Two major defense players from Italy and Germany have teamed up to build tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, initially aimed to meet the requirements of the Italian Army, but also for other customers, as armored warfare makes a resurgence in Europe and elsewhere.
Under a 50:50 joint venture announced today, and following on from an earlier corresponding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), Leonardo Rheinmetall Military Vehicles (LRMV) will develop and then build a version of Rheinmetall company’s KF51 Panther main battle tank and KF41 Lynx infantry fighting vehicle for the Italian Army. Thereafter, the two firms will market the vehicles to other potential customers.
Whilst not a contract award, the establishment of the joint venture suggests it’s highly likely that the Panther and Lynx will be the platforms of choice for Italy, especially as other possible candidates have dropped out of the running.
Should that happen, the two solutions from LRMV be chosen, as seems likely, the Panther will replace the Italian Army’s current fleet of locally made Ariete main battle tanks, developed in the 1980s.
Meanwhile, the Lynx infantry fighting vehicle would be at the center of the Italian Army’s Armored Infantry Combat System (AICS) program, replacing the current Dardo IFVs, and surviving Cold War-era M113 armored personnel carriers. AICS is a wide-ranging effort that will eventually field as many as 16 different variants, including recovery, combat engineer, and bridge-laying vehicles.
The AICS also includes specialized combat vehicles, among them reconnaissance and anti-tank versions, as well as ones fitted with the Skyranger air defense system, reflecting the growing importance of short-range air defenses to deal with drones and other battlefield aerial threats.
LRMV determines that all its AICS vehicles will be based on the Lynx infantry fighting vehicle version, benefiting from the modular nature of its design. The AICS initiative calls for advanced features including open architecture, significant command-and-control capability, and the ability to share targeting data with a variety of other platforms. The fighting vehicles will also be expected to work alongside drones and uncrewed ground vehicles and to engage targets with different rounds, including airburst types. Scalable armor and other protective systems will defend them against improvised explosive devices, anti-tank missiles, and swarming drones, among other threats.
The Italian Army has a requirement for over one thousand AICS vehicles of all types.
Reportedly, Italy plans to build 20 prototypes of the AICS by 2027 or 2028, with deliveries to begin between 2029 and 2041.
Production of all vehicles for Italy — Panther and AICS — will be primarily handled at a new plant in La Spezia, Italy. This facility will be responsible for 60 percent of the manufacture of all vehicles. Italy’s Leonardo will also be responsible for the mission systems, electronics suites, and weapons integration on all vehicles ordered for the Italian Army.
“We are creating a new heavyweight in European tank production,” said Armin Papperger, CEO of Rheinmetall. “Leonardo and Rheinmetall, two leading European suppliers of defense technology, are joining forces to carry out ambitious projects. We are primarily addressing the Italian market, but we will also be targeting other partner nations which are in need of modernizing their combat systems in the future. Rheinmetall has the perfect technologies for Italy’s requirements.”
Meanwhile, Roberto Cingolani, CEO of Leonardo, described the joint venture as “a significant step towards the creation of a European defense system based on specialized shared platforms. Rheinmetall and Leonardo aim at developing state-of-the-art technologies able to compete at international level.”
Today’s announcement is also a significant turnaround for Italian Army armored vehicle development and one that could have major repercussions across the continent.
Before Leonardo teamed up with Rheinmetall, it had planned to develop and build new fighting vehicles for Italy in partnership with KNDS.
KNDS is a European defense company that came from the merger between Germany’s Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and France’s Nexter Systems. Under the earlier agreement, Leonardo and KNDS would have jointly produced Leopard 2 main battle tanks (originally designed by Krauss-Maffei Wegmann) for the Italian Army.
The Italian parliament had even approved the Leopard 2 purchase, before the collapse of the partnership, which came about when KNDS reportedly rejected Leonardo’s plans to install a significant proportion of its own systems on the tanks.
By going with Rheinmetall and the still-in-development KF51 Panther, Italy should be able to tailor the tank more closely to its own requirements.
On the other hand, while the Leopard 2 was an off-the-shelf product that would have been able to be fielded fairly rapidly by the Italian Army, the service will have to wait longer for the Panther — perhaps as long as 10 years, according to some accounts.
That long timeline also raises the possibility of a clash of rival European tank designs.
While Rheinmetall introduced its Panther as a private venture project, Germany and France had meanwhile teamed up on a political level to push the development of another new main battle tank, the more ambitious Main Ground Combat System (MGCS).
MGCS is set to replace German Leopard 2 and French Leclerc main battle tanks and was due to arrive in service beginning in 2035.
While a technology demonstrator for the MGCS program, the Enhanced Main Battle Tank, combining Leclerc and Leopard 2 components, was unveiled in 2018, progress since then has been slow.
A reported requirement for the MGCS is for its gun to be at least 50 percent more capable than the existing 120mm types on either the Leclerc or Leopard 2. As TWZ has discussed in the past, a larger 130mm or 140mm gun would certainly offer improved range and armor penetration capabilities.
Earlier this year, KNDS rolled out a new version of the Leopard 2 with a completely uncrewed turret that can be armed with a 140mm main gun. KNDS plans to offer the tank for sale but also expects it to be a key stepping stone to the next-generation MGCS.
Notably, the KF51 Panther is armed with a 130mm caliber main gun.
Having Italy choose the Panther is a major vote of confidence that might lead to it forming the basis of the MGCS, but that might well not be a satisfying result for Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, in particular, which is currently still building the Leopard 2 and would want to stay firmly in the MBT game, perhaps with an up-gunned Leopard 2 or a derivative for MGCS.
In the meantime, the value of the Italian procurement will be significant.
When it was still planning to buy Leopard 2s, Italy expected the acquisition program would be worth around $8.6 billion, for 270 tanks, while another $16 billion would be invested in the AICS program.
An armored vehicle spending spree of this kind would have been surprising only a few years ago, but Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has dramatically changed the defense and security landscape in Europe.
In particular, with tank warfare being a prominent feature of the fighting in Ukraine, the idea of investing in new main battle tank fleets, as well as spending on armored fighting vehicles in general, has made a comeback.
As we noted in our previous discussion of the Panther, the design of this tank seems to be especially relevant for this new era.
Overall, it should be lighter and more agile than current main battle tanks, while carrying a bigger main gun, and having the ability to provide stand-in surveillance and strike with loitering munitions.
This addresses some of the concerns about the vulnerability of tanks to various weapons, especially loitering munitions and first-person view (FPV) drones, which have played a prominent role in Ukraine.
With Italy looking now more likely than ever to emerge as the first customer for the KF51 Panther, this may well encourage further orders for the tank, as well as for the KF41 Lynx. Meanwhile, LRMV will be paying close attention to developments in the MGCS, with the Panther now looking well-positioned to make a challenge for this highly important program, too.
Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com