Italy will pick industrial partners to start work on a major new €5 billion ($5.4 billion) tracked fighting vehicle program within “a few months,” an Italian senior army official has told Defense News. Companies will be invited to launch feasibility studies for the program which is expected to lead to a 1,000 vehicle purchase as Italy hurries to replace its aging Dardo vehicles, and as the war in Ukraine has put land combat back on the map.
Furthermore, with Italy determined to involve European firms, the program could prove a catalyst for industrial integration in the sector, as soon as Rome can decide on who to pick from potential partners like Italy’s Leonardo and Iveco, French-German team-up KNDS, and Germany’s Rheinmetall.
The program foresees a vehicle able to share targets with other platforms, use a wide range of ammunition, including airburst rounds, and capable of tackling threats from improvised explosive devices and anti-tank missiles as well as swarming drones. Italy’s 2023 defense budget mapped out spending of €5.2 billion on the program over 14 years, projecting that final spending would rise to €15 billion. The document also claimed the program would be run in a “multi-national context, based on alliances with solid European firms that already work with Italian companies.”
Rheinmetall, which is offering Italy its tracked Lynx vehicle, said it is ready to hand over design authority. “The Lynx is the most modern Infantry Fighting Vehicle available today. It has open architecture and because we control the product, we can give Italy technology transfer and the design authority,” said Alessandro Ercolani, the CEO of the firm’s Italian subsidiary, Rheinmetall Italia.
The need for more European cooperation on big-ticket programs has been stressed repeatedly by Leonardo CEO Roberto Cingolani, and A2CS could be a prime catalyst at a moment when the European main battle tank is mired in delay. But if Italy wants a multi-national alliance to work on the A2CS program, officials in Rome may have to bring some patience while the pieces of that alliance fit together.
