This month, January 2025, a special new type of 155-mm artillery ammunition has finally reached Ukraine. The ADAM is a shell containing anti-personnel mines scattering across a target area — a much-needed tool to counter russian assault light infantry assault tactics in Ukraine. An ADAM round was noticed in use by the artillerymen of Ukraine's 24th Mechanized Brigade and identified by open-source intelligence (OSINT) specialists.
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The decision to deliver this new weapon, despite some reluctance earlier, was approved by the United States when President Joe Biden was in office, in late fall of 2024. Later clarified to consist of three different types of landmines — the ADAM, the M131 MOPMS, and the Volcano — the package has finally started arriving at the battlegrounds, as the photo implies.
More specifically, featured in the photo is the M692 155-mm artillery munition containing 36 anti-personnel mines (M67) dispersed upon a target area. The same weapon line also includes the M731 variety filled with M72 mines, the only difference is the self-destruction time: 4 versus 48 hours.
When fired from an American M109 self-propelled artillery system, the range of ADAM is about 17.6 km. The maximum dispersion distance of anti-personnel mines is 600 meters, the effective damage radius of an individual submunition is 7 meters.
As a tool limited to anti-personnel action, ADAM is often combined with RAAM scatterable anti-tank mines in practice to deploy multifunctional minefields inaccessible for both enemy manpower and heavy equipment.
Earlier, Defense Express reported that the U.S. is developing a mysterious ERAM missile-bomb with a 463 km firing range for the Ukrainian Armed Forces that can be equipped with a Quicksink homing head against ships.
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