Orizzonte Sistemi Navali Signs EUR 3.7 Billion With OCCAR for Two DDX Destroyers for the Italian Navy — Fincantieri and Leonardo Sub-Contracts to Follow
Rome, 24 September 2026
Key points
- Orizzonte Sistemi Navali, the joint venture of Fincantieri (51 per cent) and Leonardo (49 per cent), signed a contract with OCCAR on 24 September, on behalf of the Italian Navy, of about EUR 3.7 billion for the development, production, logistic studies and initial in-service support of two DDX destroyers. About EUR 1.3 billion of the total is options
- In the coming weeks the venture places sub-contracts of about EUR 1.8 billion with Fincantieri (EUR 800 million options) and about EUR 1.7 billion with Leonardo (EUR 480 million options). Fincantieri is platform integrator; Leonardo supplies the combat system, the SADOC 5 command system and a full-digital S-band AESA radar; the weapons are MBDA's, specified against ballistic and hypersonic threats
- 180 metres, 13,500 tonnes, 4,000 nautical miles, a crew of 251, with control of uncrewed surface and underwater systems from a digital backbone. The ships replace the two Horizon-class destroyers. First delivery 2033, second 2035
- The release names no missile type, no radar sub-supplier and no shipyard
The firm part of Thursday's contract is the tranche parliament authorised in 2022; the options are the part it did not.
The programme's authorising decree of January 2022 put the total at about EUR 2.7 billion, with a first tranche of EUR 2.35 billion covering the studies, the two ships, a first outfit of gun and missile rounds and five years of logistic support. The pre-information notice of December 2025 still carried EUR 2.7 billion, via OCCAR, to Orizzonte. Thursday's contract puts about EUR 2.4 billion outside the options, which matches that tranche, and adds EUR 1.3 billion of options that the 2022 authorisation did not carry. Which budget line funds the options, and when they are exercised, is not in the release.
The contracting route is routine rather than remarkable: OCCAR has managed Italy-only naval programmes since it ordered a seventh PPA patrol ship in November 2015, and the logistic support ship went the same way. Orizzonte is also the vendor that sold Portugal three FREMM EVO frigates in July, in a contest where the French FDI was passed over. The Horizon class the DDX replaces was itself a Franco-Italian OCCAR programme, armed with Aster missiles under the PAAMS system; a combat system specified against ballistic and hypersonic threats points at MBDA's anti-ballistic Aster development, but the release does not say so.
A destroyer whose combat system is written against hypersonic threats and whose missile is not named is a destroyer whose cost is not yet fixed, and the EUR 1.3 billion of options is where that cost will show. The Italian Navy's two Horizons were delivered in 2007 and 2009; the first DDX arrives in 2033, so the class runs past 25 years before relief. What to watch is the sub-contracts in the coming weeks, a missile named for the MBDA fit, and whether the options are exercised against the 2027 budget or a later one. Signal No. 153 carried the signature beside the 2022 tranche; No. 107 has the Portuguese FREMM EVO sale by the same venture.
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