Italian Industry Faces the Rearmament Test
Leonardo and his brothers
Mdba doubles missiles for Samp-T. Leonardo signs agreements for drones and tanks. How Italian companies organize themselves to guarantee military investments
Anti-aircraft systems, missiles, ammunition, tanks, drones and satellites. The other side of the increase in military spending is that of production. If it is true that a large part of European spending on armaments is used for exports from the USA, today, with the American disengagement and the NATO agreement for the increase in military investments, European production will have a new prominence. And it is here that Italy can play a leading role. Two days ago during his hearing in Parliament, the Minister of Defense Guido Crosetto recalled the Russian military effort that in 2025 alone will allow Moscow to produce over 1,500 tanks, 3,000 armored vehicles, 400 Iskander missiles and over a million drones.
Crosetto provided these numbers because they are the ones that Europe has to deal with. A crucial role is played by the increase in production of missiles and anti-aircraft systems, also considering Donald Trump's threat to no longer supply Patriot systems to Ukraine. Something has already been done on this. Crosetto confirmed it: in 2025, MBDA, the European missile joint venture involving the French Airbus, the English BAE Systems, and the Italian Leonardo, will double production compared to 2023, with an investment of almost three billion until 2029 and a backlog, the number of orders still to be fulfilled, that is already worth almost 40 billion. Among these missiles, there are above all the Asters, those that are used to operate the Italian-French Samp-T anti-aircraft defense system, the same one that our country sent to Ukraine, but which has already been short of the missiles that make it effective since March. It is no coincidence that Trump's announcement to stop shipping Patriot systems, the American alternative to Samp-T, has shaken Kyiv. Production takes place at the Fusaro site in Italy and at the Selles Saint Denis site in France. In both, production has been sped up, working on three shifts and reducing the production cycle from 40 to 18 months. Alongside this, the company has announced the hiring of hundreds of people. Even if for now, no new plants are being used. A speech that also applies to another industry that has consistently increased production: that of ammunition. "The effort of companies in the sector that followed the 500 million allocated by the EU to increase production - explains Alessandro Marrone, head of Defense at the Institute of International Affairs - has allowed us to reach the goal of producing 2 million cartridges per year, but the production effort is considered a one-off. In this way, demand has grown faster than supply, inevitably leading to prices rising. Industries should abandon caution and increase their production capacity in a structural way".
A case of increased production sizing is that of Thales Alenia Space, which in Rome, on the Tiburtina, has opened a new industrial plant that will allow a structural increase of 100 units per year in satellite production. “It is doubly useful,” explains Marrone. “Because inside there is also a space factory that offers laboratories for companies in the sector's supply chain.” Leonardo has also hired between 400 and 500 graduates in STEM subjects just to contribute to the work on the Global combat air programme (Gcap) project, in which the Italian company participates equally with BAE Systems and the Japanese Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
For Italy there is also the agreement between Leonardo and the German Rheinmetall for the production of tanks and armored vehicles that will start in 2026 and will lead to the production of thousands of units by 2040, with an investment of 8.2 billion. Then there is also a chapter on drones. The acquisition of Piaggio Aerospace by the Turkish company Baykar, which has signed an agreement with Leonardo for the creation of LBA Systems, a company that will develop unmanned technologies, will bring a large production platform of drones to Liguria for the European market. In recent days, the Minister of Enterprise Adolfo Urso assured that in Europe the drone market will be worth 100 billion "And we - he said - will play the main part".
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