HYDREMA 910 MCV (Mine Clearing Vehicle) is a tank-sweeper designed to neutralize mounted and disguised anti-personnel or anti-tank mines with explosives weighing up to 10 kilograms.
The minesweeper is able to neutralize a strip up to 3.5 meters wide on dense soil such as roads and access roads or on other types of soil. Neutralization is done with the help of rotating chains, which, hitting the ground, undermine the mines disguised in the soil. During the demining process, the hydrostatic system leads the minesweeper in the direction opposite to the normal direction of movement (i.e., practically “in reverse”). The deactivation process can be carried out manually using the joystick or automatically using an advanced computerized autopilot system.
Hydrema has a metal deflector and heavy chains that spin at high speed to dig out and destroy (blow up) the mines on contact. The “thresher” consists of 72 chains with weights (although, if necessary, it is possible to use a larger number of chains), which can rotate in any direction.
A reflector plate made of armored steel is installed behind the “thresher”. This provides extremely high protection against explosions and debris, preventing them from entering the minesweeper’s cabin. Before the start of the automatic neutralization process, the driver selects several parameters on the monitor, for example, the type of soil, and the settings for the depth of penetration of the chains and the plates of the reflector are set automatically.
When installing the mechanism in the working position, the “thresher” automatically unfolds along the minesweeper, resting on it. This operation takes approximately two minutes.
Manufactured in Denmark , the car was used by the American armed forces and was first used at the Bagram Air Base ( Afghanistan ) for the disposal of dangerous areas. There, soldiers of the 769 engineering battalion of the US Army from the state of Louisiana were the first Americans to be trained in the management and use of Hydrema.
From mid-September 2003, three Hydrema minesweepers were put into service at the Bagram airbase .
Due to the dust Hydrema creates during operation, the minesweeper cannot be used simultaneously with aerial operations.
Hydrema uses two separate engines to operate the thresher and vehicle movement. The machine is equipped with bullet-proof tires. Hydrema can be transported directly by the C-130 Hercules .