington state’s I Corps next in line to receive the technology after testing by the 4th and 25th Infantry Divisions.
The Army has requested nearly $4 billion in its latest budget to continue developing and fielding the system, with officials saying technologies that prove successful during Project Convergence often move into larger military exercises before eventually becoming part of the Army’s operational force.
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