U.S. Army delivers ISVs to Indiana’s Nighthawk Brigade

Six Infantry Squad Vehicles arrived at Camp Atterbury, Indiana, on April 9, 2026, as part of a formal fielding event for soldiers assigned to the Indiana National Guard’s 76th Mobile Brigade Combat Team — adding the Army’s newest lightweight troop transport to one of the Midwest’s most operationally active Guard formations.

The 76th Mobile Brigade Combat Team, known as the “Nighthawk Brigade” and headquartered in Lawrence, Indiana, becomes one of the latest Guard formations to receive the platform as the service works to equip Mobile Brigade Combat Teams across the active and reserve components. Camp Atterbury, located south of Indianapolis and covering more than 35,000 acres of maneuver space, serves as a primary training and readiness hub for Indiana’s Guard forces and as a mobilization installation for Army forces across the region.

The ISV is a lightweight, unarmored ground transport vehicle developed by GM Defense, intended to enhance the mobility of Army Mobile Brigade Combat Teams, Security Force Assistance Brigades, and Army Special Operations Forces. According to the Army, the ISV was designed to move nine soldiers and their equipment rapidly across terrain where heavier vehicles such as the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle or High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle may be less practical or effective. That distinction is central to the vehicle’s appeal — where an armored HMMWV or JLTV offers protection at the cost of speed and maneuverability, the ISV trades armor for agility, enabling infantry squads to cover ground quickly and reposition before a threat can engage them.

GM Defense’s ISV is derived from the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 pickup truck and can be integrated with machine guns, grenade launchers, and a counter-unmanned aerial system weapon. It is transportable via heavy-lift helicopter and deployable via low-velocity airdrop from large cargo aircraft. The vehicle offers seating for up to nine passengers and can carry payloads weighing up to 3,200 pounds. That combination of air-transportability and payload capacity makes the ISV particularly well-suited to the rapid deployment missions the 76th Mobile Brigade Combat Team is designed to execute. A unit that can load its vehicles onto a C-17 and be airborne within hours gains a strategic flexibility that heavier formations simply cannot match.

Steve Herrick, a product lead with the Army’s Program Executive Office for Combat Support and Combat Service Support, has early described the primary role of the ISV as a troop carrier to provide ground mobility to designated infantry rifle squads, reducing their need to cover large areas of terrain on foot. That concept of operations — keeping dismounted infantry off their feet until the last possible moment before contact — reflects lessons absorbed from observing modern conflicts where foot movement exposes soldiers to observation drones and precision fires before they can ever reach their objectives. Getting squads into position faster, and with more energy, has become a genuine tactical imperative.

Some observers have compared the ISV to the World War II-era Jeep because it filled a similar role as a fast, multiuse transport vehicle for troops, weapons and reconnaissance missions, though the ISV’s commercial origins have attracted the most attention. That lineage matters for logistics — using approximately 90 percent commercial components means parts are widely available and maintenance doesn’t depend exclusively on military supply chains. For a National Guard unit that maintains its equipment in armories across Indiana between training periods, that practical repairability is a significant advantage.

The fielding at Camp Atterbury fits squarely within the Army’s broader Transformation in Contact initiative, a modernization program that has been redesignating Infantry Brigade Combat Teams as Mobile Brigade Combat Teams and equipping them with ISVs as a core platform. The Army started fielding ISV nine-passenger seat configurations in 2024 as part of the Transforming in Contact units that were converting Infantry Brigade Combat Teams to Mobile Brigade Combat Teams. The 76th’s receipt of six vehicles reflects that transformation process extending into the National Guard component.

The Army’s appetite for the platform has grown substantially. In its fiscal year 2026 budget request, the Army requested $308.620 million for procurement of 1,275 ISVs and associated equipment. An Army defense budget for fiscal year 2026 confirmed that the service plans to acquire up to 9,282 systems in total. GM Defense is also set to deliver its newest ISV Utility models — a five-passenger variant — to the Army as early as May 2026, with more than 1,200 ISV-U deliveries planned by the end of 2026.

Indiana is not alone in absorbing this equipment wave. Just days before the Camp Atterbury delivery, Tennessee National Guard soldiers with the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment were conducting ISV operator certification training as their units began receiving vehicles statewide. The pace of fielding across Guard formations nationwide suggests the Army is intent on building ISV proficiency broadly rather than concentrating the platform exclusively in active-duty units.