M139 Volcano dispenser on a Palletized Load System A1 during the first Autonomous Volcano remote firing, Camp Grayling, Michigan, 19 May 2026. U.S. Army photo by Eric Kowal (DVIDS, public domain).

US Army Conducts First Remote Firing of Autonomous Volcano Scatterable-Mine System in US-UK Programme

On 19 May 2026 at Camp Grayling, Michigan, US Army combat engineers remotely fired the M139 Volcano scatterable-mine dispenser for the first time from an uncrewed Palletized Load System truck. The Autonomous Volcano is a joint US and United Kingdom programme that lets a single system emplace up to 960 mines while keeping engineers out of the danger area.

Technical Summary

The M139 Volcano is a ground-launched scatterable-mine dispenser that ejects disposable canisters, each holding six mines. A full load of 160 canisters delivers up to 960 mines, enough to lay a barrier roughly 120 metres wide and 1,100 metres long in minutes. Fielded from the late 1980s on the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT), it gives commanders rapid, on-order obstacle emplacement to canalise or halt an armoured force. The Autonomous Volcano variant, integrated by contractor Forterra onto a Palletized Load System (PLS) A1 truck with a By-Wire and Active Safety Kit, removes the crew from the dispensing vehicle.

At Camp Grayling four soldiers of the 576th Combat Engineer Company (Armored), 4th Engineer Battalion, remotely fired M88 canisters from an M139 for the first time. Within the Volcano canister family the tactical natures are the M87, historically a mixed load of five anti-tank mines and one anti-personnel mine, and the M87A1, an anti-tank-only load of six; the M88 is a reduced-range practice canister used for training. The scatterable anti-tank mine is a magnetic-influence, full-width-attack nature with a selectable self-destruct time of four hours, 48 hours or 15 days, a feature that limits the residual hazard once its purpose has passed.

Autonomous Volcano leverages low-cost modernization to turn a legacy platform into a high-yield autonomous asset, securing asymmetric overmatch and closing a critical area-denial gap. Colonel Vinson Morris, Project Manager Close Combat Systems, U.S. Army

Analysis of Effects

Autonomous emplacement changes the risk calculus of barrier warfare. In the first scenario the dispensing truck was fired remotely, keeping engineers off the forward line of troops; in the second the system emplaced two separate fix and disrupt minefields at once with no operator in the loop. Removing the crew lets minefields be laid under artillery threat or in ground a crewed HEMTT could not survive. The system also logs exact obstacle coordinates into the Common Operating Picture, turning a hand-recorded minefield into machine-readable data that supports later breaching and clearance.

The programme is jointly run by the US Army and the United Kingdom, and that partnership carries a legal boundary. The United Kingdom is a State Party to the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, the Ottawa Treaty, and cannot lawfully field anti-personnel mines; the United States is not a party. Anti-vehicle, or anti-tank, mines fall outside that prohibition, so a UK-fielded Volcano would draw on the anti-tank-only M87A1 canister rather than the mixed M87. A field that self-destructs within hours or days is also materially different, in humanitarian terms, from the persistent minefields that dominated later clearance workloads.

Personnel and Safety Considerations

Scatterable-mine operations concentrate several hazards. During emplacement the main risks are premature functioning and short-arming, mitigated by the arming delay in each nature and by keeping personnel clear of the dispensing arc. Once a field is laid, any mine whose self-destruct or self-deactivation sequence fails becomes unexploded ordnance (UXO) that must be treated as armed and cleared by trained explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) personnel. Accurate coordinate capture is therefore a safety control as well as a targeting aid, because a precisely recorded field is far easier to mark, breach and clear than one plotted by hand.

Data Gaps

Several parameters are not disclosed and are recorded here rather than estimated. The hazard division and compatibility group of the M87, M87A1 and M88 canisters are not stated, so net explosive quantity (NEQ) per canister cannot be given. The release names M88 canisters but does not confirm whether live or practice natures were dispensed in the autonomy run. The specific British Army requirement, and whether the United Kingdom would procure the M87A1 configuration, are not confirmed, as are self-destruct reliability figures and the fielding timeline beyond Project Convergence Capstone 6.

Corrections & updates welcome. If you hold open-source data that refines or corrects any parameter in this article, please contact [email protected] citing the specific claim and your source. Verified corrections will be incorporated and credited in the revision history. AI-assisted technical assessment based on open-source material. Not a formal intelligence product.