This week, the Italian military electronics giant Leonardo received strong support from the Ministry of Defense, and formally established a strategic alliance with the German and French land system star teams, aiming to strengthen the transnational industrial cooperation of the land combat system and create a European military industrial group, which has a lot of business to deal with immediately, including Italy's 300 Leopard 2 A8 tank military purchase case, including localization modification, production issues, and infantry fighting vehicle plans.
According to the official press release of KNDS and Leonardo on the 13th, the goal of the cooperation is multifaceted: first, to promote the development of future land combat systems, that is, the next generation of tanks in Europe. Second, to improve the future European transnational production and development capacity and export exports. In addition, Leonardo signed a partnership with KNDS to officially participate in the Leopard 2A8 procurement program.
The two companies will work together to design the Leopard 2A8, which includes a partnership in manufacturing and logistical maintenance for the Italian Army Standard and other derivatives such as bridge-erecting vehicles, armoured rescue vehicles and engineering vehicles.
According to reports, Italy will purchase about 300 units, including the main tank and the unique variant tank. And the tank, which is likely to be "localized in Italy", may be called the Leopard 2A8 IT, equipped with Leonardo's fire control system, communications and command equipment, as well as some artillery tower parts.
The Italian Army's newest family of infantry fighting vehicles, the Armoured Infantry Combat System, is also included in the agreement, and the KNDS also includes entities of the French giants, which means that France is also among them, and is expected to become a European integration in the field of military industrial and land warfare.