On 3 July 2024 Italy’s Leonard and Germany’s Rheinmetall announced in a joint statement they had agreed to form a joint venture to produce armoured combat vehicles and other land defence systems. This collaboration will be headquartered in Italy initially focusing on the development of both a new main battle tank (MBT) and infantry combat vehicle for the Italian Army’s future requirements.
This initiative reflects a possible redirection for the Army from that offered by Lieutenant Colonel Salvatore Bizzarro, head of the Force Development Section of the Italian Army General Staff’s Capability Development and Financial Planning Division, at the Future Armoured Vehicles Survivability (FAVS) 2023 conference in November. At the time he laid out initially an upgrade to the Army’s Ariete main battle tank (MBT) and life extension for its Dardo infantry fighting vehicle (IFV). He further then described it was considering procuring a new MBT and pursuing development of a family of armoured infantry combat systems (AICS).
The Italian government in 2023 had also announced its intent to invest around EUR 5 billion toward fielding this new tracked platform. In addition, discussions were understood to be underway between Leonardo and Franco-German KNDS (a joint venture between Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Nexter) to develop an Italian Leopard 2A8IT MBT version.
However, in June 2024 this collaboration abruptly ended after the parties were unable to agree on a mutually acceptable configuration. Sources suggest KNDS felt Leonardo’s proposed integration of local subsystems and electronics would require development that would both draw out the proposed delivery schedule and impact on the 2A8 commonality sought.
The collapse of the KNDS agreement would present a dilemma for the Italian Army modernization. However, the new arrangement struck between Leonardo and Rheinmetall reflects an Italianized version of the Panther KF51 and the introduction of the company’s Lynx platform for the AICS (now referred to as the A2CS -Army Armoured Combat System). The stage of development of both systems is such that these are able to incorporate the Italian content which is apparently clearly desired by Leonardo and the government.
A Rheinmetall statement clarified “The objective of the agreement is the industrial development and subsequent commercialization of the new Main Battle Tank (MBT) and the new Lynx Platform for the Armoured Infantry Combat System (AICS)”.
Further, final assembly lines, homologation testing, delivering activities and the logistic support will all be based in Italy accounting for 60% of the performed work. Although not confirmed by the Government the German business publication Handelsblatt reported that Italy is contemplating a €20 billion ($21.6 billion) order to the Rheinmetall-Leonardo venture that will include 350 Lynx based fighting vehicles and 200 Panther MBTs.
In the former program the military had proposed producing twenty prototypes by 2027 allowing production delivery to occur from 2029 through 2041. What the timeline might be in an MBT effort has not yet been stated.
In addition, it remains unclear how Italy’s acquisition of KF-51 Panthers may impact on the potential participation of the country in the Main Ground Combat System (MGCS). This joint development by France and Germany of a next generation MBT, for which the two parties recently signed at EuroSatory the “phase 1A” agreement, had viewed Italy as a potential future participant. How the MGCS’s sought 2035 fielding fits with that of the Panther could be a major point influencing such a decision. In any case, as of now the Italian Ministry of Defence had not confirmed the speculated award to Leonardo-Rheinmetall nor has it indicated how it may move forward in either its A2CS or MBT programs.
Currently Hungary has signed to buy the Lynx and last year became a development partner with Rheinmetall on the Panther.
by Stephen W. Miller
