In a significant shift in U.S. military acquisition policy, the Army has officially canceled the M10 Booker program—a $1.14 billion effort to provide Infantry Brigade Combat Teams with a “light tank” capable of rapid deployment and direct fire support.

The decision halts further production of the 38-ton tracked vehicle and reflects a broader Pentagon push to streamline outdated systems and reassert control over military-industrial contracts.

“Now that we’re canceling, you can call it whatever,” Army Secretary Dan Driscoll told reporters Thursday, conceding that the program’s end effectively ends the long-running debate over whether the M10 was truly a tank.

The cancellation aligns with a directive issued by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who ordered the Army to divest itself of select armor and aviation formations as part of a sweeping reevaluation of how the service designs, procures, and sustains its weapons platforms.

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In an April 30 memo, Hegseth instructed the Army to eliminate outdated systems, a move that paved the way for the Booker’s demise.

“We got the Booker wrong,” Driscoll admitted Friday. “We wanted to develop a small tank that was agile and could do [airdrops] to the places our regular tanks can’t.”

However, he added, the M10’s final weight of 38 tons made it far too heavy for airdrops, undermining one of its core selling points.

“We got a heavy tank,” he continued.

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“What’s historically happened is we would have kept buying this to build out some number of Bookers, and then in decades in the future we would have switched. Instead, we went to the Pentagon leadership and we said, ‘we made a mistake, this didn’t turn out right. We’re going to stop. We’re going to own it.’”

Image Credit: DoW

While the Army has already taken delivery of approximately 80 Bookers, production of the remaining vehicles originally contracted under the initial 96-unit order will cease.

The original plan called for roughly 500 M10s to be built—enough to equip each Infantry Brigade Combat Team with 14 vehicles.

The decision to scrap the program also brings into focus mounting frustration over so-called “Right-to-Repair” clauses in defense contracts, which have become a flashpoint among lawmakers and military leaders.

Under the terms of the M10 Booker contract, General Dynamics retained exclusive authority over maintenance and parts replacement, effectively locking Army mechanics out of conducting their own routine repairs.

“If you look at kind of comparable industries for the civilian sector, I think tractors went through this five, eight years ago,” said Driscoll.

“You had farmers who were having a hard time repairing their equipment. The exact same thing is true for soldiers. We have many instances where, for two dollars to twenty dollars, we can 3D-print a part. We know how to 3D print a part. We have the 3D printer, but we have signed away the right to do that on our own accord, and that is a sinful activity for the leadership of the Army to do to harm our soldiers.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren raised the issue at Driscoll’s confirmation hearing in January, slamming the Booker’s maintenance restrictions.

“When right-to-repair restrictions are in place, it’s bigger profits for giant defense contractors, but also higher prices for DoW and longer wait times for service members who need to get equipment repaired so they’re ready to go,” she said.

Beyond its logistical and policy flaws, the M10 Booker also carried symbolic weight as the first major U.S. military weapons system named for a post-9/11 service member.

The vehicle honored two fallen heroes: Staff Sgt. Stevon A. Booker, a tank commander killed during the Thunder Run into Baghdad in 2003, and Pvt. Robert D. Booker, a World War II infantryman who died heroically in Tunisia in 1943.

Staff Sgt. Booker received the Distinguished Service Cross, while Pvt. Booker was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

Armed with a 105mm main gun, a coaxial 7.62mm machine gun, and a .50 caliber heavy machine gun, the Booker offered potent firepower for its size.

Its relative lightness—compared to the 70-ton M1 Abrams—meant a C-17 transport aircraft could carry two M10s instead of just one Abrams.

Yet even that logistical advantage failed to compensate for the platform’s inability to be airdropped or maintained independently by Army personnel.

The M10 Booker was born in 2018 under the Army’s Next Generation Combat Vehicle initiative, designed to modernize armored warfare for a new era of conflict.

Its cancellation now stands as a cautionary tale of how even well-intentioned programs can falter when technical realities, maintenance hurdles, and contract restrictions collide.

By scrapping the Booker before full-scale deployment, Army leadership is sending a clear message: failure to meet mission requirements—and soldier readiness—will no longer be swept under the rug. Instead, as Driscoll put it, “We’re going to stop. We’re going to own it.”

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