Military manuals...

Every so often, I meet someone who want to know where he (or, very occasionally, she) can find military manuals, that show how a real-world army does things.

So, for those of you wo are interested, I've compiled a small list of US Military Field manuals, designed to show you how a real army (in this case, the US Army) does it. The fact that these are AMERICAN manuals is niether here nor there - we British tend to do it OUR way, but our mauals are, shall we say, rarer than rocking horse droppings, as they're all classified up the wazoo and back (we don't like the bad guys to know how we do it, OK?)!

These manuals come in two formats: web-based (HTML), and platform-independent (Adobe PDF format, for downloading and off-line reading). At the time of writing (January 2001), they were, for the most part, all available, with certain exceptions, through the World Wide Web, freely and unrestriced. However, please note that the first two or three links may show some manuals with a key symbol against them. These are not available to non-US Military personnel, with, I think, fairly good reason!

I think I should also point out, that these Field manuals contain several large chunks of material that, frankly, are of about as much use as a chocolate fireguard in the Airsoft skirmish game, so when you read through them, please be very selective in what you might actually use in your games, and adapt it with attention to the fact that the ranges mentioned relate to real-world firearms, and not the Airsoft models we all use (typically ranged to a maximum of perhaps 200 feet on a very good day)!

In any event, enjoy!

Army Digital Training and Doctrine Library

This takes you to the home page of the US Army Digital training and Doctrine Library; there's a lot here, hence the following links...
http://www.adtdl.army.mil/rtddltextv.html

List of available US military Field Manuals (FMs)

http://www.adtdl.army.mil/cgi-bin/atdl.dll?type=fm

Specific small-unit and soldier-level manuals...

FM 7-8 - INFANTRY RIFLE PLATOON AND SQUAD, 22 APR 1992

Small unit tactics, doctrine, and a few other bits and bobs from the US perspective...
http://www.adtdl.army.mil/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/7-8/toc.htm

FM 21-60 - VISUAL SIGNALS, 30 SEP 1987

The US Military manner of performing field signals. NOTE: This is NOT the way the British Army does it!
http://www.adtdl.army.mil/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/21-60/toc.htm

FM 21-75 - COMBAT SKILLS OF THE SOLDIER, 03 AUG 1984

What every US soldier tends to have to know; this is a very rough guide, and a hell of a lot of it is completely worthless in the Airsoft skirmish game!
http://www.adtdl.army.mil/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/21-75/toc.htm

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