▶ 0:05:03>> the committee meets today to discuss the army's modernization with the focus on fiscal year 2020 seven president budget submission. I want to thank our witnesses, Mr. jesse tollison and acting command of the army's transmission training command, lieutenant general brown, thank you both for your service. The goal of army modernization is pretty straightforward.
▶ 0:05:31To 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 boris changing rapidly, as we all know. We are watching it in real time. Recent conflict have demonstrated the growing importance of unmanned systems, electronic warfare, long-range, position fires, and a graded air and missile defense and resilient communications networks.
▶ 0:05:59At the same time, china continues to be the pacing challenge for the department of war, while russia, iran, north korea, and extremist organizations continue to threaten U.S. interests and global stability. But, the army faces another challenge as it modernizes. That is adapting fast enough to keep pace with technological change. The battlefield is evolving in days or months, rather than decades.
▶ 0:06:28The army must balance affordability, sustainment, mobility, and survivability, while ensuring new capabilities can be fielded rapidly and of course at scale. Modernization cannot simply focus on developing exquisite systems, it must also prioritize production capacity, operational relevance, and the ability of integrating emerging technology into formations quickly.
▶ 0:06:53I believe army leadership recognizes reality and are moving the army in the right direction. The army's emphasis on transformation and contact experimentation with new formations and integration of unmanned systems and U.S. capabilities reflects an understanding that future wars will demand adaptability at every echelon. I might say current and future wars.
▶ 0:07:18We continue to demonstrate the value of datasharing and human machine teaming across the battlefield. I look forward to hearing from general brown about transformation and raining command and how those lessons are informing crimes, acquisitions, and the army is made difficult but necessary modernization decisions over the past two years.
▶ 0:07:43The service continues to refine his portfolio to focus on capabilities that are survivable, scalable, and relevant for the times. Efforts to modernize combat vehicles, improve long-range fires, expand long-range missile capacities, strengthen the industrial base and rapidly build counter drone technologies critical to maintaining -- I would ask Mr.
▶ 0:08:04Tollison to describe how we are ensuring programs delivering capability to soldiers faster. At the same time we must recognize that modernization requires sustained and predictable funding. I guess that is kind of our job, right? The army continues to face growing demands around the world while modernizing for future conflict.
▶ 0:08:34Contested logistics and net's -- next generation networks will all be essential to this deterrence or 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. Now I will give some time to the secretary.
▶ 0:08:55Sen. Kelly: Thank you in welcoming our witnesses and thank both of you for appearing before the subcommittee today and look forward to hearing your testimony. I also want to recognize servicemembers 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 that.
▶ 0:09:23Sen. Kelly: I understand the assistant secretary of the army for acquisitions and technology, brent anger ham, is in europe -- brent ingraham is finalizing some agreements with foreign partners. That's a reminder that our allies and our partners that are print Mr. tollison, I appreciate you testifying in his absence, and general brown, thank you for being here.
▶ 0:09:46Sen. Kelly: Last october, t2, was established to integrate force generation, force development enforce design under a single command to better posture the army, and this is a quote talk --, to ensure readiness and the speed of relevance, unquote.
▶ 0:10:08Sen. Kelly: General dave hogg me was nominated and confirmed -- general dave hodney would take on the challenge of merging into unifying headquarters, then april, secretary hegseth removed him at the same time he fired the army chief of staff, general randy george. Both for no demonstrated reason.
▶ 0:10:31Sen. Kelly: So I want to acknowledge the work and professionalism of the t2 com leaders, despite the complete and unnecessary disruption. General brown, your experience in the army futures command and army combat capabilities development command positions you well to continue challenging task of establishing t2 com.
▶ 0:11:01Sen. Kelly: So thank you for being here today. I look for to hearing an update on how it is advancing the army's ability to modernize. The armies in the riddle of a major modernization cycle. 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 were quickly. Because, as I think we all recognize, speed matters. Our adversaries, they move quickly.
▶ 0:11:32Sen. Kelly: Technology is changing rapidly. And the army has to be able to identify, develop, test, and then field capabilities at a pace that keeps up with the threats that we face. In particular, I'm interested in hearing how the armies six capability portfolios under the portfolio acquisition executives are contributing to the accelerated delivery of war fighting technology.
▶ 0:12:02Sen. Kelly: 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.
▶ 0:12:34Sen. Kelly: The army is also looking at fires more holistically, offensively and defensively, and recognizing the criticality of layered systems. Operations in ukraine enron validate both the importance of the exquisite systems -- in crane and iran, also the lower-cost emissions.
