Army M10 Booker: Soldier Firepower Innovation From Arctic Warfare to Pacific Islands (From RealClearDefense)

The full text of this article is available below and in RealClearDefense here.

Welcome to the President Donald J. Trump’s Pentagon, where Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s team is about to realize that program milestone decisions are just as arduous as push-ups – and equally crucial for warfighting capability.  While the Navy prepares for an F/A-XX fighter award and the Air Force stews over NGAD, it could be Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll who is first up to make a major acquisition decision.

The program in question is the M10 Booker, and it should be a home run.  As America reconfigures global force deployments, mobility and protected firepower for rapid deployment will be more critical than ever. 

Booker is not a tank: it is an armored vehicle with an assault gun and a top speed of 40 mph whose purpose is to “defeat targets that could compromise the effectiveness of the Infantry Brigade Combat Teams (ICBT),” explained Lieutenant Colonel Ben Ferguson and Captain Lennard Salcedo. 

Infantry formations like the 82^nd Airborne are the first units the Army can send to a crisis hotspot.  The problem is, the Army has shed force structure and older vehicles to the point where the heaviest weapon the 82nd Airborne has today is a Javelin on a soldier’s back. 

Hence, there is an urgent need for mobile protected firepower.  Booker became a top Army modernization priority after the Army’s “night court” program cuts of 2017-2018.  With the defeat of ISIS in hand and Europe’s eastern front quiet, the Army sought a lighter, protected mobile firepower vehicle that could deploy fast to global locations and increase firepower and situational awareness on arrival. 

Several real-world scenarios influenced the design, from operations in Syria’s oil fields to the lessons learned from northern Iraq. 

As a lighter, faster vehicle, Booker provides more firepower and an advanced fire control system, giving soldiers much more protection.  “At 105mm with a variety of round types, the fully stabilized main gun is more than capable of neutralizing bunkers and defeating light enemy armored forces that an IBCT might encounter in theater,” noted Ferguson and Salcedo.

Another plus is that Booker is also an example of a rapid innovation program.  President Trump has recruited a deep bench of innovators and entrepreneurs for Pentagon leadership positions and Booker provides a chance to make good on a new way of doing business.

The Army considered a commercial off-the-shelf buy, but no light tanks from other allies or partners met the tactical need.  So, the Army opted for a rapid capabilities program to design and test the Booker.  Usually new military vehicles take ages, but in this case, the Army went fast.  From a cold start in 2018, industry teams from BAE Systems and General Dynamics invested millions of their own money.  Design and production of the prototypes carried on straight through COVID, delivering vehicles for the Army to test out at Maryland’s Aberdeen Proving Ground and Fort Bragg, North Carolina in 2022.   

Since then, the Booker program has blasted ahead at top speed, delivering the first vehicle to the Army at Anniston Army depot in February 2024.  The Army test program includes every scenario from the Arctic to the desert. 

With Pentagon reviews analyzing an 8% cut in defense programs, every program will face scrutiny.  Still, it’s important to remember that China just announced a defense budget increase of 7.2%. 

China’s recent live-fire drills held across the Indo-Pacific were a stark reminder that the next Army deployments could occur in the “grey zone” created by China’s ambitions.  Deterring in the grey zone depends heavily on air and sea power, but there is also a requirement for agile land forces that can reinforce allies, strongpoints and carve out multi-domain dominance.

President Trump’s new Pentagon team needs to help the Army shape its force structure for the Indo-Pacific.  Strategists expect China to continue its grey zone strategy, which began with building terrain features into bases and pressuring islands on an arc from Japan to Taiwan to the Philippines, where China believes it has historic territorial claims.  Booker’s lighter weight is well-suited for the mix of islands and jungle terrain of the Pacific.  The task for Booker is to make sure Infantry Brigade Combat Teams retain their freedom of maneuver and reconnaissance.

Booker brings a major advantage for the far-flung theater of the Pacific: deployability.  Two Bookers fit into the cargo hold of one U.S. Air Force C-17.  During recent build-ups in Afghanistan and other locations, C-17s have flown equipment into expeditionary airfields; they will likely have to do so again if China presses U.S. partners and allies. 

Don’t write off a role for Booker in NATO.  The NATO focus on the eastern front from the Baltics through Poland will depend on heavy armor like Abrams tanks.  However, rapidly deployed infantry would rely on rapid reconnaissance by Booker to beat the enemy to contested points in the event of Russian incursions.  According to two authors writing for Armor Magazine, Booker’s “lighter weight gives it greater agility and mobility than the Abrams, allowing it increased maneuverability in restricted and urban terrain” and “reduces the road and bridge limitations on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s eastern flank that otherwise provide mobility challenges to armor-centric formations.”

That’s the kind of thinking Trump’s innovators at the Pentagon should prioritize.