News
Even if this whole bubble bursts soon, I assume that some form of “billion dollar autocomplete” as someone on Bluesky put it, is going to stick around, just as the Dotcom bubble did not rid us of ridiculous websites. I’ve put some of the new overlords to work to create a little wordpress plugin that lets you access my cloud storage, and the result is that the whole of the US Army field manual collection is now available for you in the library. Currently about 2400 files, maybe do not download them all at once – if you want the whole collection, just drop me a line.
Next steps are mostly cleanup and inventory, I need to check my lists against the actual files online, I need to visit a couple of new sources, and I want to write a couple of introductions to the pages. But I am proud and happy that I found a reasonable cheap solution to host them myself, and I hope you will find something interesting for you here.
75% is what we have now.
3.484 field manuals are now in the library, which is 75% of 4.614, which is the number of all field manuals of which we have knowledge so far. The upload to the MOS-department is happening as I am typing this, and the FMs will be added next week – I need at least the weekend to check for duplicates, and version control.
A lot of of older FMs, especially in the Second-World-War-Range, will be replaced with higher resolution ones, which we have recently found a new source for. The “Missing”-List needs to go back online, and we plan to change the hosting arrangements a bit. But this is now definitly the largest, most complete collection of US Army field manuals anywhere on the web.
Have a great weekend!
Today we’re uploading another 200 MOS Field Manuals to the library, which brings the total to a little over 3400 of the 4500 FMs we know of as today. We got a bit distracted by discovering a nice way to download full documents from yet a different source, which is yielding a lot of high-resolution-scans of older manuals. So the 200 new ones are an intermediate step, with about 300 more still to be reviewed, and of course the “regular” FMs need to be processed yet.
Enjoy the read, and if you have anything missing to add, we will always be grateful!
Just a short update: Another 99 (so not quite a decime) Military Occupation Specialty (MOS) field manuals have been added to the library, bringing the total to over 3100, with hundreds still left to be processed. As usual, you will find them at
https://sites.google.com/view/us-army-mos-fms
Another research trip brought us to the Stanford Library, which hosts links to more than 1500 FMs in its catalogue. This enabled us to add 79 new MOS (Military Occupation Speciality) field manuals to the collection, as well as an yet uncounted number of other FMs which still need to be processed. Browsing through the complete Stanford holdings will probabaly keep us busy until May, when another big update will be ready. Also, we’re currently evaluating possibilities of hosting the collection on our own server, which would ease access and backups.
On a side note, “discovering” these files while the are presented and catalogued very open, visibly and very publicly accessible makes us feel like green novices. It is as if this collection was something any decent librarian could click together in 5 minutes, and our academic experience and credentials do not help. So thank you to Stanford, and if you have any tips on how to improve this collection, let us know.
Here they currently are:
US Army Field Manuals from World War Two
US Army Field manuals from the Cold War
US Field Manuals defining Military Occupational Specialities (MOS), 1976-1980
One of our side projects has been expanded in the past days, and we thought we share:
We recently found 340+ FMs published between 1976 and 1980 on google books, each defining a Military Occupational Specialty (MOS), setting skill levels and knowledge expectations for a solider in a defined role on the battlefield. These files have been cleaned up and uploaded onto a separate google site, which can be be found here: https://sites.google.com/view/us-army-mos-fms
Besides the FMs defining MOS skill levels and knowledge, the new cache also yielded a large amount of FMs from between 1940 and 1982. Full statistics again on the About page, but we now haver 80% overall of all field manuals which we know of. There are again slight discrepancies between out bookkeeping, the number of locally saved files, and the number of files online, but we*re working on that.
The new ones often were just better scans of existing files, but there are about 60 new manuals in the library, with beauties such as FM 8-24 Community Health Nursing in the Army (1980) and FM 10-26 The Army Food Advisor (1977), but also key documents like FM 17-36 Divisional Armored and Air Cavalry Units from 1965 and FM 17-95.
This is the second part of the large update announced yesterday. Bsides the FMs defining MOS skill levels and knowledge, the new google books cache also yielded a large amount of FMs from between 1940 and 1982, which enabled us to full some gaps. Full statistics again on the About page, but we now haver 80% overall of all field manuals which we know of. There are again slight discrepancies between out bookkeeping, the number of locally saved files, and the number of files online, but we*re working on that.
