The M10 Booker was initially associated with large expectations, being promoted as a vehicle that would bring not only the armored but also the firepower, which the U.S. Army’s light infantry had been lacking for a long time. This vehicle was expected to have all the attributes of being fast, durable, and deadly, hence, capable of supporting the soldiers on the ground without the massive size and the logistical issues of a main battle tank. Instead, the program turned out to be yet another frustrating story of how contemporary defense projects can derail.
The absence of a dedicated vehicle was the reason for the light infantry units’ struggle to manage direct fire support, and as a consequence, they were at constant risk of facing barricaded adversaries or enemy armored vehicles. The Mobile Protected Firepower program, setting out to fix this kind of situation, was launched in 2017.
The Army sought a vehicle that was not only deployable and protected but also capable of delivering decisive firepower in a scenario where heavy tanks like the Abrams could not move. Two companies, General Dynamics and BAE Systems, were invited to compete in the prototyping challenge, and after years of testing, in 2022, the contract went to General Dynamics. Valued at over a billion dollars, the said contract paved the way for what would later become the M10 Booker officially.
The vehicle itself was somewhat between a light tank and an assault gun. It was equipped with a 105mm main cannon; it could accommodate a crew of four, and along with that, it had digital communications and thermal sights, which were modern systems. It is worth noting that although it was first designed to weigh 36,287 kg, by the time it went to production, the weight of the vehicle was approximately 42 tons, thus it was still much lighter than an Abrams but heavier than initially planned.
Moreover, designers had planned the vehicle to be more defensible with the use of modular armor and active protection, as well as the gun, promising the support of the kind that the infantry requires in breaking the defense line. Despite this, the Army was still reluctant to classify the vehicle as a tank; it viewed the vehicle as one that was designed to deal with enemy positions and lighter armored threats, but not to engage heavy armor in head-on attacks.
The plans were quite ambitious. The Army was expecting to be equipped with four battalions of Bookers by 2030; therefore, a total of over 500 vehicles. The price for each vehicle initially almost reached $13 million, with the belief that the cost would begin to drop after the start of large-scale production. By the middle of 2025, work on different parts of the vehicle was going on in several states—turrets were being made in Ohio, hulls in Michigan, and the last stage of assembly in Alabama. The production had gotten to a point where dozens of vehicles had already been delivered, and there were more. However, they were at various stages of completion.
However, things were not as they appeared, and the program, not long after, started facing some issues. The issue of the program’s weight was one of its biggest problems. As the Army demanded more protection for the vehicle, the Booker kept getting heavier until it exceeded the limits of the infrastructure it was supposed to use. For example, the bridges at Fort Campbell that the 101st Airborne uses for crossing were not strong enough for the Booker to pass over.
Besides, due to its dimensions, it could only fit inside a C-17 transport aircraft alone, which meant that its very rapid-deployment mission would be severely limited. Maintenance, as well, became another issue. The work that the Army mechanics could do on the vehicle was limited; thus, they had to rely on contractors for most repairs—the latter, however, raised the question of whether the vehicle could keep up with a fast-moving conflict or one that was in a remote location.
In the summer of 2025, the disappointment with the program was the bitterest of all. Despite the previous upbeat mood and the already initiated production pipeline, the M10 Booker received the cancellation notice from the Army. The termination was among the efforts to cut down the number of programs that no longer matched future needs by large margins, and there was an open acknowledgment by officials that it was a program that had gone a long way off track. The admission was quite straightforward: in this case, they simply made a mistake.
Nevertheless, the Booker’s story is brief, but it does not lack lessons. Military engineers are still struggling to come up with a vehicle that combines mobility, protection, and firepower in a balanced manner, and this remains one of the most difficult challenges of military engineering; disputes are inevitable. The underlying requirement that led to the vehicle’s development still exists, although the Booker is not going to be the one to do so.
The light infantry still does not have an armored vehicle that can be easily and quickly deployed and on which they can rely for fire support. The Army can either use new technology to reconsider the idea or take a different route; however, the Booker will still be part of the learning process that determines what happens next.