Italy Orders Two 13,500-Tonne DDX Destroyers, Nearly Twice the Size of Its Horizon Class

Orizzonte Sistemi Navali (OSN), the joint venture between Fincantieri (51%) and Leonardo (49%), signed a contract on September 24, 2026, with OCCAR, the European armament cooperation agency acting as contracting authority for the Italian Navy, for two DDX destroyers, Leonardo said in a release also reported by Naval News. GlobalMilitary.net has recorded the order in its naval events log.

The contract is worth about €3.7 billion, of which about €1.3 billion consists of options, according to the Leonardo release; Defense News and Breaking Defense put the total at $4.2 billion. Fincantieri's share is about €1.8 billion, including about €800 million in options, and Leonardo's about €1.7 billion, including about €480 million in options. Fincantieri is responsible for the design and construction of the ships, while Leonardo develops the combat system, Breaking Defense reported.

Each destroyer will be 180 meters long and displace 13,500 tonnes, with a range of more than 4,000 nautical miles and 251 cot spaces for crew accommodation, according to the Leonardo release and Naval News. The ships are intended for integrated air and missile defense (IAMD) against missile, ballistic and hypersonic threats. The systems named by Leonardo and Breaking Defense include:

• Leonardo's SADOC 5 C5I combat system, described as new-generation and fully digital;
• a high-power, fully digital S-band AESA radar;
• an MBDA weapon system;
• an electronic warfare suite by Elt Group;
• a DC power sub-network with an energy storage system.

"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 quoted by Breaking Defense.

According to GlobalMilitary.net data, Italy currently operates two active destroyers, Andrea Doria (D 553) and Caio Duilio (D 554), both of the Horizon (Orizzonte) class, while Francesco Mimbelli (D 561), the last Durand de la Penne-class ship, is held in reserve. The Horizon class displaces 7,050 tonnes on a length of 152.87 meters, so at 13,500 tonnes the DDX would be about 1.9 times the displacement of the Horizon class; the Durand de la Penne class, at 5,560 tonnes, is less than half the size of the new design.

That displacement places the DDX in the same class as China's Type 055, listed at 13,000 tonnes in GMN data, and, among destroyers in service in GMN's data, smaller only than the US Zumwalt class, at 15,907 tonnes, once Japan's flat-deck Hyuga-class helicopter destroyers are set aside. The other large destroyer classes in service, as listed in the same database, are all smaller:

• Japan's Maya class, 10,250 tonnes;
• Japan's Atago class, 10,000 tonnes;
• South Korea's Sejong the Great class, 10,000 tonnes;
• the US Arleigh Burke class, 9,900 tonnes;
• the United Kingdom's Daring class, 7,350 tonnes.

Displacement figures differ between sources, and the comparison uses the values recorded in GMN's ship database, set against the fleet totals of the world navy rankings for context on how each navy compares overall.

The outlets differ on which ships the DDX pair will replace. Breaking Defense reported that the two destroyers will replace the two Durand de la Penne-class ships, while Defense News reported that they will replace the Italian Navy's two Horizon-class vessels. Defense News placed the order within a broader renewal of the Italian fleet that also includes FREMM frigates, the PPA multimission ships, a landing helicopter dock, submarines and logistics vessels.

The first DDX is scheduled for delivery in 2033 and the second in 2035, according to Leonardo, Naval News, Defense News and Breaking Defense.