▶ 0:12:57Sen. Kelly: I'm interested in how the army is going to build a layered, kinetic and non-kinetic capability that protects maneuver forces and contributes to the point fight. The army is also making significant investments in critical enablers including next generation command and control, next-generation aviation and logistics capabilities where contested and also maritime environments.
▶ 0:13:21Sen. Kelly: As the arming the increased -- as the army increasingly experience on the edge to build 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's strategy. And I hope our witnesses will provide an up date on secretary driscoll's right to integrate initiative.
▶ 0:13:51Sen. Kelly: Focused on accelerating data sharing on the battlefield. Our witnesses faced the challenge of balancing support for ongoing operations, sustaining readiness, and modernization while preserving the technological edge critical to our militaries success. And I look forward to the discussion. Thank you, Mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator kelly. Mr.
▶ 0:14:21Sen. Kelly: Tolleson, I understand you have an opening statement and I want to thank you for stepping into the gap. We appreciate that. You are recognized.
▶ 0:14:33Mr. Tolleson: Chairman cramer, ranking member kelly and distinguish memories 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 2027 modernization request and our ongoing acquisition reform efforts. I am pleased to appear with lieutenant general brown, acting commanding general of transformation and training command.
▶ 0:14:59Mr. Tolleson: He and his team have been essential partners in aligning requirements, experimentation, acquisition, training, and sustainment. I asked that are written statements today be entered into the record. The army's request is designed to turn continuous transformation into battlefield advantage.
▶ 0:15:23Mr. Tolleson: Recent conflicts have reinforced the 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.
▶ 0:15:47Mr. Tolleson: The stand up of transformation and training command and establishment of portfolio acquisition executives or central to that effort. T2-com connects transformation, experimentation, requirement, training, while pae's are designed to provide portfolio level accountability in the decision space to make informed trades are crossed -- across cross schedule performance and risk.
▶ 0:16:18Mr. Tolleson: Together, t2-com and -- are integrating requirements, resources, acquisition, tests, sustainment, training earlier and more deliberately. Consistent with the national defense authorization act for fiscal year 2026, we are making the necessary changes to ensure full compliance with congressional direction and public law.
▶ 0:16:47Mr. Tolleson: First and foremost, all portfolio acquisition executives will be acquisition professionals who report directly to the army acquisition executive. Providing clear accountability and effort across their portfolios. We are also applying lessons learned from the pae pathfinders as we implement the broader departments acquisition transformation strategy.
▶ 0:17:16Mr. Tolleson: Second, the army is acting to expand and accelerate critical you nations 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 to long-term , multiyear procurements, and fielding lower-cost munitions.
▶ 0:17:48Mr. Tolleson: We are also using commercial solutions openings, public-private art ships and enhance used 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.
▶ 0:18:11Mr. Tolleson: Third, the request prioritizes the capabilities soldiers need to fight and win and are fully resourced in this request. This capability includes next generation command and control for ngc2, offensive and defensive fires including long-range precision fires and counter small ua as systems.
▶ 0:18:36Mr. Tolleson: The nb 75 multimission aircraft and advanced ground combat vehicle platform such as the xm 30 and the m1 e3. These are not standalone platforms but are being managed as a part of a portfolio. It must operate as an integrated network and be continuously upgraded as threats and technology evolve.
▶ 0:19:00Mr. Tolleson: We will use commercial solutions where they meet the requirements, while also retaining purposeful capabilities where decisive over match demands them. We appreciate congress's partnership and all these endeavors and look forward to continued collaboration in the future. Finally, acquisition reform must give the army the right to integrate and the right to repair our equipment.
▶ 0:19:29Mr. Tolleson: 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.
▶ 0:19:52Mr. Tolleson: Operation jailbreak is bringing technical spurts, operational units, acquisition professionals, and industry together to break down barriers between systems and help accelerate integration. This approach fully respects the judgment intellectual property all ensuring the army can adapt capabilities at the pace of conflict.
▶ 0:20:17Mr. Tolleson: 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.
▶ 0:20:42Mr. Tolleson: 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.
▶ 0:20:55Chair Cramer: Thank you, general brown, your recognize. Again, thank you for the time, it was enlightening and I look forward to your testimony.
▶ 0:21:07Gen. Brown: Thank you very much, distinguish moves of the subcommittee, good afternoon. I'm honored to be here with Mr. tolleson, thank you for the opportunity to testify about the army's fiscal year 27 budget request and how it supports the army's comprehensive support for transformation. The U.S. army transformation training command is eight-month so. It enables the U.S.
