The Army wants its Next Generation Combat Vehicle (NGCV) program to provide a transformational leap in battlefield capability.

But building a global 3D terrain database will require wrangling huge amounts of data, Maj. Gen. Maria Gervais told us.

“The last few years have been quite good for the association’s annual meeting and for the Army,” the AUSA president told us, but “I’m very, very worried” about the 2020 budget.

Auto giant General Motors is the outsider in a competition against two teams of companies with decades of defense experience: Oshkosh-Flyer and Polaris-SAIC.

With the surprise disqualification of the Raytheon-Rheinmetall Lynx, the Army has effectively left itself with one competitor for the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle, General Dynamics — unless the Pentagon or Congress intervene.

With the new Raytheon software, the Army will no longer be fighting blind against enemy radio jamming — but its own jammers to strike back remain years away.