The Army is undergoing a significant modernization effort to maintain its competitive edge in an era defined by rapid technological innovation and increasingly complex global threats. At the heart of this transformation lies the Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2) initiative, a visionary modernization effort focused on developing an agile, interoperable, and data-centric command and control (C2) architecture designed to orchestrate more effective multi-domain operations. While maneuver and fires C2 often dominate the conversation, Army sustainment operations are equally critical, ensuring warfighters have the supplies and resources they need, when and where they need them.
The goal of NGC2 is to enable our Army to act decisively, with more speed than our adversaries, in contested operating environments, while meeting the demands of large-scale combat operations (LSCO), distributed operations, and mission command. This article explores the Army’s vision for modernized sustainment through NGC2, detailing how these efforts leverage data, artificial intelligence (AI), and real-time visibility to improve sustainment. It showcases real-world implementation through exercises like the Ivy Sting series, and outlines specific NGC2 sustainment capabilities, emphasizing the goal of a more proactive and responsive supply chain.
NGC2: Unleashing a Data-Driven Revolution in Sustainment
By integrating sustainment data streams into a unified data environment, NGC2 unlocks enhanced situational awareness and predictive capabilities. Where current systems offer a fragmented view, NGC2 seeks to create a common operating picture, providing commanders and sustainment planners with a more complete and unified picture of the battlefield, the status of supply lines, the health of equipment, personnel status reports, casualty reporting, and in-transit visibility.
With data from sensors, platforms, and supply chains, NGC2 generates actionable intelligence, leveraging AI and machine learning to analyze historical data and real-time information to predict future demand, identify potential readiness shortfalls, and optimize distribution routes. This predictive capability will enable the Army to better anticipate and mitigate challenges before they arise. This is precisely the aim of agile sustainment data.
NGC2 Sustainment Capabilities:
- Proactive Supply Management: By leveraging integrated data and AI-driven analysis, NGC2 introduces a predictive supply management capability that commanders currently lack. NGC2 analyzes real-time combat metrics to determine future consumption rates for ammunition and medical supplies, enabling sustainers to proactively preposition resources where they will be needed most. This data-driven model replaces today’s reactive measures, where sustainers can only respond to shortages after they occur, thereby preventing the critical delays and resource gaps that can hinder forward operating elements.
- Dynamic Supply Chain Optimization: The Army’s global supply chain is extremely complex. To address this complexity, NGC2 is designed to create a dynamic supply chain that responds in real time to evolving operational needs. Blockchain technology has the potential to enhance transparency and security by providing an immutable record of transactions, reducing the risk of fraud, and improving accountability. The G-4, in coordination with U.S. Army Combined Arms Support Command, is focused on integrating supply chain management systems with NGC2, working with industry partners to adopt common data standards that facilitate interoperability and advocating the development of advanced analytic tools that provide actionable insights into supply chain performance.
- Predictive Maintenance and Condition-Based Sustainment: NGC2 is designed to optimize real-time equipment performance data to predict potential failures and trigger proactive maintenance actions. By integrating sensor data from equipment, NGC2 can analyze performance trends, identify anomalies, and predict when a component is likely to fail. This allows maintenance crews to perform repairs before a breakdown occurs, minimizing disruption to operations and extending the lifespan of equipment.
- Enhanced Transportation and Movement Management: NGC2 provides real-time visibility of transportation assets, enabling sustainment planners to track shipments, optimize routes, and respond to disruptions. NGC2 can predict traffic congestion, identify alternative routes, and optimize schedules. During a deployment, NGC2 can track movement of personnel and equipment, monitoring traffic, weather, and security to optimize routes and ensure timely arrival.
Integrating NGC2 in the Field: Lessons from Ivy Sting
Ivy Sting, conducted by the 4th Infantry Division, is more than just an exercise. It has been part of a crucial series of events leading up to project convergence in the summer of 2026. This initiative is focused on evaluating and implementing NGC2 at the division level, with a particular emphasis on refining precision fires missions. The core goal is to optimize the planning and execution process, especially in the critical area of airspace deconfliction, by creating a unified operational architecture. This architecture seamlessly integrates software applications, infrastructure, data, and transport.
