in this recent days The Italian Army has presented its preliminary assessments on the use of the Lynx KF-41 tracked infantry fighting vehicle, produced by Rheinmetall, the platform on which the development of the A2CS (Army Armored Combat System) program will be based. AICS program It includes the development of five variants of the Lynx KF-41 for a total of sixteen different configurations, for a total of approximately one thousand vehicles, capable of responding to the widest and most diverse needs of the Army.
The idea behind the AICS program is to provide the Italian land forces with a vehicle that can be modular and that responds to scalable technological needs. The infantry vehicles of the AICS program will have to replace the old Dart, currently in service with the Army, while the new tank that Leonardo and Rheinmetall will develop on the basis of the KF51 Panther will have to replace the current C1s Ram. This program includes the production of 132 tanks, armed with a 120 mm gun and a fire control system developed by Leonardo. To these will be added 140 special tanks in three configurations other than the “combat” one, foreseen for the logistical-tactical needs of the troops: bridge-laying, engineering and recovery.
The return of conventional warfare in Europe has brought the role of heavy armored forces in today's "multi-domain" conflicts back to the forefront of political and military decision-makers' thinking. From the muddy fields of Ukraine, it has emerged that line weapons remain the real “kinetic force” of armies both offensively and defensively.
The mass of MBTs and IFVs, both in terms of firepower and mobility, still constitutes a fundamental tool for commanders. In a high-intensity war – such as the one being fought in Ukraine and towards which the theoretical and planning reflections of the general staffs are oriented – the heavy component of the land forces is still a Clausewitzian “concrete center of gravity”, both at the tactical and strategic level. To adopt the interpretation of Joseph Strange, according to which the "centre of gravity" is such only in relation to actions of overcoming the will of the adversary, the heavy component of the land forces can also represent the fulcrum of planning and operational action in current conflicts.
The conjugation fire maneuver (which breaks the tactical-strategic dichotomy) can be guaranteed – with all the exceptions and clarifications of the case highlighted by the Ukrainian general Alexander Tarnavsky during the counteroffensive of Kyiv troops in 2023 – only from heavy forces. From the experience of the Russian-Ukrainian war, we have learned that the core of both the maneuver and the battle remains inextricably anchored to the line weapons, especially if used in a mixed formula of mechanized infantry and armored vehicles. These, if logistically well-provided, are the units that allow, from an offensive point of view, a speed of maneuver and engagement that artillery physiologically does not have; the same can be said during defense, when only through the line weapons can a flexible defensive strategy be structured, capable of transforming itself, if necessary, into a counteroffensive.
Photo: Italian Army-Rheimetall / MoD Ukraine
