The M119 is typically towed by the M1097 or M1152 High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV), and can be easily airlifted by helicopter, or airdropped by parachute.

The howitzer was designed and produced by the British Royal Ordnance Factories as the L118 light gun.

Alpha Battery of the 1st Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment, 101st Airborne Division received their first upgraded M119A3 howitzers in July 2013, and became the first unit to operate it in theater when they were deployed to northeast Afghanistan in early February 2014.

[5] Project Manager for Towed Artillery Systems (PM TAS) has developed several upgrades for the M119A3 including digital fire control, increased low temperature capability from −25 to −51 °F (−32 to −46 °C), and the M20 breech.

The recoil system is also being upgraded, as the legacy system had reliability issues with the recuperator, buffer, and variable recoil linkage (which sets recoil length based on elevation); it had a lot of moving parts needing constant maintenance and adjustment during operations with high replacement rates of spares that are complex to manufacture and require specialized tooling to assemble, increasing costs and causing availability problems.