▶ 0:21:34Gen. Brown: Army to defeat all adversaries and adapt to the ever-changing character of war. There is the army that fights, and where the headquarters that built the army that fights. We are the assembly line. For the first time a single command owns that whole assembly line. To that end, the t2-com headquarters is a flat, transparent and truly 21st-century organization. We are built on deliverables and data sets.
▶ 0:22:01Gen. Brown: Our subordinates are rewarded for integrated -- in writing directly with each other and applying rigor to complex problems. Our number one deliverable is to get better equipment, soldiers and combat formations faster. We do that with a minimum, bible bureaucracy that enables and integrates first-generation force development enforce design across three major subordinate commands. The U.S.
▶ 0:22:26Gen. Brown: Army recruiting command sponsor before the entire force generation pipeline, from first-hand shake to first year of assignment. They have already surpassed the fy 26 recruiting goals and are leaning toward fy 27 targets. The U.S. army combat or combined arms command responsible for developing army university combat training centers and are centers of excellence.
▶ 0:22:53Gen. Brown: We took lessons already from ongoing conflicts in ukraine and the middle east and has immediately including them in our programs of instruction and training scenarios at a combat training centers right now. The U.S. army futures and concepts command is responsible for develop -- designing the force including a spear mentation, developing requirements, all of our army labs, and our concepts of employment. In accordance with title x U.S.
▶ 0:23:19Gen. Brown: Code 1304 which grants response ability for the developing of capability requirements to the cheap staff of the army, futures and concepts command as eliminating redundancy and reduce the number of apartments generated for organizations from 46 to 9.
▶ 0:23:34Gen. Brown: In a matter of weeks, we worked with syncom to move cutting edge capability, counter ua aztec, bullfrog and other elements to support operations all possible because of an emphasis on moving better equipment faster. As we bring capability forward, t2com works in close partnership, in short, we are a family. There is no daylight between us.
▶ 0:24:02Gen. Brown: We are also committed to independent, thorough, tested evaluation, integrated with both experience a and capability development. Thank you again for your support for our soldiers and civilians and to the army with large. I look forward to your questions.
▶ 0:24:18Chair Cramer: Thank you, general. Thank you for that statement. Mr. tolleson, you brought up operation jailbreak. You and I talked about it earlier today. You're originally had the first hack-athon, give me a sense of who all participated in that and maybe what the lessons learned are from that. I'll start with you, general, and then Mr. tolleson.
▶ 0:24:50Gen. Brown: I appreciate the question. Operation jailbreak was an opportunity for us to take, think it was 80 vendors, we came in, 78 of the 80, we were able to jailbreak or get access to their apis. What that does is allow us to integrate at the source. It is basically a monitoring open systems architecture exercise.
▶ 0:25:14Gen. Brown: So we built a systems integration laboratory and emission training complex in colorado. What that does now is we have a list of 78 vendors that have been identified as broken, so they have access and companies know they can work with these companies. What that does is that allows companies to build capability together in teams of teams as opposed to having a monopoly or a bespoke type of technology.
▶ 0:25:44Mr. Tolleson: I think what we are trying to prove out to you is what general round was talking to about in terms of osa. We have yet been able to truly operationalize it and what drove operation jailbreak and hack-athon is what we were seeing as far as being able to integrate quickly across our legacy fleet.
▶ 0:26:04Mr. Tolleson: We picked a use case, counter ua s and iamd, so we moved although systems over the fort carson. We had great participation from industry, had all the engineers there, and it was successful in that we were able to actually break this capability. Now we have essentially what is an api marketplace where those apis are now going to be available.
▶ 0:26:30Mr. Tolleson: We are still capturing what the lessons learned are, and that will be what we call jailbreak 1.5. We will be able to report that back to you. What we want to do is operationalize it. What I mean by that is now we need to deploy it. Our first step was deployment over to centcom to make sure everybody understands how you do a jailbreak and integrate together and share that type of ip, that will be required.
▶ 0:27:00Mr. Tolleson: I think the expectation the secretary has is that we will continue forward doing these exercises as resources become available. Our next step would be to go overseas and do something with our foreign partners. More to follow on that, sir. That's where we landed.
▶ 0:27:17Chair Cramer: A great stepping just out of curiosity, how did the vendors -- how welcoming were they to the invitation? Obviously we haven't brought it up yet but this is a little bit of a culture clash. A paradigm shift. With pretty open to it? Or what was your sense?
▶ 0:27:38Mr. Tolleson: Sir, they were extremely open to it. I think what helped was that we had tapped out leadership to making calls and telling them how important it is to the war fighter. Everybody participated, everybody came wanting to solve the problem. I don't think anybody actually was objecting to what we were trying to do, so we had great cooperation.
