Italy’s first Lynx infantry fighting vehicles have finally rolled into service, and they are not just another hardware refresh. The arrival of these tracked beasts signals a deep rewrite of how the Italian Army plans to fight on land, from the vehicles it fields to the way its units plug into allies across Europe. After three decades of stretching aging platforms, Rome is betting big that a new family of armored vehicles can reset the entire playbook.
What caught my eye is how much of this shift is about structure as much as steel. The Lynx is arriving as the centerpiece of a broader Armoured Combat Systems push, a program that aims to rationalize fleets, hard‑wire digital command links, and give Italian brigades the kind of flexibility they have lacked since the Cold War era.
The first Lynx wave and the A2CS reset
The Italian Army has taken delivery of its first four Rheinmetall Lynx combat vehicles at Montelibretti, a handover that officials described as the moment the service starts to reshape its ground forces. Those initial vehicles, received by The Italian Army, are part of a broader plan to replace the long‑serving Dardo infantry fighting vehicles and to streamline a patchwork of armored fleets that has grown increasingly hard to sustain. Reporting on the ceremony notes that the vehicles are Rheinmetall Lynx models and that the event was covered By Tom Kington, underscoring how closely allies are watching this shift.
Those first four vehicles are not a one‑off purchase, they are the opening move in the Italian Army Armoured Combat Systems program, often shortened to A2CS. The delivery marked the official launch of Italian Army Armoured, which is explicitly framed as a program that will change “the way the army fights.” A companion report on the same handover stresses that A2CS is designed to implement co‑operative combat, with the Lynx at the core of a networked family of vehicles that can share data and coordinate effects across the battlefield, a point reinforced in a second analysis of co‑operative combat.
From industrial JV to a 16‑variant combat family
Behind the scenes, the Lynx story in Italy is as much about industry as it is about tactics. Earlier, Leonardo and Rheinmetall created the joint venture Leonardo Rheinmetall Military Vehicles, a partnership that set the stage for the current order and anchored production in Italy. The team‑up between Leonardo and Rheinmetall is described as a way to field the Lynx in Italy while maximizing the use of Leonardo components, a classic European play to keep high‑end defense work onshore. That industrial base is now delivering the Lynx KF‑41 infantry fighting vehicle, with the Italian Army taking its first Lynx KF‑41 IFVs from Leonardo Rheinmetall to replace the Dardo fleet.
Those first four vehicles are just the tip of a much larger iceberg. Italy Takes Delivery of First Lynx Infantry Fighting Vehicles is described as part of a Major Army Modernization Push and a Strategic Shift After Three Decad, with the initial batch tied to an order for 21 A2CS Combat vehicles that will be followed by more. The same modernization push is referenced again as Italy Takes Delivery, underlining how central the platform is to the A2CS roadmap. According to Perazzo, a full, final contract will follow that covers five further variants of the Lynx able to carry out 16 different missions, a detail highlighted in coverage of Perazzo and his comments on the Lynx family.
Capabilities, protection and the long game
On the technical side, the Lynx KF‑41 is arriving in Italy with a configuration that is already familiar to other European armies but tailored to local needs. According to Rheinmetall, these initial vehicles are delivered in the standard configuration equipped with the Lance 30 mm turret, a setup detailed in reporting that cites According to Rheinmetall and the Lance turret choice. Protection on the Lynx KF‑41 is based on a layered and scalable concept that combines a welded steel hull with modular add‑on armor packages, a design described in detail in coverage focused on Protection on the Lynx KF. Another report on the Italian Army receiving its first Lynx KF‑41 IFVs under the A2CS programme notes that The Lynx platform can serve as an infantry fighting vehicle, troop carrier and more, highlighting the flexibility of the Lynx KF design.
The program is not stopping at these early “as‑is” vehicles. The full prototype of the A2CS, powered by an Italian engine that is an upgraded version of the Vector V8 engine used in the Centauro II, is already in the works, according to reporting that describes that prototype work and the Italian, Vector and Centauro II linkages. A separate note on the first four Lynx infantry fighting vehicles delivered to the Italian Army explains that this batch will be followed by 16 vehicles designated A2CS Combat UOR (Urgent Operational Requirement), which will be equipped with additional mission systems and are part of a wider fleet that will be produced in 16 configurations, a plan laid out in detail in the description of Combat UOR and the Urgent Operational Requirement approach.
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