Senator Susan Collins, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, criticized the Army’s recent decision to cancel the Robotic Combat Vehicle (RCV) program during a committee hearing on Wednesday. The hearing was held to review the Army’s fiscal year 2026 budget request.
Collins addressed Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll, urging him to reconsider the termination of the RCV program. “I think it was terribly unfair and a real mistake,” Collins said. She described the program as evidence of the type of innovation needed by the Defense Department on modern battlefields.
The RCV had recently been awarded to Textron’s Ripsaw robotic vehicle, produced by Howe & Howe Technologies in Maine. Collins praised Howe & Howe as an “innovative, brilliant firm, the kind of company that we need more of in our industrial base.”
Secretary Driscoll defended the cancellation by pointing to escalating costs caused by increasing requirements for the vehicle. He noted that less expensive technology could provide similar capabilities: “an $800 drone with a very cheap munition can take out a $3 million piece of equipment endlessly.” Driscoll explained that this cost imbalance is unsustainable for U.S. forces.
He further suggested that companies such as Applied Intuition can make existing vehicles autonomous quickly and affordably using their software solutions: “And that’s the type of cost curve we can afford, is to go out and find things that are already being purchased by consumers and translate them over to military cases,” Driscoll said. He added, “for the vast majority of the things we need to purchase today—to counterbalance all of the exquisite things we’ve purchased in the past—we have got to be buying cheap, attributable, scalable solutions. And unfortunately for the RCV, it’s just not one.”
Collins responded with several points. She noted that Textron’s Ripsaw RCV was featured during last Saturday’s Army 250th birthday parade in Washington, D.C., which was attended by President Trump. “It’s the height of irony that you would feature this combat vehicle in your parade as the future of the Army at the same time that you’ve canceled the contract, the cancellation of a contract that was won over a lot of other competitors,” she said.
She also highlighted that RCVs are equipped with counter-drone technology for self-defense against drone threats and emphasized their autonomous nature: “You’re not going to lose a soldier’s life if it’s taken out.”
The discussion reflects ongoing debates about how best to balance innovation and cost efficiency within military procurement programs.