▶ 0:28:04Mr. Tolleson: 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 will probably be areas where we are likely going to have to negotiate I think with some of those vendors as far as how open and accessible those pi's are going to be and what we could put on that marketplace. Overall, great support from industry.
▶ 0:28:32Chair Cramer: Senator, what I thought was very interesting is how many of them thought it would be really easy.
▶ 0:28:42Lt. Gen. Brown: They looked at it like I don't have anything blocking you from access come into you get into that systems integration laboratory and start to work that you realize that actually there are attack services -- there are firewalls and they can't get through.
▶ 0:29:00Chair Cramer: Thank you, I have more questions later but I will turn it over to senator kelly.
▶ 0:29:06Sen. Kelly: Thank you. Armies need munitions, they need troops in iran, there were in excess of 10 or 12,000 tracks are conducted and then counter strikes that we had to defend against. I think it is fair to say we expended the force, the joint force, expended a significant number of nations.
▶ 0:29:33Sen. Kelly: And a number of munitions that are requested in the next budget are requested through the reconciliation process, rather than the regular appropriations process for the army. So what is the army's planned -- planned to procure these munitions that we have to replace and rebuild these stockpiles in the event that a reconciliation agreement is not reached?
▶ 0:30:07Mr. Tolleson: Senator kelly, thanks for the question. That's a great question to you see on the armies procurement to come about 82% of the engines requested are in the mandatory bucket. We fully support reconciliation, obviously we really need that to pass so we can continue to expand our munitions production capacity and buildout and re-stockpile.
▶ 0:30:32Sen. Kelly: Was the thought to put it in there to increase the likelihood that a reconciliation process is successful because these are critical items?
▶ 0:30:42Mr. Tolleson: Sir, I personally can't answer that question. That determination was made above my pay grade. What I can tell you, sir, is that we are looking at options here in case reconciliation does not go through. It is a concern. And I think we owe you more detail on what that plan b would be.
▶ 0:31:06Mr. Tolleson: I think what we would have to do is essentially, we would work to get to the rate that we needed to get to that was requested and as part of reconciliation, whether that be through renegotiation with the contractor or just reprogramming funding.
▶ 0:31:23Sen. Kelly: I think that would be a good idea to have a contingency plan, because we need to restock these new nations. General brown, how is the armies adverts in identifying and incorporating some low-cost, long-range munitions that will be complementary to current systems?
▶ 0:31:45Lt. Gen. Brown: Yes, sir, thanks for the question. I am actually pretty excited about where we are with cruise missiles and low-cost containerized munitions. What we have done is, we have maintained the pace that we had with our current contracts and our current capabilities. At the same time we've done really a sequel to think about what can we bring in.
▶ 0:32:15Lt. Gen. Brown: There is a lot of private money in defense right now. There is a lot of capability. What we have really started over the last two years is working use cases. Because when companies get ready to spend their internal research and development dollars, we have to give them direct use cases and vignettes. Some these companies are putting hundreds of millions of dollars to be able to get after these capabilities.
▶ 0:32:41Lt. Gen. Brown: We are talking magazine depth that we have to work on, that is a part of our full missions in the future. So it's not just containerized munitions, but it's low-cost cruise missiles that can complement the programs that we already have. We see this as a must do. This is part of the innovation ecosystem that we have to foster.
▶ 0:33:06Sen. Kelly: I was in an underground drone manufacturing facility where some of their drones now have ranges, this is in ukraine, they have ranges in excess of 800 kilometers. That was about 15 months ago and I think now even in excess of 1000 kilometers.
▶ 0:33:26Sen. Kelly: Those things are basically cruise missiles at this point, they are subsonic, and 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 from that and incorporate that into our acquisition process to build out.
▶ 0:33:55Sen. Kelly: Maybe not have them on the shelf right now, but to build the capacity to build them.
▶ 0:34:01Lt. Gen. Brown: Senator, just to add all not, there's a capability for us to re-compete some of the capabilities we have plan. We are doing just that in that space.
▶ 0:34:17Chair Cramer: You might go down that pathway little bit more. Senator blumenthal. >> that is so impressive, and I
▶ 0:34:48Chair Cramer: Think we should have them on the shelf. Not just the capacity, because they are probably the most cost-effective recent development in warfare 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.
▶ 0:35:17Chair Cramer: I want to just pursue the question that senator kelly raised about the reconciliation packet. This is your job, what is your plan b?
▶ 0:35:33Mr. Tolleson: Sir, I think in the munitions base, we're still looking at that. If a conciliation -- I think our position right now is that we are fully supportive of reconciliation passing, and that would be our priority.
