Italy to buy almost 700 infantry fighting vehicles

Italy's Ministry of Defence plans to purchase about 700 infantry fighting vehicles to upgrade its fleet of tracked vehicles

Here's What We Know

The Italian army is operating under the A2CS programme to upgrade tracked armoured vehicles, which are used by mechanised units to transport troops. The programme is aimed at replacing 180 Dardo armoured personnel carriers, as well as M113 armoured personnel carriers and their Italian variant VCC-1/2.

The Ministry of Defence plans to invest €6 billion and purchase 679 armoured tracked vehicles. The procurement is expected to start in 2026 and last almost 10 years, until 2035.

The new APC will be equipped with a modern positioning system, with C4I systems for command, control and battle management (BMS). In addition, the base of the new vehicle will be universal. This means that it will also be used to develop Italy's new main battle tank, air defence systems, special engineering vehicles, self-propelled mortars, etc.

It should be noted that Italy is currently conducting a large-scale programme to upgrade its armoured vehicle fleet. The first stage is to find companies that will present their combat vehicle projects. The main contenders are the Italian Leonardo and Iveco, the French-German team KNDS, and the German Rheinmetall.

Source: Shephard