Italy puts $5.9 billion toward a new main battle tank
Italy’s Defense Ministry has opened a €5.14 billion ($5.86 billion) procurement for a new main battle tank and vehicles built on it, according to a record published Sept. 21 in the database of Italy’s National Anti-Corruption Authority (ANAC).
The entry, listed under code BD0D09994D, covers the supply of a new tank and its derivatives for the Italian Army. The contracting authority is the ministry’s Land Armaments Directorate in Rome. The record does not name a supplier, state how many vehicles will be bought or give a delivery schedule.
Italian defense watcher A-129 Mangusta flagged the listing on X on Sept. 22.
The program is known as the New Main Battle Tank, or NMBT, and is being developed by Leonardo Rheinmetall Military Vehicles (LRMV), a joint venture between Italy’s Leonardo and Germany’s Rheinmetall. Earlier coverage referred to the tank as the IMBT, for Italian Main Battle Tank. The two companies agreed in October 2024 to split the joint venture 50:50, with 60% of the work carried out in Italy, including final assembly, testing, delivery and logistics support.
LRMV unveiled an NMBT concept demonstrator at the Eurosatory defense show in Paris in June. The design draws on Rheinmetall’s Panther KF51, but Italy is developing it as a separate tank built to Italian Army requirements. The demonstrator used a Leopard 2A4 hull fitted with a new turret, and LRMV representatives said the production version will get a new chassis with better mobility and protection.
The NMBT will carry a 120 mm smoothbore gun fed by an autoloader holding 20 ready rounds, with an option to switch later to a 130 mm gun. Its secondary weapons include a 12.7 mm machine gun mounted beside the main gun and a remotely operated turret with a 30 mm cannon that can also fire at drones. The demonstrator shown in Paris also had launchers for small loitering munitions, drones that circle a target area before diving onto a target.
Under the joint venture’s division of work, Rheinmetall is responsible for the vehicle platform and Leonardo for electronics and weapons.
The new tank will replace the C1 Ariete, which entered Italian service in the mid-1990s and is now going through a C2 upgrade. Earlier reports put Italy’s requirement at about 132 new tanks, with purchases planned after 2027. The procurement is scheduled to be completed by 2038.
The NMBT is one of two major armored vehicle programs Italy has given to LRMV. The second, the Army Armored Combat System (A2CS), is based on Rheinmetall’s Lynx infantry fighting vehicle and covers more than 1,000 vehicles in 16 versions, including anti-aircraft, reconnaissance and anti-tank models.
In late 2024, an Italian parliamentary committee approved an €8.2 billion ($9.35 billion) plan running from 2025 to 2038 to buy new-generation tanks and modernize the country’s land forces.
The ANAC record lists the tender as active and shows an offer deadline of Sept. 21, the same day the entry was created and published.
Source: Defence Blog