▶ 0:35:51Sen. Blumenthal: I understand that, but viewing the difficulties of the passage of the last reconciliation package and some the public statements made by republican senators about the prospects for the next possible reconciliation package, I think it's going to be an uphill battle.
▶ 0:36:09Mr. Tolleson: Sir, I fully acknowledge that. And I think 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 pack three and the persistent strike vessel. For us it would be going back in and potentially trying to renegotiate with the vendors, more than looking at ways that we could then sell finance what that demand would be.
▶ 0:36:39Mr. Tolleson: It may not be the full amount that the munitions exhilaration counsel would be requiring, but we would look to at least inject those lines with additional funding that we would have available to us.
▶ 0:36:56Sen. Blumenthal: One of the takeaways of my most recent trip to ukraine was the importance of air defense, pack three interceptors. Do we have stockpiles of air defense munitions sufficient to meet the needs of ukraine, given what has been expended in iran and the iran more?
▶ 0:37:26Sen. Blumenthal: -- iran war?
▶ 0:37:29Mr. Tolleson: I would defer to rsd on the question, as far as the joint staff, as far as looking at what our overall inventories are common that capacity, I would tell you that we are taken all the necessary action necessary steps, we have the strategic framework that is in place. We certainly appreciate that committee authorizing multiyear procurement authority last year in the fy 26 budget request for a seven year deal.
▶ 0:37:59Mr. Tolleson: We are also looking at a low-cost interceptor program to where we are trying to shave off costs out of the pack three like type capability which we are really excited about. We'll have an industry day here june 23 and we've already got about 90 industry partners that are looking to participate. The way we are going to do that is really compete the components.
▶ 0:38:26Mr. Tolleson: Essentially make it more like a prize challenge, to where we find the right components that are low-cost and then we would potentially bring in a third-party party to manufacture that low-cost interceptor, all of which supplements our current stockpile of things like pack three cri, the whole family.
▶ 0:38:49Sen. Blumenthal: So you are developing new sources, new manufacturers in air defense?
▶ 0:38:54Mr. Tolleson: We are.
▶ 0:38:56Sen. Kelly: Senator, when we do these components, we do these in other multiple types of programs.
▶ 0:39:04Lt. Gen. Brown: 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 as we have the ability to use commercial supply chains to be able to get after some of these and that really reduces costs summative sometimes over 300%-400%.
▶ 0:39:22Sen. Blumenthal: I would just suggest that whether it is ukraine or europe or our own servicemen and women, air defense is going to 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.
▶ 0:39:47Sen. Blumenthal: I think there will be an escalation in ukraine as putin grows more desperate, and I think as a matter both humanitarian, not to mention military consideration, we should really meet that need as quickly as possible. Thank you.
▶ 0:40:11Chair Cramer: Thank you, senator blumenthal. Senator peters.
▶ 0:40:18Sen. Peters: Secretary tolleson, army leadership has spoken me positively about the infantry squad vehicle heavy program and its unique capabilities. As the army shifts to mobile brigade combat teams, units will need these vehicles that can carry power and the equipment required to provide command and control systems on the road, but despite this critical need, the army is still working to accelerate the isv heavy
▶ 0:40:50Sen. Peters: Program. So my question for you, sir, is how's the arm accelerating the fielding timeline for the isv heavy and what are the barriers that are standing in the way of accelerating this program that seems to be a critical program with tremendous assets and we need to get it in the field as quickly as possible?
▶ 0:41:05Mr. Tolleson: I appreciate the question, senator peters. The isv heavy is certainly a priority for us. One of the things that is allowing us to accelerate is the fact that we have established pae's we have portfolios now, we are working closely with a recurrence community and that is allowing us actually to move out quickly with the competition that we are going to hold from the isv heavy.
▶ 0:41:34Mr. Tolleson: I will -- I believe it will be in fourth quarter this year is when we will dart to release the rfp. I'll get you the details on the full schedule, but we are very excited about that program. We think there will be some really good competition in that space. We have an authorized objective of just north of 600 vehicles right now. Really what the isv heavy is going to be designed to do is fix that niche karma between an isv and say a jltv.
▶ 0:42:08Mr. Tolleson: It will be focused on the power generation part of that. One of things we have a critical capability cap on right now is power generation at the mobile grade combat team level. I would tell you right now I don't think there's any barriers that are in place right now for us to move quickly here.
▶ 0:42:24Lt. Gen. Brown: Just the requirements are there, so the requirements, the thing that's great about the isv is the isv itself was the threshold private we talk about threshold objective values with requirement, the isv heavy at another objective. It went into another place that, folks brought us this and said, hey, we didn't ask for this but we need to have this.
