Italy gets first Lynx fighting vehicles, due to reshape the army

MONTELIBRETTI, Italy — The Italian army has taken delivery of four Lynx fighting vehicles from Rheinmetall, the first batch in a massive, planned order of 1,050 vehicles.

The four tracked vehicles were unveiled at the army’s Montelibretti test range outside Rome in front of an audience including Italy’s defense chief and defense minister as well as managers from Rheinmetall and Italy’s Leonardo, which is teaming with the German firm on the program.

“This is a strategic signal,” said Björn Bernhard, Rheinmetall’s European vehicles head.

“Europe remains fragmented with too many systems, too many supply chains, too little industrial depth. It is unsustainable, it is simply dangerous,” he said in a speech.

The Lynx program “is delivering what Europe urgently needs. Industrial integration instead of national stand alone approaches,” he added, claiming, “Europe is becoming more resilient.”

The delivery of the vehicles follows the signing last week of a defense cooperation deal between Italy and Germany through which the two countries will aim to “reduce fragmentation, foster standardization and interchangeability, increase interoperability between their forces and strengthen the European defense industry.”

The first four vehicles will soon be joined by a fifth, all with a Rheinmetall-supplied turret, while a subsequent 16 Lynx’s, to be delivered between October and the start of 2027, will have a Leonardo-built Hitfist 30mm turret.

The integration of the Italians turrets with Rheinmetall Lynx chassis’ will “most probably” happen at Leonardo’s facility at La Spezia in Italy, or at Iveco Defence Vehicles, the Italian firm Leonardo purchased last year, said Leonardo CEO Roberto Cingolani.

The first five vehicles will meanwhile also be retrofitted with the Hitfist turret.

Luca Perazzo, Leonardo’s deputy managing director of defense systems, said the Italian Army has an option to acquire another 30 vehicles in the same configuration, which it is expected to exercise in the first half of this year.

The Lynx deal follows the creation in 2024 of joint venture Leonardo Rheinmetall Military Vehicles.

Perazzo said that a full, final contract would follow covering five further variants of the Lynx which would carry out 16 different roles. Prototypes of those variants would delivered between 2027 and 2028 before serial production got underway.

“For the first time all the capabilities of an armored brigade will be brought together on one technological backbone,” said Rheinmetall’s Bernhard.

The Italian army also envisages Rheinmetall and Leonardo producing 272 variants of Rheinmetall’s Panther tanks, taking the entire deal to 23 billion euros ($27.5 billion).

Cingolani said the first Panther prototypes were due to be delivered between the end of 2029 and the start of 2030.

Both the Lynx and Panther programs are now qualified for inclusion in the European Union’s SAFE plan, meaning that countries applying for SAFE defense spending loans from the EU can spend the money on the two vehicles, Perazzo told Defense News.