Leonardo eyes an Italian gun for Rome’s new Leopard 2 tanks

ROME — Italy will add its personal, domestically manufactured elements to German Leopard tanks it’s shopping for, presumably together with the gun barrel, a senior official at Italian agency Leonardo has informed Protection Information.

Italy has signed to purchase the tanks to fill a functionality hole because the Ukraine battle raises the profile of land struggle, and goals to assemble the Leopards at a Leonardo meeting line in La Spezia, Italy.

“Underneath a Letter of Intent signed in December with KNDS there might be a major ‘Italianisation’ of the Leopard 2 tank to fulfill Italy’s necessities and supply an industrial and administration function for Italy,” mentioned Leonardo’s co-director common, Lorenzo Mariani.

Which means a Leonardo-supplied electro-optical sensor, software-defined radio, the command-and-control system and presumably the gun barrel are beneath analysis, he mentioned.

The Letter of Intent is a part of the alliance introduced in December between Leonardo and KNDS which is able to oversee Italy’s Leopard order of simply over 130 fight model Leopard 2 A8 tanks.

KNDS is a consortium of Germany’s Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and France’s Nexter.

Mariani mentioned he additionally anticipated Italy’s Iveco and Germany’s Rheinmetall to be by some means concerned in this system.

The cope with KNDS additionally discusses Italian entry into the European Principal Floor Fight System (MGCS) – a future tank plotted by France and Germany – in addition to a €5 billion ($5.4 billion) Italian program, previously often called AICS, and now redubbed A2CS, to construct as much as 1,000 infantry combating autos.

The Italian military has drawn up its necessities listing, and Mariani mentioned he anticipated Italy’s procurement workplace to request a suggestion for a feasibility examine very quickly.

“We predict it might be appropriate to provide the request to CIO,” he mentioned, referring to Leonardo’s land autos consortium with Italian agency Iveco, which is a serious provider of Italian navy autos.

“CIO would then contain KNDS and doubtless different producers who’ve platforms now available on the market. Having in thoughts as a precedence a ‘from scratch’ resolution, the urgency expressed by the Military deserves contemplating modification and replace of merchandise already accessible available on the market just like the KNDS tracked Boxer or the Rheinmetall Lynx or the CV90,” he mentioned. “We are going to consider each the speculation of a brand new product or one thing which takes an current platform as a base. However in any case it has to ensure important nationwide content material, within the context of European cooperation.”

Mariani added, “We hope to get the request by the top of February and would have a proposal prepared inside 2-3 months.”

Mariani informed Protection Information a second letter of intent contained within the settlement with KNDS envisaged the joint analysis with KNDS to arrange of a “structural alliance.”

“In our intent it may very well be based mostly on Europe’s solely actual three way partnership, MBDA, during which stakeholders have positioned their missile property however have the flexibility to handle their ‘nationwide eyes-only’ property independently, when wanted.”

Previous to being appointed co-director at Leonardo final yr, reporting to CEO Roberto Cingolani, Mariani was head of MBDA’s Italy operation from 2020 to 2023.

MBDA has been held up as maybe the most effective functioning European three way partnership thus far, and Mariani listed three elements which have made it successful.

“The primary is that there have been already packages shared by companions earlier than it was arrange, like Aster and Storm Shadow. The second is the corporations concerned actually wished the enterprise. You want political will however the industrial want was key. With out that you just can not do it. And thirdly, the enterprise created a dominant champion, and success breeds success.”

Mariani added: “The MBDA mannequin is relevant to tanks and in precept additionally to satellites and area companies. Within the area sector we’ve got three nations, Italy, France, Germany and three huge gamers – Thales, Airbus and Leonardo. There are already joint packages and one main shopper: the European House Company.”