$697.7M ISV change order: Army expands GM Defense squad vehicle contract as Senate NDAA offers a multiyear buy

The money

What does the $697.7 million ISV modification cover?

The announcement describes modification P00053 to contract W56HZV-20-D-0066 as covering “engineering change proposals for the Infantry Squad Vehicle Utility and Infantry Squad Vehicle Utility Winch Kit” ^[1]. It names no unit count. Work locations and funding “will be determined with each order,” with an estimated completion date of June 25, 2028 ^[1]. One bid was solicited and one received. U.S. Army Contracting Command-Detroit Arsenal is the contracting activity ^[1].

Subtracting the modification from the new face value leaves about $217.9 million, by this brief’s arithmetic ^[1]. That is close to the original award: in June 2020 the Army gave GM Defense a production contract that the company valued at $214.3 million for an initial procurement objective of 649 vehicles ^[2]. In other words, a single change order has more than quadrupled the contract’s face value.

How does the ISV budget line compare with last year?

The Army funds ISV procurement in the Ground Mobility Vehicles line of Other Procurement, Army ^[2, 3]. For FY2026 the Army asked $308.620 million there, which the Congressional Research Service (CRS) described as buying 1,275 ISVs and associated equipment ^[2]. The enacted FY2026 NDAA authorized the request ^[5].

The FY2027 request for the same line is $526.796 million. The House-passed H.R. 8800 and the Senate committee’s S. 4784 both authorize it without change ^[3, 4]. That is about $218.2 million, or roughly 71 percent, more than the FY2026 authorization, by this brief’s arithmetic ^[3, 5]. Neither bill adds report-line detail on how much of the FY2027 money is for baseline ISVs.

Appropriators have not always agreed with the request. In the FY2026 cycle, the House Appropriations Committee’s defense bill recommended $274.172 million less than requested for the ISV line, and the Senate committee’s version $62.458 million less, citing funds “ahead of need,” according to CRS ^[2]. The Senate Armed Services Committee, by contrast, recommended $34 million more than requested in ISV funding, in a different line ^[2].

The programs

The baseline ISV is a lightweight, unarmored troop carrier built on GM Defense’s Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 midsize pickup, with about 90 percent commercial parts ^[2]. It moves a nine-soldier squad and can be sling-loaded under a UH-60 Black Hawk or carried inside a CH-47 Chinook ^[2]. The Army approved full-rate production in March 2023 with an acquisition objective of 2,593 vehicles ^[2].

Army data provided to CRS show these deliveries as of November 2025 ^[2]:

• 201 vehicles each to the 1st and 2nd brigades of the 101st Airborne Division
• 186 to the 75th Ranger Regiment
• 108 and 96 to the 3rd and 2nd brigades of the 25th Infantry Division
• 96 to the 3rd Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division
• 59 each to three brigades of the 82nd Airborne Division, and 40 to the 173rd Airborne Brigade

Those figures total roughly 1,105 vehicles, the fleet size Defense News also reported in April ^[8].

What is the ISV Utility variant?

The modification is for the Utility version, not the nine-seat squad carrier. GM Defense told CRS it offers a flatbed ISV variant with a two- or five-person crew that can be configured for different functions ^[2]. The Army has also been putting other equipment on the vehicle. In March, its command post modernization office asked industry to integrate command-and-control systems onto ISVs, after units requested ISVs in place of Humvees; each awardee would deliver three prototypes: two ISV squad vehicles and one ISV utility platform ^[10].

Who is competing for ISV-Heavy?

Separately, the Army is buying prototypes of a heavier variant. On June 30 it awarded firm-fixed-price Other Transaction Agreements to Ford, GM Defense and BC Customs, each to deliver three Infantry Squad Vehicle-Heavy (ISV-H) prototypes, the first due by March 30, 2027 ^[7]. The Army did not disclose the amounts ^[7]. The service’s commercial solutions opening sought 60 kilowatts of continuous high-voltage DC exportable power, and its stated long-term goal is 606 vehicles ^[7, 8]. Defense News reported that the FY2027 request buys an initial 34 ISV-H at an estimated $463,000 each ^[7].

CRS has flagged the questions the heavier vehicle raises for the original program, including whether ISV-H would take roles planned for other ISV variants and whether the 2,593-vehicle objective still fits. It cited a senior Army official’s statement that requirements could rise to 260 ISVs per mobile brigade combat team and 170 per light brigade ^[2].

The politics

Army leaders have held up the ISV as the model for buying commercial vehicles. “It’s already got consumer buy-in, it’s got a consumer demand signal that the company can build out manufacturing,” Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll said in May 2025, as the service moved to cancel programs it called obsolete ^[9]. “The things we’re going to try to avoid is being the sole customer of a business, because it’s not fair to us and it’s not fair to the business,” he added ^[9].

Section 111 of S. 4784 would give the Army multiyear authority for ISVs, components, spare parts and support equipment beginning in FY2027 ^[3]. Any such contract must provide “savings compared to annual procurement,” include termination protections, comply with 10 U.S.C. 3501 and run no more than five fiscal years ^[3]. It may also include economic order quantity purchases of long-lead items ^[3]. The House bill contains no ISV multiyear provision ^[4], so the authority is a conference item. House passage of that bill is covered in an earlier brief.

Oversight has also centered on performance. CRS notes that the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation found in 2021 that the ISV worked as a troop carrier in permissive environments but had limits in combat roles because of reliability and training concerns; a 2023 follow-up reported better reliability while leaving the survivability assessment unchanged ^[2].

For the heavier variant, the Army’s case rests on electrical power. “One of the things that we do have a critical capability gap on right now is power generation at that mobile brigade combat team level,” Jess Tolleson, the Army’s principal deputy assistant secretary for acquisition, logistics and technology, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in June ^[7].

Next milestone

The stopgap, H.R. 6500, funds the Pentagon until Dec. 11 unless full-year appropriations are enacted first ^[6]. Section 102 bars stopgap money for “the increase in production rates above those sustained with fiscal year 2026 funds” and for starting multiyear procurements that use advance procurement for economic order quantities “unless specifically appropriated later” ^[6]. Read against the ISV line, that holds production at the rate FY2026 funds sustained and keeps a multiyear deal from starting with economic-order-quantity buys until a full-year bill passes; the same new-start rules were covered in the CCA brief.

The dated steps after that: Dec. 11 for the stopgap, a House-Senate NDAA agreement that decides Section 111, March 30, 2027 for the first ISV-H prototypes, and June 25, 2028 for completion of the engineering-change work ^{[1, 3, 6, 7]}. The Army has not said which changes the $697.7 million buys.