▶ 0:42:51Lt. Gen. Brown: Because us to be able to go back and look at our requirements and make sure that we find a place for that. The capability that jesse is talking about really helps us in terms of the power situation. The other part, to senator blumenthal's question about air defense, we have now, when we built the paes for pathfinder, we built a pae for protection and mobility is a form of protection.
▶ 0:43:19Sec. Peters: That's good to hear. Sec., the army has developed the timeline, aiming to field 24-30 months instead of 2030 that was originally planned. General george has also reportedly indicated the army intends to field four m1 abrams prototypes and between 26 for testing with the first cavalry division deceiving those prototypes this fall.
▶ 0:43:49Sec. Peters: My question for you, what is the status of the m1 e3 acceleration effort and does the army have additional updates on the current delivery of the prototypes and whether they will still be delivered this fall as was previously indicated? Are you still on that timeline?
▶ 0:44:07Mr. Tolleson: Sir, we are still on that timeline. We are very excited about this program. Everything is moving forward. We have the funding behind it. Right now is just a matter of getting the vehicles delivered and then just fielded to that division and we can start capturing feedback and moving forward with the very -- very aggressive schedule for the m1 three ee.
▶ 0:44:32Lt. Gen. Brown: The thing that's great about the m1 three ee is is not just offering another piece of kit to the next generation. It represents a reset, it's lighter, more mobile, has a vehicle protection system within, it's more protected and it's a lot more lethal emmy can use it as a base camp, so I could make it autonomous or semiautonomous.
▶ 0:44:58Sec. Peters: As you know, the fiscal year 20 to me seven budget includes 547 million dollars for the xm 30, replacement for the bradley infantry vehicle. This funding allows for the production of 19 of these xm 30's, indicating a transition from prototyping to now operational fielding.
▶ 0:45:19Sec. Peters: Given its critical importance, how are you ensuring that the xm 30 program stays on track in terms of ensuring development and plan fielding timelines in the bosporus?
▶ 0:45:30Mr. Tolleson: Right now the xm 30 is on schedule. It is meeting costs. This was before I got to my position, but we probably have more information about the xm 30 than we ever had, just based on the digital designs at each of the final two oems were able to provide and feel confident we will stay on schedule.
▶ 0:45:56Mr. Tolleson: I think the biggest question for us is just going forward, making sure we sufficiently resource the effort.
▶ 0:46:02Sec. Peters: Very good.
▶ 0:46:04Lt. Gen. Brown: Sir, I have been part of it for five years and I'm pretty excited about it. Both the xm 30 and the m13e will be the base formation of our comment on the heavy side.
▶ 0:46:29Lt. Gen. Brown: >> a couple of things in a couple of things, that I want to reconcile. We both virtue acquisition contracts, for example multiyear contracts, but also the need for speed in terms of the transformation itself, the innovating. How do you see reconciling the long-term contract on the one hand, and on the other hand, making sure that what is being produced is relevant to the moment? I will start with you, general.
▶ 0:46:59Lt. Gen. Brown: Because we not only does t2com comp -- we also managed to science and technology. As we discover opportunities and technology, we are constantly in connection. I don't think that is probably always been our strong suit, maybe something we kind of protected.
▶ 0:47:20Lt. Gen. Brown: Most of our labs now are a lot less about building the watch themselves as reporting the watches, and what we see now is there's capability in so many different places but we have to make sure that we let asalt know, we have to be able to re-compete whenever new technology reorders.
▶ 0:47:50Mr. Tolleson: Part of this is just by the way we have structured the pa ees. In that we have a situation where the acquisition corps, the material developer is really nested and we have the enablers that are sucked in underneath.
▶ 0:48:10Mr. Tolleson: What we've been able to do is, we also established through a standalone organization called the pathway to innovative technology, that is where we are trying to operationalize the acquisition piece of this, it's acquisition at the tactical edge and where we are tied in, not only to say bc companies that are coming up with emerging disruptive tech, but also getting close to each one of those divisions who have their own invasion labs and then
▶ 0:48:41Mr. Tolleson: Having that connectivity going back to the actual to where there could be a transition land that could happen quickly. To my earlier comment about having this nested closely together within the pae's, that allows us to look at the capability from a holistic standpoint. Instead of just one innovative disruptive technology, how does it fit into the formation?
▶ 0:49:12Mr. Tolleson: How does it fight? What is the problem that we are trying to solve? So we are doing that all upfront, and then with the pae's being empowered, we can do have ability trade councils were go in and look at that requirement and figure out exactly, does this meet the problem? Or do we need to revise the requirement just within the boundaries that have been set?
