New US Army software predicts ammo and fuel needs for however an enemy might fight

• The US Army's new warfighting software is speeding up and modernizing logistics.
• NGC2 figures out what ammo and supplies soldiers have and what they could need.
• Simulations help predict how attacks from enemy forces could affect supplies and weapons.

A new combat tool is helping the US Army predict what ammo, fuel, and supplies it'll need by gaming out how enemies might attack.

The change is speeding up and breaking down barriers within the logistics chain, with real-time data helping troops, commanders, and sustainment planners predict what's needed so that they don't get left waiting around for days only to find they're facing a critical supply shortage.

Logistics is a central focus of the Army's broader push to modernize how it fights and sustains forces, and the effort is unfolding through the Next Generation Command and Control system, or NGC2. The system is being built through a series of exercises and tests, with each iteration pulling in more weapons, vehicles, sensors, and data streams to expand what it can do.

At an exercise happening right now at Fort Carson, Colorado, the Army and a team of industry partners, including Anduril, are expanding NGC2 to make supply chain data more accessible and predictive when it comes to what soldiers need to fight.

With the NGC2 software, "it's no longer, 'Hey, operations, what is your next 24-hour plan or what's your next 48-hour plan?'"James Craven, the NGC2 program director at Anduril, said at a media roundtable on Tuesday.

Instead, operational plans are able to be quickly shaped off of logistics data and commander guidance and then stress-tested against simulated enemy actions.

Those simulations allow planners to examine multiple scenarios, showing how demand for ammunition, fuel, maintenance, or medical support could change depending on what an adversary does. The longer-term aim, Craven said, is to make the system accessible across the service and to key partners, allowing suppliers to estimate future demand earlier.

With NGC2, "we can see magazine depth, consumption rates, and how those change over time, in real time," Craven said, and then that data can be analyzed thanks to artificial intelligence and machine learning to estimate the downstream effects on operations.

The Army says that the data-driven model is meant to replace its largely reactive supply system, where sustainment units often respond only after shortages appear. It's a dynamic that, as Army logistics leader Lt. Gen. Michelle Donahue recently warned, can delay support and leave front-line units short.

The software also tracks the status of equipment, vehicles, and weapons, using that data to predict maintenance needs and potential failures. The idea is to flag issues before systems break down, allowing maintenance crews to intervene earlier and reduce operational disruptions.

As the Army and its defense industry partners have been building the NGC2 system, they've been incorporating soldier feedback for quick fixes, sometimes implementing them overnight or within days. Service officials have said it's a major change from the past, where feedback became real change months or years later.

Tom Keane, Anduril's senior vice president and head of the connected warfare division, said on Tuesday that in general, new or upgraded capabilities are provided at least weekly, sometimes daily or hourly, depending on what's being worked on.

NGC2 is a key example of how the Army is prioritizing agile, adaptive weapons development and the adoption of a Silicon Valley-style of work that's faster and more software-based than how the service has typically done business. The command and control system also represents a different relationship between the Army and its industry partners that the service says has led to a more iterative design approach.