The Army’s largest command-and-control request for fiscal 2027 is mostly a procurement bill. Of the $3.78 billion sought for Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2) in the Pentagon’s budget request, briefed April 21, 2026, $2.88 billion is procurement money for transport and computing equipment and its integration, much of it tied to a 30-month push to retire legacy networks. That procurement money is where both House defense committees aimed their cuts.
What the $3.78 billion buys
The request sits in six budget lines that did not exist in fiscal 2026, according to the Army’s procurement and RDT&E justification books. Two are in Other Procurement, Army (OPA) and four are in research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E). The Army describes the new structure as a consolidation that maps money to NGC2’s four layers: transport, infrastructure, data and applications.
| Layer | Budget line | FY2027 request ($M) | Share of total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transport | OPA 1996B11500, C2 Transport | 1,581.9 | 41.9% |
| Infrastructure | OPA 1992B11400, C2 Infrastructure | 1,293.2 | 34.2% |
| Applications | RDT&E PE 0605331A, C2 Applications | 488.4 | 12.9% |
| Data | RDT&E PE 0605332A, C2 Data | 306.0 | 8.1% |
| Infrastructure | RDT&E PE 0605333A, C2 Infrastructure | 64.8 | 1.7% |
| Transport | RDT&E PE 0605330A, C2 Transport | 45.4 | 1.2% |
| Total | Six lines | 3,779.7 | 100% |
Procurement makes up 76.1% of the request. Counting their RDT&E lines, the transport and infrastructure layers take 79%. Applications and data together get $794.4 million. Inside the data line, a dedicated AI and machine-learning project (C2F) receives $58.5 million, or 1.5% of the NGC2 total.
A large part of the procurement money serves Command and Control Network Optimized for Warfighting, or C2NOW. The Army’s procurement justification (p. 2-2) describes it as a 30-month effort, set to begin in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, to divest legacy tactical server hardware and replace it with NGC2-capable equipment. In the transport line, $514.0 million is labeled C2NOW-Transport, meant to pull Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T) equipment out of units.
The infrastructure line buys 2,043 Tactical Edge Compute servers at about $284,000 each: 900 for three NGC2 divisions and 1,143 for C2NOW. A separate $303.7 million covers integration, including vehicle platforms and A-kits. The transport line also funds three NGC2 division equivalents of radios, terminals and networking gear. The books do not total C2NOW across all six lines, so its exact share of the request cannot be stated.
FY2027 is the peak, not the baseline
The same budget books carry NGC2 through fiscal 2031, and fiscal 2027 is the high-water mark. Spending drops to $2.94 billion in fiscal 2028 and stays near $3 billion a year after that, for $15.74 billion over the five years.
| Fiscal year | NGC2 total ($B) | Procurement share | Applications + data share |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2027 | 3.78 | 76% | 21% |
| FY2028 | 2.94 | 65% | 31% |
| FY2029 | 2.95 | 64% | 33% |
| FY2030 | 2.99 | 60% | 37% |
| FY2031 | 3.08 | 60% | 36% |
Procurement falls by a third in fiscal 2028, from $2.88 billion to $1.92 billion. The books do not explain the drop, but it lines up with the C2NOW schedule, which the department told GAO runs from fiscal 2026 to 2029. The applications line moves the other way, from $488 million in fiscal 2027 to $789 million in fiscal 2031. By the end of the plan, software layers take more than a third of the budget.
Fiscal 2026 offers a rough reference point. GAO counted $3.308 billion requested for NGC2’s four layers in the Army’s fiscal 2026 exhibits, with applications at $215 million and data at $140 million, about 11% of the total. That was a request, and it was built on the old line structure.
A clean year-over-year comparison isn’t possible. The six fiscal 2027 lines absorb pieces of more than two dozen older budget lines and RDT&E projects, some only in part. The Pentagon’s budget overview describes the Army’s consolidation differently, as $4.2 billion moved from 16 budget lines to 8, with NGC2 as its primary focus. House appropriators wrote that cross-walking prior efforts to the fiscal 2027 lines “makes oversight more cumbersome and less transparent.” That is one reason published growth figures for NGC2 differ.
The Army said on July 29, 2026, at the end of Project Convergence-Capstone 6 at Fort Irwin, California, that NGC2 is “ready to scale” across the force, beginning with I Corps headquarters later this year.
