The Italian Army purchased 76 VBM Plus

The Iveco – Oto Melara consortium has signed a contract for the supply of 76 VBM Plus armored combat vehicles for the Italian Armed Forces.

The consortium reported this in its press release.

The Italian Ministry of Defense has signed a contract for 76 VBM Plus, 16 of which will be executed in the anti-tank version with 2 Spike ATGMs and accompanying combat support vehicles.

The vehicles are intended for the Second Medium Brigade of the Italian Army. The contract also provides for long-term logistical support for all purchased platforms and rescue and evacuation vehicles.

The new VBM «PLUS» vehicles have received a number of upgrades, including:

• Engine upgrade using Common Rail technology. Thanks to which its power has increased from 550 hp to 720 hp In addition, it adapted it to the future hybrid electric traction system.
• Introduction of a new generation hull, which increased ballistic and mine protection thanks to advanced technological solutions.
• Updated transmission and suspension. Which allowed to improve mobility and increase growth potential.

The turret now uses a 30mm X-GUN from Leonardo, capable of firing all types of ammunition from 30×173mm to NATO standards, instead of a 25mm cannon. Including the new ABM (Air Burst Munition) ammunition, which is also suitable for combating unmanned aerial vehicles.

A similar gun is also used on the new amphibious armored personnel carrier SuperAV, which was presented at the Eurosatory 2024 arms exhibition in Paris.

In addition, the Leonardo fire control system has been updated, thanks to the use of a new elemental base. Thanks to this, it has become compatible with the new digital optoelectronic aiming system «Janus D» and «Lothar SD».

Update of the Italian armored vehicle fleet

In June 2024, it became known that the Italian Ministry of Defense plans to purchase about 700 infantry fighting vehicles to update the fleet of tracked infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers.

First of all, we are talking about replacing 180 Dardo infantry fighting vehicles, as well as M113 armored personnel carriers and their Italian version VCC-1/2.

It is expected that the procurement will begin in 2026 and will continue until 2035. The Italian Ministry of Defense expects investments from 2022 to 2035 to amount to 2.1 billion euros, and the total cost of the program to be around 6 billion euros.

According to the plan, the new infantry fighting vehicle will be equipped with a modern positioning system, with C4I systems for command, control and battle management (BMS).