The Army’s bid to give commanders a single, live picture of the battlefield is moving from concept to desert trial. Its latest test showed why the technology is compelling—and why soldiers are still keeping backups close at hand.

In late July, thousands of troops brought the Next-Generation Command and Control system, or NGC2, to Project Convergence Capstone 6 at Fort Irwin, California. The nine-day exercise put more than 90 technologies through their paces in the Mojave heat, with the 4th Infantry Division testing a platform intended to unite communications, planning, drone operations and battlefield tracking.¹

The system combines more than 40 applications from over 60 vendors around Anduril’s Lattice software, seeking to turn disparate military feeds into one operational picture.² For commanders, the payoff was immediate: troops carried tablets showing friendly forces, vehicles and buildings, while leaders coordinated maneuvers across Fort Irwin’s vast training ground.

Maj. Gen. Patrick Ellis, who commands the 4th Infantry Division, said the common visualization helped forces identify both friendly units and perceived enemy positions, allowing them “to bring fires to bear, to maneuver forces faster.”¹ Gen. Christopher LaNeve, the Army vice chief of staff, framed NGC2 less as a replacement for command than an enabler—letting leaders operate while moving and dispersed.¹

But the trial also exposed the friction between an ambitious digital architecture and battlefield reality. Some soldiers lost access to parts of the platform because of connectivity problems; others faced overheating and retained analog whiteboard maps while learning the tablet-based system.¹ Cybersecurity is another central pressure point: the Army says it continuously scans incoming software and, in one recent test, automatically quarantined an application after monitoring tools detected unusual behavior.²

Ellis’s verdict captured the Army’s posture: “It’s ready but not done. We’re proving that we can fight with this.”² With nearly $4 billion requested for further development, the service plans to push NGC2 next to I Corps—while continuing to test whether the network can endure the heat, interference and uncertainty of combat.