Army showcases future battlefield technology at Piñon Canyon site
Armored vehicles, medical aircraft and NGC2 gear drew southern Colorado leaders to Piñon Canyon, where the Army said the site remains key to training and local access.
Armored vehicles, medical aircraft and new command technology drew southern Colorado leaders, media and other guests to Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site on May 19 and 20, giving Las Animas County residents a rare close look at what the Army is preparing for at the 235,896-acre post.
The U.S. Army said the community day focused on training with the Next Generation Command and Control system, or NGC2, and allowed visitors to see static vehicle and weapon displays, climb into vehicles and learn how the 4th Infantry Division and Fort Carson are using the site. Maj. Gen. Patrick Ellis said Piñon Canyon gives the division needed room to train because infantry soldiers need a lot of land, and because the site is larger than Fort Carson. With three Stryker brigades, he said, the extra space matters.
For Las Animas County, the event mattered because Piñon Canyon is not just a military landmark on the map. The site sits about 150 miles southeast of Fort Carson in a part of Colorado where neighboring land is still used mainly for livestock grazing, agriculture and recreation. Activity there can ripple into traffic, training schedules, public access and the long-running civilian-military relationship around Trinidad.
The Army’s 2023 operational range assessment said no off-range munitions-constituent release or substantial threat of release currently existed at Piñon Canyon, and it classified the ranges as Unlikely. The site’s operational range count rose from 39 to 45 in the 2022 basic assessment after two drop zones were added and several maneuver training areas were subdivided. Those details matter in a county where residents have watched the Army’s footprint expand and contract for decades.
Piñon Canyon’s history still shapes how the site is viewed locally. The Army assumed ownership in 1983 and began building a large-scale combined-arms training ground. Fort Carson history materials say an additional 237,000-acre training area was purchased in September 1983 and opened for large-force maneuver training in the summer of 1985. A proposed expansion announced in 2003 was canceled in November 2013, and Sen. Michael Bennet said that decision ended years of uncertainty for ranchers and communities in southeast Colorado.
The Army’s NGC2 push also reaches beyond this week’s demonstration. DefenseScoop reported in June 2025 that Ellis was moving to command the 4th Infantry Division, which was slated to be the Army’s primary experimental unit for the next-generation command system as it scaled up to division level. At Piñon Canyon, that modernization effort looked concrete and local, tied to land use, access and the future of one of Las Animas County’s most closely watched installations.
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