Where Congress cut
Three defense committees acted on NGC2 by late June. The two House panels went after procurement, while Senate authorizers left the request untouched.
| Committee document | Date | NGC2 change ($M) | What changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| House-passed NDAA, H.R. 8800 (as reported in H. Rept. 119-698) | Reported June 15, 2026; passed July 22, 2026 | −820.0 | C2 Infrastructure −360.0; C2 Transport −460.0; both listed only as “program decrease” |
| HAC report, H. Rept. 119-715 | June 26, 2026 | −598.3 | C2NOW servers and integration −303.1; C2NOW transport −133.9; warfighting applications −88.1; program management, RAP-TR hardware and protected SATCOM −73.3 |
| SASC report, S. Rept. 119-127 | June 15, 2026 | 0 | All six lines authorized at the requested level |
The House Armed Services Committee cut deeper as the bill moved. The chairman’s mark proposed −$350 million for C2 Infrastructure and −$410 million for C2 Transport, a total of $760 million. The committee-reported bill raised that to $820 million, and the House-passed text kept it. That is a 21.7% cut to NGC2, all from procurement, and more than the bill’s net $745 million reduction to Other Procurement, Army. The committee report also lists both NGC2 cuts in its savings table.
The committee’s report (p. 20) explains part of its thinking. It says the Army “has not prioritized data transport” within NGC2 and plans to rely on legacy radios, private networks and satellite communications. It points to secured commercial cellular networks as a way to lower costs and increase resiliency, and directs the Army to report on the transport layer by Dec. 1, 2026. The request already includes $192.8 million for cellular and wireless transport.
House appropriators cut $598.3 million, or 15.8%. They also split the two consolidated procurement lines back into six sub-lines “for proper budget execution.” Of their cuts, $437 million is explicitly tagged C2NOW, using the labels “early to need” and “excess to need.” NGC2 procurement reductions account for 61% of the committee’s net $830.5 million cut to Other Procurement, Army.
No committee touched the C2 Data line. The Senate report (p. 348) adds one NGC2-related tasking: the Army’s chief data officer must brief both armed services committees by March 15, 2027, on its Operational Data Teams, including their integration with NGC2.
None of this is law. A cloture vote to begin Senate debate on S. 4784 failed 50-46 on July 14, 2026. Motions to proceed to the bill were made again on July 20, 23 and 27, but the Senate’s action record shows no further votes. The House defense appropriations bill, H.R. 9495, cleared committee 34-27 on June 24, 2026, but CRS’s appropriations status table, last updated Oct. 9, 2026, shows no House floor vote and no Senate action on it.
Congress has fenced NGC2 money before. The fiscal 2026 NDAA, signed Dec. 18, 2025, held back half of the year’s NGC2 funds until the Army submitted a report on funding plans, interoperability, and plans to finish developmental testing and formal operational test and evaluation before fielding.
The cost estimate GAO wants and the budget books don’t show
The Government Accountability Office reported on Aug. 20, 2026, that the Army had no life-cycle cost estimate for NGC2. The Army’s tentative goal is to field the full stack to 11 divisions and four corps by the end of fiscal 2032. Army officials told GAO the estimate for the 4th Infantry Division’s full stack alone is more than $1 billion in hardware, software and licenses.
GAO recommended an initial life-cycle estimate with the fiscal 2028 budget request. The department concurred. In a response signed July 1, 2026, it said NGC2 costs through the future-years plan, projected out to fiscal 2032, are identified in the fiscal 2027 budget submission. It added that the estimate was still being validated by the Army’s cost and economics office. It also said the fiscal 2027 submission is intended to resource fielding NGC2 to 11 divisions and four corps through the future-years plan.
The two justification books stop at fiscal 2031. They show $15.74 billion across fiscal 2027 to 2031, but no fiscal 2032 figure and no life-cycle total.
The schedules also disagree. GAO cited Army documentation that projected the software programs’ move into the execution phase before the end of fiscal 2026. The RDT&E books, dated April 2026, start the execution phase for the applications and data layers in the second quarter of fiscal 2027, which runs January through March 2027. GAO notes that programs on the software acquisition pathway are typically required to have a cost estimate before entering execution.
What the stopgap law means for six new lines
The Pentagon has been running on a continuing resolution since Oct. 1. The Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2027, signed Sept. 2, 2026, funds the government at fiscal 2026 rates through Dec. 11, 2026.
