The Italian Navy is getting two new destroyers built specifically to shoot down ballistic and hypersonic missiles, and Europe's joint arms-procurement agency just put a €3.7 billion price tag on them. OCCAR, the Organisation Conjointe de Coopération en matière d'Armement, signed the contract on Sept. 24, 2026, with Orizzonte Sistemi Navali (OSN), the joint venture that pairs Fincantieri (51%) and Leonardo (49%). The deal, worth approximately $4.2 billion, covers development, production, logistics studies and Initial In-Service Support for two next-generation DDX destroyers.
Roughly €1.3 billion of the total sits in options rather than firm work. In the coming weeks, OSN is expected to sign sub-supply contracts worth about €1.8 billion with Fincantieri and about €1.7 billion with Leonardo, dividing the program between the company that will build the hulls and the company that will arm them. That two-tier structure — a prime contract from OCCAR to the joint venture, followed by internal sub-supply contracts back to the parent companies — reflects how OSN operates: Fincantieri and Leonardo describe their respective sub-supply agreements with OSN as related-party transactions, with the platform work flowing to Fincantieri and the combat-system work flowing to Leonardo.
Why the Ships Won't Arrive Until 2033 and 2035
Delivery of the first ship is scheduled for 2033, with the second following in 2035 — a five-year slip from the 2028 delivery date Rome pointed to when it unveiled the destroyer program in 2020. A construction contract had reportedly been penciled in for 2023, but the deal did not actually get signed until this year. Italy's Ministry of Defense did not respond to a request for comment from Breaking Defense on the reason for the delay. Italian outlet Infodifesa reported the roughly three-year gap between that expected 2023 signing and the actual 2026 signing was "likely linked" to the time it took to define operational requirements and secure financing for a program of this size.
The two DDX ships will replace the Italian Navy's Horizon-class destroyers. Each new ship will measure 180 meters long, displace 13,500 tonnes and carry a range of 4,000 nautical miles, with a crew of 251. Fincantieri says that, at a top speed of 15 knots, each ship will also be able to manage underwater and surface drones in an integrated way, adding detection and defense capability against aerial threats, including ballistic missiles, as well as surface and underwater threats.
What the SADOC 5 Combat System Adds to the Fleet
The centerpiece of the new destroyers is SADOC 5, a new-generation C5I combat management system paired with a fully digital S-band AESA radar and MBDA missiles. Together they are meant to give the ships an integrated air and missile defense capability against missile, ballistic and hypersonic threats — a step up in capability the Italian Navy has not fielded before.
"The DDX programme is set to redefine the Italian Navy's capability profile in the field of air and missile defence through a significant generational leap," Fincantieri and Leonardo said in a joint statement.
Fincantieri describes the DDX class as embodying its "Navis Sapiens" concept: a digital ship built to collect, correlate and use data generated by all onboard systems to support operational decision-making, technical management and maintenance support throughout the ship's service life. That same data architecture is meant to connect the ships to shore infrastructure Fincantieri calls its Digital Ecosystem, linking the ships to shore-based maintenance and logistics support.
How Fincantieri and Leonardo Divide the Work
Under the OSN structure, Fincantieri acts as system integrator and platform builder, responsible for designing and constructing the ships themselves. Leonardo develops the combat system, work that is tied to the architecture Leonardo built for its Michelangelo project.
"The DDX programme represents a strategic milestone for Fincantieri and for Italy's national defence industry," said Pierroberto Folgiero, CEO and General Manager of Fincantieri. "It is one of the most significant naval programmes launched in Italy in recent years and confirms Fincantieri's role as an industrial and technological reference point in the design and integration of complex naval systems."
What It Means for Contractors
The €3.7 billion OCCAR award locks in years of subcontracting work across Fincantieri's and Leonardo's supply chains, and the roughly €1.3 billion in options means the eventual total could climb further if Italy exercises them. Giovanni Sorrentino, chief executive officer of Orizzonte Sistemi Navali, said the contract "represents much more than the construction of two new naval units," calling it evidence that Italy's industrial base "can, by working in synergy, deliver innovative and strategic expertise." The sub-supply contracts OSN is expected to sign with each parent company in the coming weeks — about €1.8 billion to Fincantieri and about €1.7 billion to Leonardo — will be where most of the program's actual subcontracting opportunities get defined, since those agreements set the scope each company pushes down to its own suppliers for hull construction, sensors, weapons integration and logistics support.
For companies in Italy's defense industrial base, the SADOC 5 system and its AESA radar, whose interoperability Fincantieri and Leonardo tie to the technology underpinning Leonardo's Michelangelo project, could carry weight in how Leonardo positions itself on future naval competitions beyond the DDX class. Suppliers positioned around radar components, missile integration or ship logistics support stand to benefit as that work gets subcontracted out over the life of a program that now stretches to 2035 and beyond. The five-year delivery slip also means the Initial In-Service Support scope covered under this contract — logistics studies and early sustainment work — will run on a longer timeline than originally planned, extending the window during which support contractors can bid into the program.
The contract also underscores how European navies are pricing hypersonic and ballistic missile defense into next-generation surface combatants rather than treating it as a later upgrade. Contractors working air and missile defense sensors, radar processing or missile guidance elsewhere in Europe should watch whether the DDX program's SADOC 5 requirements shape what OCCAR and national navies specify on future shipbuilding competitions, given the Michelangelo technology's role underpinning the DDX combat system.