▶ 0:49:37Mr. Tolleson: I think the structure that was mandated by the ndaa has set the conditions well for us to move forward and make sure that whatever innovative capability that we start focusing on, it will stay relevant.
▶ 0:49:50Chair Cramer: If I could just add one other thing that -- lt.
▶ 0:49:55Gen. Brown: Senator kelly ask about low-cost munitions and things like that. Just recently in the last 60 days we've identified that there's an opportunity with discovery we made requirements change within a week. Those are usually things that are nine months, we have general officers steering committee, we made requirements change in a week. And that's because we are in the same patch.
▶ 0:50:19Chair Cramer: Excellent. One of you referenced earlier, one of you talked about international partners. We sort of glanced over it as the next phase perhaps or next opportunity. Could you elaborate a little bit on that? I have some strong feelings myself about the lost opportunities and the synergies of our allied partners in the mix earlier, but I just would be interested in your take on that.
▶ 0:50:50Mr. Tolleson: I would say we are laser focused on bringing in more security cooperation and codevelopment interoperability, especially with our nato partners and our indo pacific partners. What we are also trying to do, we are running a pretty significant fms reform effort that is ongoing right now in terms of trying to fast-track things.
▶ 0:51:16Mr. Tolleson: Do have a poly that is in place where we are going to create a counter you a s market place where we will have foreign partners as part of that marketplace. One of the things we have been talking about for the next jailbreak would be to do something that would be with our partners, we are still working out the development on that.
▶ 0:51:36Mr. Tolleson: I would say nothing has been definite yet, but any conflict we going to get into is a joint fight.
▶ 0:51:49Lt. Gen. Brown: Just quickly, we mentioned earlier today, when we do requirements, we think about a few things. Number one, we think about what are the formations that are going to fight? And then what are those formations for? And then where are they going to fight, and who are they going to fight with? We do that, we actually get what the real requirements are.
▶ 0:52:13Chair Cramer: Senator kelly.
▶ 0:52:16Sen. Kelly: Mr. tolleson, would you regard the ukrainians as one of those partners?
▶ 0:52:26Mr. Tolleson: Sir, I would say yes.
▶ 0:52:29Sen. Kelly: So do you think it would be helpful for them in their conflict with russia to be able to do some of the coproduction you talked about, specifically pack three round for the patriot?
▶ 0:52:45Mr. Tolleson: Sir, think we would have to work out the details and understand how that would actually work and function if we could get them out of country, just depending on what that conflict would be, but I think from our foxhole inside the army, I think we would be open to discussing that.
▶ 0:53:01Sen. Kelly: And is your sense that they would have -- they seem to be capable to do very technical things. Do you think that they would have the capacity to do that at this point?
▶ 0:53:12Mr. Tolleson: Sir, I'd have to defer to my sag u team that is overseas right now to get more of an assessment as to whether or not they could actually have the capability to produce an exquisite air defense munition like patriot, or like pack three. However, seeing how they have been able to adapt and bring out things like uas and launch and effects, I would imagine they could do it.
▶ 0:53:40Sen. Kelly: I think that would be a good thing to look into. And then, general brown, you mentioned the vehicle protection system that is built in to the m1e3. So without going into too much detail, my understanding is that this is an integrated counter ua s capability, at least part of it, and it's not based on any
▶ 0:54:11Sen. Kelly: Broad-based counter uas architecture outside, like it is organic to the tank. And then if you could clarify that, and the other question is, is there a similar system within the xm30?
▶ 0:54:32Lt. Gen. Brown: Yes sir, there's a base kit but then you can put different capabilities in it. It's not just for counter uas, it still is protecting against other far. It could be some other type of munition.
▶ 0:54:47Lt. Gen. Brown: What we are looking at is things like, just simple things, how to knock down something that is coming at it, how it could shoot maybe an automatic machine gun that shoots just like the phalanx gun on a ship that we used for our c ram. It's the same principle.
▶ 0:55:09Lt. Gen. Brown: What it does is, you have to have that brain on the inside that says don't shoot all of your capabilities at the first thing that comes. We have to be discretionary to make sure you are using the right tool for the right job.
▶ 0:55:22Sen. Kelly: Is the same system?
▶ 0:55:25Lt. Gen. Brown: It's similar, because of where the crew is and where the soldiers are obviously xm30 is going to be carrying soldiers to be able to dismount, whereas the m1e3 wouldn't have. It will be a little more than the xm30.
▶ 0:55:48Sen. Kelly: And also for you, general, how is the army incorporating autonomous ground vehicles into this effort, the ukrainians had some success in, especially medevac autonomous ground vehicles. They also have had a 30 or 50 caliber machine gun on it that they were able to capture some enemy troops.
