Rheinmetall and Leonardo will shake up Europe’s land vehicle market with a new joint venture through which the two leading defence companies will target gaps in Italy’s Army inventory.
A memorandum of understanding between the German and Italian companies was announced on 3 July 2024. The objective of the agreement is to deliver a successor platform to Italian modernisation programmes: their new Main Battle Tank (MBT) and the Armoured Infantry Combat System (AICS).
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Rheinmetall motors in
With the newly developed Panther MBT and the Lynx infantry fighting vehicle, Rheinmetall has the appropriate basic technology on which to build both programmes. Meanwhile, Leonardo will produce the mission systems, electronics suites and weapons integration according to the requirements of the Italian client.
Final assembly lines, homologation testing, delivering activities and the logistic support will be done in Italy with an Italian workshare of 60%.
Leopard 2A8 falls to the wayside
This new joint venture comes straight off the back of the failed discussions between the Franco-German KNDS group and the Italian defence prime Leonardo, to deliver the Leopard 2A8 MBT to the Italian Army.
Only a month ago (June 2024) Leonardo cited a need to satisfy Italy’s “present [national] requirements” in establishing a national configuration of the latest Leopard iteration, which eventually barrelled beyond the requirements needed to live up to Europe’s future standard MBT concept: the Main Ground Combat System (MGCS).
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By GlobalDataAt the time, the Italian defence prime stated it would continue to pursue Italy’s MBT programme, even if that involves “cooperation with other qualified international partners.” In the ashes of the previous agreement, it appears this role has fallen to Rheinmetall.
The joint venture will put forward the Panther MBT; they will define a roadmap for Italy’s participation in the future European MGCS.
European defence industrial ambitions
The venture also marks the rejuvenation of Europe’s defence industrial and technology base, which is remerging after two decades of inactivity and American domination.
The European Commission alongside the European Defence Agency established the European Union’s inaugural defence industrial strategy in early March. The community will mobilise €1.5bn ($1.63bn) in an effort to improve the continent’s collective defence market competitiveness on the world stage beyond short-term measures taken to prop up its industry since the start of the war in Ukraine.
The Rheinmetall-Leonardo joint venture marks a step in the right direction in that regard as the the enterprise sets more solid, longer-term objectives beyond empty claims, such as the incumbent UK Conservative Government’s pledge to become the region’s largest defence exporter.
