Leonardo-Rheinmetall Venture Wins First Production Order for Italy’s New Tank: 48 Vehicles, €3.4 Billion

The Italian Army has awarded Leonardo Rheinmetall Military Vehicles (LRMV), the 50-50 joint venture between Leonardo and Rheinmetall, the first production contract for Italy’s new main battle tank, designated I-MBT (New Main Battle Tank). Italian defence magazine Rivista Italiana Difesa (RID) reported the award on 22 October, and Spanish outlet Infodefensa confirmed it on 24 October, describing the deal as the first production slice of a larger programme to renew Italy’s armoured vehicle fleet.

According to RID, the contract is worth approximately €3.4 billion, with an additional €850 million in options built into the agreement. The coverage frames Italy’s broader armour-renewal programme at a combined value of roughly €3.7 billion. The initial order covers 48 tracked armoured platforms, 26 of which are in combat configuration.

The I-MBT design combines elements of Rheinmetall’s KF51 Panther with Italian systems integration. Leonardo’s full programme targets, as previously stated by the company, include 132 tanks, 140 derivative platforms and 1,050 A2CS vehicles — but RID’s report is explicit that these figures belong to the overall programme ambition, not to this first contract. No delivery schedule was disclosed in the reporting.

LRMV was established in 2023 as an equally-owned joint venture between Leonardo and Rheinmetall. The structure reflects a pattern increasingly common in European defence industry: even when a national procurement authority belongs to a single country, the company delivering the hardware pools industrial capacity from more than one. For Italy, that means drawing on Rheinmetall’s recent KF51 design experience while keeping the bulk of production within its own industrial base.

The programme fits into a broader European trend of renewing main battle tank fleets. While the Franco-German MGCS (Main Ground Combat System) programme remains in an earlier maturation phase, Germany has been promoting its own KF51 Panther domestically, and Italy is now moving forward by blending a national design with Rheinmetall’s technology. It is another example of Europe pursuing fleet renewal through parallel national or bilateral programmes rather than converging on a single joint tank project.

Italy’s current main battle tank inventory consists largely of Ariete tanks produced after 1995, a fleet under growing modernisation pressure amid NATO’s eastern-flank deterrence debates. Limiting the first production contract to 48 platforms suggests the programme remains at an early stage, with large-scale deliveries still some way off.

While the exact signing date was not specified in the reporting, RID indicates the contract was signed in early October, with the announcement surfacing publicly in mid-October. Neither Italy’s defence ministry nor LRMV has yet disclosed a delivery timeline or a target date for reaching the programme’s full ambition of 132 tanks.

Sources:

• Rivista Italiana Difesa (RID), report on the Italian Army’s first production contract to LRMV for the I-MBT, 22 October 2026 — Original report on the contract value, platform count and programme targets.
• Infodefensa, “LRMV se ha adjudicado el primer contrato para el nuevo carro de combate italiano,” 24 October 2026, https://www.infodefensa.com/texto-diario/mostrar/6063259/ — Independent second source confirming RID’s report.