The new ones often were just better scans of existing files, but there are about 60 new manuals in the library, with beauties such as FM 8-24 Community Health Nursing in the Army (1980) and FM 10-26 The Army Food Advisor (1977), but also key documents like FM 17-36 Divisional Armored and Air Cavalry Units from 1965 and FM 17-95 The Armored Cavalry Regiment from a year later. You’ll find them, as always, on the drive.
Google Books scanned a large amount of books from the New York Public Library, amongst them hundreds of FMs. However, since machines are now more important than humans, the scans were simply dumped into the cloud – all named identical, often several volumes clustered together in single files, no keywords, no categories, nothing. Humans might stumble on these by accident, but the AIs read them in full and build their own content representations from them. The overlords do not need humans to read anymore.
Among the volumes scanned we found 340+ FMs published between 1976 and 1980, each defining a Military Occupational Specialty (MOS), setting skill levels and knowledge expectations for a solider in a defined role on the battlefield. These files have been cleaned up and uploaded onto a separate google site, which can be be found here: https://sites.google.com/view/us-army-mos-fms
The irony of using googles infrastructure while bashing their AI ventures is not lost on us, and preparations are under way to move everything onto our own hardware, should the need arise. For now, we hope you enjoy the addition to our little collection.
Oh, and this collection also profited from the new content, since there were several FMs interspersed that were on out missing list, so some more updates about these coming in the next days.
day we have another first: The first two FMs exclusively available on this site, contributed by a reader! We are very grateful for Scott to have scanned FM 5-31 Use and Installation of Boobytraps (1956) and FM 21-50 Ranger Training and Ranger Operations (1962) from our Missing list, and provided the scans to us. We reduced the resolution of the scans in order to scale them down to a web-friendly sice, but the quality is still way better than most of the MHI-scans of older manuals. So a very big thanks to Scott, and you*ll find both manuals in their respective sections, or with the links above.
Yet another batch of field manuals, closing more gaps in the Cold war department. About 20 new manuals, from FM 5-31 Land Mine Warfare (1949) to FM 44-1 Antiaircraft Artillery Employment (1952), bringing the total in Cold War to 1458, if I am counting correctly. Yes, thats not significantly more than before, I had to remove some doublets, too, again. I am sure there are more professional ways to handle a PDF collection like this, but most probably also involve more time than I have on my hands. And it is late, again. Also, I updated the missing list again to reflect the new manuals.
Good news, everyone! There is a new, official, “Europa” game company, formed by some veteran gamers and game designers, which acquired the trademark rights from Rich Banner. I know little more than whats in the announcement, so I will link to it and wish everyone involved a lot of success, for it would be great to take the old lady out to dance once more.
https://classiceuropa.groups.io/g/main/message/9712
I am delighted to see some news at all, look forward to what the company will release, and at the same time are a bit melancholic since I am not sure I will find partners – and time! to play Europa again soon. But this is good news indeed!
And another small round of additions, this time based on another visit of the Ike Skelton Library Website, after a couple of google results showed us documents we had overlooked at our first trawl. The following manuals have been added:
FM 19-20 Criminal Investiation (1945)
FM 44-95 Service of the Piece Multiple Gun Motor Carriages M15 and M15A1 (1944)
FM 6-100 Tactics and Technique of Division Artillery and Higher Artillery Echelon (1944)
FM 6-105 Armored Division Artillery (1944)
FM 6-120 Field Artillery Observation Battalion (1945)
FM 6-130 Field Artillry Intelligence (1945)
FM 6-135 Forward Observation (1944)
FM 6-195 Service of the Piece. 8-inch Gun M1 and 240-mm Howitzer M1 (1946)
FM 6-77 Service of the Piece, 4.5-inch Gun M1 (1944)
FM 6-77 Service of the Piece. 4.5-Inch Gun M1 (1941)
FM 6-95 Field Artillery Field Manual. Service of the Piece. 240-mm Howitzer, M1918 (1940)
FM 6-120 The Field Artillery Batallion (1952).pdf
FM 6-122 Artillery Sound Ranging and Flash Ranging (1957).pdf
FM 6-130 Field Artillry Intelligence (1948).pdf
FM 6-20-2J Division Artillery, Field Artillery Brigade, and Corps Artillery Headquarters (1984).pdf
FM 6-30 The Field Missle Battalion Corporal (1959).pdf
FM 6-38 Field Artillery Missile (Sergant) (1962).pdf