Section 102(a)(3) of the act bars defense funds from going to any project, activity, or P-1 or R-1 budget line item that had no appropriation in fiscal 2026. Every NGC2 line in the fiscal 2027 request shows no fiscal 2026 funding, because each was created this year. The Army describes the lines as consolidations: four of the six justifications call them not a “new start,” and the two infrastructure lines say they do not “constitute a new program or effort.” The act makes exceptions for Navy shipbuilding, defense-wide national security systems and one Army and Navy construction project, but none for Army command and control, nor for Golden Dome.
The budget books planned several NGC2 contract awards for October through December 2026, overlapping the stopgap period:
- October 2026: Tactical Edge Compute servers, cellular transport, TRILOS line-of-sight radios and TROPO-M beyond-line-of-sight terminals
- November 2026: line-of-sight backhaul radios, broadband kits and coalition communications equipment
- December 2026: $463.0 million for the warfighting applications CI/CD pipeline, with no day given, so the award may fall after Dec. 11
The largest C2NOW transport buy, $514.0 million for kits, was planned for February 2027, after the stopgap expires.
The budget documents do not say how the Army will handle the gap. If the new lines count as items without fiscal 2026 appropriations, NGC2 spending until a full-year bill would have to run through the old fiscal 2026 lines at fiscal 2026 rates. Whether the Army and the Office of Management and Budget read the consolidation that way has not been made public.
What to watch
The three deadlines come from committee report language on bills not yet enacted.
A nearer question comes before any of those dates. The budget books planned awards for Tactical Edge Compute servers and transport equipment in October and November, inside the stopgap period, on lines that had no fiscal 2026 appropriation. Whether those awards go ahead, and under which lines, will show how the Army reads its own consolidation.
Sources
Primary and official documents
- U.S. Army — Army FY2027 Budget Estimates, Other Procurement, Army, Vol. 2, Budget Activity 2: Communications and Electronics (PDF), April 2026: lines 1992B11400 C2 Infrastructure and 1996B11500 C2 Transport
- U.S. Army — Army FY2027 Budget Estimates, RDT&E, Vol. 3d, Budget Activity 5D (PDF), April 2026: PE 0605330A to PE 0605333A
- U.S. House of Representatives — H.R. 8800, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027, engrossed in House (PDF), July 22, 2026: sec. 4101 and sec. 4201 funding tables
- House Armed Services Committee — National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027, H. Rept. 119-698, June 15, 2026: Next Generation Command and Control Transport Layer; sec. 4101 funding table
- House Armed Services Committee — H.R. 8800, Chairman’s Mark (PDF) : sec. 4101 funding table
- House Appropriations Committee — Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2027, H. Rept. 119-715, June 26, 2026: Budget Line Item Consolidation; Other Procurement, Army, lines 1992B11400 and 1996B11500; PE 0605331A
- Senate Armed Services Committee — National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027, S. Rept. 119-127, June 15, 2026: Army investment in operationalizing data through teams and operations centers; sec. 4101 and sec. 4201 funding tables
- Government Accountability Office — Army Modernization: Better Schedule and Cost Information Needed to Support Scaling Battlefield Network, GAO-26-108019, August 20, 2026: Appendix II
- U.S. Congress — Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2027, Public Law 119-103 (PDF), September 2, 2026: Division A, sec. 102, 106, 126, 127 and 146
- Congressional Research Service — Overview of Continuing Appropriations for FY2027 (Division A of P.L. 119-103), R49353, September 17, 2026
- U.S. Congress — National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026, Public Law 119-60, December 18, 2025: sec. 114
- Congress.gov — S. 4784, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027: All Actions
- Congressional Research Service — FY2027 NDAA: Status of Legislative Activity, IN12704, September 1, 2026
- Congressional Research Service — Appropriations Status Table: FY2027, updated October 9, 2026
- U.S. Senate — Roll Call Vote No. 195, 119th Congress, 2nd Session, July 14, 2026
- Department of War — $1.5 Trillion Budget Request Prioritizes Service Members, Modernization, April 21, 2026
- U.S. Army — Army leaders: Next Generation Command and Control ‘ready to scale’, July 31, 2026
- Department of War — FY 2027 Budget Request Overview Book (PDF), April 2026: chapter 6
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