Iveco to get a piece of Italy’s massive combat vehicles, tanks program

ROME — Italian vehicle builder Iveco has signed up for a slice of the massive contract run by Italy’s Leonardo and Germany’s Rheinmetall to build fighting vehicles and tanks for the Italian army.

After signing a preliminary agreement with Leonardo, Iveco said its defense arm IDV would be in line for between 12% and 15% of the development and production work on the deal, which has been valued at €23 billion, or $24 billion.

In a statement Iveco said it would be looking to offer its capabilities in “advanced propulsion and drivetrain systems to highly specialized protection technologies.”

Leonardo and Rheinmetall said last month they were forming a 50-50 joint venture to build 1,050 new infantry fighting vehicles for the Italian army based on the Rheinmetall Lynx with the first vehicle delivered in two years.

Rheinmetall’s under-development Panther KF51 will be the basis of a new main battle tank to replace Italy’s Ariete tanks, with 132 to be supplied and the first tank to be delivered in two and a half to three years.

Leonardo has said it will be responsible for mission systems, electronics suites and weapons on the vehicles.

The Leonardo-Rheinmetall tie-up was hatched after Leonardo’s talks to team with KNDS to build Leopard tanks for the Italian army broke down, with the French-German group citing design disagreements and Leonardo claiming KNDS’s delivery schedule was too slow.

The inclusion of IDV in the Italian contract comes after the firm appeared to be left out of proceedings, even though Iveco has long worked on military vehicles with Leonardo through a joint venture known as CIO.

Before the Rheinmetall alliance was announced this year, the Italian army had asked CIO to draw up proposals for the new fighting vehicle, but the initiative became redundant when Rheinmetall’s Lynx was picked as the baseline.

Leonardo has reportedly been in talks to buy IDV, but the new deal to bring it on board as a supplier to its JV with Rheinmetall may have ruled that out.

Tom Kington is the Italy correspondent for Defense News.

罗马——意大利汽车制造商依维柯已签约参与由意大利莱昂纳多和德国莱茵金属公司共同承建的大型合同，为意大利军队制造战斗车辆和坦克。

在与莱昂纳多签署初步协议后，依维柯表示，其防务部门IDV将获得该项价值230亿欧元（约合240亿美元）的交易中12%至15%的研发和生产工作。

依维柯在一份声明中表示，它将寻求提供其在“先进推进和传动系统以及高度专业化的保护技术”方面的能力。

莱昂纳多和莱茵金属上个月表示，他们将成立一家各占50%股份的合资企业，为意大利军队建造1050辆基于莱茵金属“山猫”的新型步兵战车，首辆战车将在两年内交付。

莱茵金属公司正在研发的“黑豹”KF51坦克将成为意大利新型主战坦克的基础，以取代意大利的“阿里埃特”坦克。意大利将供应132辆“阿里埃特”坦克，首辆坦克将在两到三年内交付。

莱昂纳多公司表示，将负责这些车辆上的任务系统、电子设备和武器。

在莱昂纳多与 KNDS 合作为意大利军队制造豹式坦克的谈判破裂后，莱昂纳多与莱茵金属公司达成了合作协议。当时，这家法德合资企业表示双方在设计上存在分歧，而莱昂纳多则声称 KNDS 的交付进度太慢。

IDV被纳入意大利合同之前，该公司似乎被排除在外，尽管依维柯长期以来一直通过名为CIO的合资企业与莱昂纳多合作开发军用车辆。

今年莱茵金属联盟宣布成立之前，意大利陆军曾要求CIO公司制定新型战车的方案，但当莱茵金属公司的“山猫”战车被选为基准时，这项提议就显得多余了。

据报道，莱昂纳多一直在洽谈收购IDV，但莱昂纳多与莱茵金属合资公司达成的新协议，使其成为IDV的供应商，可能已经排除了收购IDV的可能性。

汤姆·金顿是《防务新闻》驻意大利记者。