Before being stored, the system was qualified aboard the previous variant of the Black Hawk, the UH-60L. The M-139 has two variants, the Ground Volcano, which can be mounted on trucks like the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT), and the Air Volcano, that is now being adapted to the UH-60M Black Hawk. Soldiers from the 3rd Assault Helicopter Battalion 1st Combat Aviation Brigade 1st Infantry Division are training with the M139 “Volcano Mine Laying System”. Early works to test the viability of the re-introduction in service begun at the depot in 2014, with works on a larger scale funded in 2017. When work to refurbish the Volcano begun at the Anniston Army Depot, workers faced some challenges after many components were found corroded after being locked up for such a long time and many of them being out of production, requiring the “cannibalization” of some M-139 systems in order to salvage working components, at least until the development of a repair process is complete.
82nd Combat Aviation Brigade December 18, 2020 This system is capable of laying 960 mines in under one minute! This can delay and disrupt enemy movement and protect our flanks. Huge win to validate these systems are still FMC. The decision to restore this capability and begin to qualify again the crews is a consequence of the tactical strategies shift of the recent years, which foresaw a return to confrontations with near-peer adversaries and a definitive FLOT (Forward Line of Own Troops).Ģ-82 AHB conducted aircrew quals on the Volcano Mine System yesterday. Army decided to resuscitate the system to provide a scatterable mine capability to the ground forces.
The M-139 Volcano was originally built in the 1980s and ’90s and it was stored for more than 20 years before the U.S. The system is designed to rapidly scatter mines to create large minefields, meant to delay/disrupt enemy movement and protect the flanks of friendly units on the ground, by laying 960 mines in under one minute. Recently, the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade, part of the 82nd Airborne Division, posted some photos of the unit’s aircrews conducting qualifications on the M-139 Volcano Mine Delivery System mounted to the UH-60M Black Hawk on its social media accounts. The M-139 Volcano Mine Delivery System, originally built in the 1980s and ’90s, has been in storage for more than 20 years.
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