Ivy Sting commenced with NGC2 application orientation (Ivy Sting 0) before rapidly progressing through increasingly complex exercises. Early sprints focused on live fires using the Artillery Execution Suite (Ivy Sting 1), followed by expanded data integration, incorporating autonomous assets and lattice mesh networking (Ivy Sting 2). Subsequent iterations (Ivy Sting 3 to 5 and 6 to 10) will continue to hone command post functionality across echelons, specifically addressing C2 architecture and sustainment planning, and calling for fire procedures while consistently developing the prototype. The culmination of this effort is a division-level readiness exercise, Ivy Mass, to formally assess NGC2’s capabilities, coupled with sustained participation in Project Convergence Capstone events (PC-C6 and PC-C7) to validate and refine the prototype in a realistic operational environment. The exercise series will culminate in a NGC2 symposium, scheduled for 2027. These events will provide a crucial continuous feedback loop to ensure that NGC2’s effective integration, informed future development, and role in future battlefield dominance are at the forefront.
A significant challenge identified during Ivy Sting 2 was aligning the artillery resupply chain’s speed with the enhanced precision Artillery Execution Suite. To address this, the Army is committed to continuous innovation through continuous transformation and iterative testing cycles (PC-C5 and PC-C6). These efforts involve deploying existing technology to the field, collecting Soldier feedback, and rapidly updating systems, with the goal of enhancing transparency, collaborating to solve problems, and strengthening security protocols. The challenge of aligning the speed of the artillery resupply chain with the enhanced precision of the Artillery Execution Suite powerfully illustrated a larger truth: sustainment operations are fundamentally intertwined with every aspect of operations on the battlefield. Integrating sustainers and their systems into the digital battlefield is essential to maximizing the effectiveness of all other warfighting functions.
Conclusion: Enabling Decisive Victory with NGC2
Transforming sustainment through data-centric C2 presents several key challenges, including ensuring data interoperability across diverse systems, establishing robust data governance policies, strategically integrating or decommissioning legacy transport systems, and fostering a cultural shift that embraces data-driven decision making. The potential rewards are immense, but to enable this interoperability across our sustainment business systems, we must relook our current systems and make some hard decisions on what stays and what goes. We cannot move forward with new technology without sunsetting some of our old technology.
Looking ahead, it is imperative that we anticipate the demands of future sustainment requirements from the tactical edge all the way to the strategic support area to effectively execute LSCO. NGC2’s enhanced operational capabilities can proactively adapt our supply chains to meet operational demands head-on. The potential exists for a sustainment enterprise that effectively complements and amplifies the transformative potential of NGC2, ensuring our warfighters have the support they need to dominate any battlefield.
The successful integration of sustainment within NGC2 is not merely about technology; it is about people, processes, and a culture of innovation. The Army is committed to empowering our sustainment professionals with the training, tools, and support they need to assist the warfighter on the battlefield. By focusing on the sustainment applications in NGC2, collaborating with industry partners, and embracing a culture of continuous improvement, we are confident we can ensure that sustainment remains a decisive enabler of victory in a future LSCO fight.
This We’ll Defend!
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LTG Michelle K. Donahue serves as the Deputy Chief of Staff of U.S. Army G-4. She has served as the as the commander of the U.S. Army Combined Arms Support Command/Sustainment Center of Excellence, and as a sustainment brigade commander, support squadron commander, battalion executive officer, battalion support operations officer, battalion S-4, battalion S-2/S-3, and battalion and brigade S-1. She has also served as the 56th Quartermaster General and Commandant of the U.S. Army Quartermaster School at the Sustainment Center of Excellence; Deputy Director for Readiness, Strategy and Operations for the Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff/G-4; and Special Assistant to the Director, Army Staff for the 2023 Army Transition Team. A Distinguished Military Graduate, she received her commission in the Quartermaster Corps from Duke University in 1996. She also holds advanced degrees from Georgetown University and National Defense University.
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This article was published in the winter 2026 issue of Army Sustainment.
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