▶ 0:56:19Sen. Kelly: Are we looking at those systems as well? I think we talked a little bit the other day about the m1e3, maybe it wasn't that but some autonomous ground systems in combat there?
▶ 0:56:35Lt. Gen. Brown: Yes sir, last fall we did an event where we went through and did, we had 600 industry partners and we did a competition, we got down to 20, knows 20 or at fort hood right now going through and actually using our autonomous systems inside, so we are learning from that. With the pathway for innovative technology we have begun to start transitioning some of those capabilities. We can give you a full rundown on that.
▶ 0:57:04Sen. Kelly: What are the autonomous ground systems, what are the missions for those?
▶ 0:57:10Lt. Gen. Brown: We start off with what are the things we don't want soldiers to be doing? We don't want to trade blood for first contact. Breaching minefields, we are talking about doing reconnaissance, doing security in some cases, doing obscuration, doing chemical biological testing. These are the types of things we want our autonomous systems to be able to do. As well as we want to thicken the formations that we have.
▶ 0:57:38Lt. Gen. Brown: It's not about replacing one for one, just like cca and some of the other services. We want to thicken those services so we have autonomous and semiautonomous systems in formations. We actually learn this working with cranes. That's where we got the start.
▶ 0:57:54Sen. Kelly: Did you have clearing a fine field events?
▶ 0:57:58Lt. Gen. Brown: Yes sir, breaching.
▶ 0:58:01Sen. Kelly: Thank you.
▶ 0:58:04Chair Cramer: We have been called to vote, but I do want to maybe one more line of questioning from me at least. With regard to actual production, the bottleneck challenge, the industrial base challenge, besides the command signals, the process, the pae's, what is your biggest concern about the bottleneck in production?
▶ 0:58:32Chair Cramer: Part of what sparks the question for me, not far before I came down here, on one of the business channels come frequently I watch business channels, but talking about the new partnership between lockheed martin and general motors, sort of taking the best of both and combining it into this new partnership.
▶ 0:58:53Chair Cramer: What do you see as the potential bottlenecks or challenges going forward with capability producing, particularly munitions?
▶ 0:59:05Mr. Tolleson: Sir, I would say it's really the supply chain, but you have to look at it almost like from the ground up. Truly from the dirt up. The thick of it is, think for us is precursor materials that go into advanced energetics.
▶ 0:59:25Mr. Tolleson: Is making sure we have the onshore capability for some of those precursor materials and then moving up into war the larger and item components, things like solid rocket motors, things like seekers. All of that, I think, we are taking a whole of department approach to try to build that out, and then qualify and then expand that.
▶ 0:59:52Mr. Tolleson: Some of it is the qualification process, identifying who the second sources should be. It's working with the oems to go out and qualify those initial sources. It is looking at, can we bring in newer, advanced manufacturing technology.
▶ 1:00:11Mr. Tolleson: Not even really advanced manufacturing technology, just modern manufacturing technology, as far as looking at, how do you manufacture this particular all of ground. That's where you look at guys like gm or ford or spacex or guys like hadrian that really know how to build things and capture some of those techniques , and making sure that our oems that are the producers of these all arounds that they're
▶ 1:00:41Mr. Tolleson: Actually maximizing that and putting in the right capital investment to build out that type of capability. But I would say it's the precursor materials, it's energetics, and then it's some of the major end item components, seekers for one.
▶ 1:00:58Chair Cramer: Let me go a step further, going back to the discussion about international partners and those synergies. You said on shoring, but is there a friend sharing opportunity that we might be missing?
▶ 1:01:14Mr. Tolleson: I think we are looking at that closely. I don't think that's off the table at all. Fran shoring is something we are looking at just from a global demand perspective and looking at mou's, prism, we teamed with austria, so we are looking at that hard.
▶ 1:01:34Lt. Gen. Brown: I think it's important to incentivize economically, not just the industry but to incentivize, when we program, we don't program for a second process. If we decide we want to do that because we see an opportunity, that is an unfunded requirement.
▶ 1:01:55Lt. Gen. Brown: Having the incentive to if you find a -- an opportunity for a propellant or something like that, there could be excess funds for us to be able to use that come that gets us into the 21st century when it comes to manufacturing.
▶ 1:02:10Chair Cramer: Thank you for that, that's a great suggestion.
▶ 1:02:14Sen. Kelly: I just want to submit for the record a question on next-generation command and control, and also pae structural out to get some information on how that has been going. We will leave it here and maybe you can get back to us.
▶ 1:02:34Chair Cramer: That, thank you gentlemen for your testimony and for your service and for the extra time and we look forward to continuing the discussion. We are adjourned.