FM 6-50 Tactics and techniques for the Field Artillery Cannon Battery (C1) (1990).pdf
FM 6-91 Service of the Piece 8 inch Howitzer, M2 Truck-Drawn (1948).pdf
FM 101-10 Staff Officers Field Manual. Organization, Technical and Logistical Data (1945)
FM 101-10-2 Staff Officers’ Field Manual. Organizational, Technical and Logistical Data (1965)
FM 21-30 Concentional Signs, Military Symbols, and Abbrievations (1943)
FM 21-45 Protective Measures, Individuals and Small Units (1942)
FM 21-50 Military Courtesy and Discipline (1942)
FM 23-50 Browning Machine Gun, Caliber .30, HB, M1919A4 (1942)
FM 24-75 Telephone Switchboard Operating Procedure (1944)
FM 25-6 Dog Transportation (1944)
FM 30-15 Examination of Enemy Personnel Repatriates Documents (1940)
FM 30-25 Military Intelligence. Counterintelligence (1940)’
FM 31-25 Desert Operations (1942)
FM 31-50 Attack on a Fortified Position and Combat in Towns (1944)
FM 44-59 Service of the Piece–Multiple Gun Motor Carriage M15 and M15A1 (1944)
This brings the World War II manuals up to 403 manuals and 75% of all manuals known to us as existing. Happy New Year everyone!
P.S.:
The Missing List has been updated, as well as the document summary. However, there are currently still a lot of errors in my master List (shouldn’t try doint this late at night all the time), so the missing list is not really reliable right now. We’re working to get things in order.
The free days over the holidays, when not spent with family, provided us opportunity for yet another round of research, reordering, and publishing. By no means done, we at least can present the first results:
-
A new website with 500+ US Army Field manuals published since 2000 (and yes, this means the Cold War collection will shrink by four years. If anyone is knowledgeable enough to explain to us when exactly the US decided on the massive rewriting project that happened at the beginning of the 2000s, we would be gratefu indeed..
-
roughly 100+ new manuals of all ages, with some really exiting ones amongst them, courtesy of a different FM collection, hosted at https://electrtonicsandbooks.com/edt/manual/index.php?dir=Military%2FUSA%2FArmy%2FField+Manual%2F (thank you, unknown admins, for this!)
-
Plans for yet another site for the ATPs, FMIs and TCs of modern times, one for the Navy, the Air Force, and the USMC, as soon as we can establish where the FMs actually differ and since when.
Anyway, enjoy the new material, and have a wonderful 2026!
Today thanks are in order: Kevin Rose has kindly agreed to share and scan the trove of Field Manuals in his archive with us, so there are quite a couple of new documents, for example FM 17-95 Cavalry Operations in every iteration from 1977 to 1996. These, by the way, make a nice background reading for BattleOrders new Youtube video on Cavalry, if this recommendation is allowed here.
In any way, the amount of new manuals made it impossible to cram them into the 15 GB limit google offers for free. So after discarding the post 2004-manuals, we created a second website for the World War II manuals of the US Army, which can be found here. The current time ist to add a couple of more websites with military training documents, and to link them via this website. For now, follow the link if you are looking for older manuals – the cold war FMs are still here, accessible on the menu on the left.
We just finished uploading a new revision to the collection. In the absence of a proper versioning database, this means deleting the complete drive and re-upping everything, a process which is less work intensive than renaming individual files and searching four doubles, after having done the work already on the loca drive.
Space was running low on this google account, so we decided to limit this collection to FMs created 1930-2004. The latter year is a good cutoff, because the US Army started a major reorganisation that year in the way their field manuals are written (and named), with the goal of reducing the number of field manuals and create at the same time a more diverse range of documents reflecting he increasing complexity of doctrinal layers. We are still in the process of assessing and sorting through newer manuals, and might upload them to another collection. For now, this one covers everything pre 2004.
The collection now comprises 1951 US Army Field Manuals with more than 12 GB of data. At this point, we have most of the field manuals published up to the end of World War II, with most missing files being either versions of manuals already there, or covering topics that continue to be secretive, such as nuclear and chemical weapons, or intelligence.
For the time between 1946 and 2004 we have 77% of all manuals currently known to us, which also constitutes a solid body on which to start any reading into US military doctrine in that timeframe.
Here are the sites:
US Army Field Manuals from World War Two
Recent Comments