November 17th, 2055

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 reccommendation 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.

November 16th, 2025

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.

January 16th, 2025

The  Coast Defense Study Group was so kind as to share their collection of FMs with us. There are exceptionally good scans, not OCRed yet, but in most cases with great details allowing for a much better analysis of the images. If you find the time, pay them a visit, their website is amazing and the history of fotrifications in the US is undervalued to say the least. From their depository, we've added the FMs listed below today - Thank you again for this, CDSG!
This means that we now have 360 of the 527 FMs from the Second World War known to us, which gives us already a pretty good coverage. It looks even better for the prewar-FMs, where we have 48 out of 64, and the missing ones are with two exceptions updates or earlier versions of a manual we already uploaded.  Next up: The Cold War manuals. But first, here's the list of updates:

FM 4-45 Coast Artillery Field Manual. Seacoast Artillery. Service of the Piece. 12 Inch gun, Railway Mound, M1918, Railway Artillery (1940).pdf
FM 4-5 Coast Artillery Field Manual. Seacoast Artillery Organization and Tactics (1940).pdf
FM 4-5 Coast Artillery Tactics (C1) 1944.pdf
FM 4-6 Coast Artillery Field Manual. Seacoast Artillery Tactics and Technique of Controlled Submarine Mines (1943).pdf
FM 4-7 Tactics and Technique of Controlled Submarine Mines, Ground (1945).pdf
FM 4-15 Coast Artillery Field Manual. Seacoast Artillery Fire Control and Position Finding (1943).pdf
FM 4-30 Service of Gun data Computer M1 (1943).pdf
FM 4-32 Service of Base End Data and Gun Data Transmission Systems (1944).pdf
FM 4-41 Coast Artillery Field Manual. Operation and Care of Railway Artillery Equipment (1943).pdf
FM 4-144 Antiaircraft Artillery Field Manual. Service of Radio Set SCR-584 (1943).pdf
FM 4-145 Coast Artillery Field Manual. Antiaircraft Artillery. Radio Set SCR-258 (1942).pdf
FM 4-48 Coast Artillery Field Manual. Service of the the Piece Seacoast Artillery 8-inch Gun, Mark VI, Modification 3A2, On Railway Mount M1A1 (1943).pdf
FM 4-49 Coast Artillery Field Manual. Service of the the Piece Seacoast Artillery 8-inch Gun, Mark VI, Modification 3A2, On Railway Mount M1A1 (1940(.pdf
FM 4-51 Coast Artillery Field Manual. Operation and Care of Railway Artillery Equipment (1943).pdf
FM 4-74 Service of the Piece--6-Inch Gun M1903A2 or M1905A2 on BC M3 and M4 (1944).pdf
FM 4-91 Coast Artillery Service of the Piece--90mm Gun M1 on 90mm Mount M3 (1943).pdf
FM 4-95 Seacoast Artillery Service of Radio Set SCR-296-A (1943(.pdf
FM 4-100 Antiaircraft Artillery Field Manual, Organization and Tactics of Antiaircraft Artillery (1943).pdf
FM 4-101 Antiaircraft Artillery Field Manual. Employment of Antiaircraft Artillery with Armored Forces (1943).pdf
FM 4-102 Employment of Antiaircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons (1943).pdf
FM 4-103 Antiaircraft Artillery Field Manual. Employment of Antiaircraft Artillery with Airborne Forces (1943).pdf
FM 4-106 Antiaircraft Artillery Field Manual. Employment of Antiaircraft Searchlights and the AAAIS (1943).pdf
FM 4-110 Coast Artillery Field Manual. Antiaircraft Artillery. Gunnery, Fire Control and Position Finding (1940).pdf
FM 4-112 Coast Artillery Field Manual. Antiaircraft Artillery. Gunnery, Fire Control and Position Finding, Automatic Weapons (1940).pdf
FM 4-121 Antiaircraft Artillery Field Manual. Fire Control, Guns (1943) guns.pdf
FM 4-135 Coast Artillery Field Manual. Antiaircraft Artillery. Marksmanship and Service of the Piece. Antiaircraft Machine Gun (1940).pdf
FM 4-136 Antiaircraft Artillery Field Manual. Service of Directors M4 and M7 (1943).pdf
FM 4-138 Antiaircraft Artillery Field Manual. Service of Directors M9 and M10 (1943).pdf
FM 4-140 Coast Artillery Field Manual. Antiaircraft Artillery. Service of the Piece. 37-mm Antiaircraft Gun (1941).pdf
FM 4-143 Antiaircraft Artillery Field Manual. Service of Height Finder SCR-547 (1943).pdf
FM 4-188 Antiaircraft Artillery Field Manual. Barrage Balloon. Service of the Balloon and Balloon Equipment, Very Low Altitude (1943).pdf
FM 4-196 Antiaircraft Artillery Field Manual. Barrage Balloon Rigging and Fabric Repair (1943).pdf
FM 4-146 Antiaircraft Artillery Field Manual. Service of Radio Set SCR-545 (1943).pdf
FM 4-150 Coast Artillery Field  Manual. Examination of Gunners (1940).pdf
FM 4-150 Coast Artillery Field Manual. Examination of Gunners (Change 1) (1940).pdf
FM 4-159 Antiaircraft Artillery Field Manual. Service of the Piece. Multiple Gun Motor Carriage M15 (1943).pdf
FM 4-160 Antiaircraft Artillery Field Manual. Service of the Piece. 40-mm Fire Unit (1943).pdf
FM 4-175 Antiaircraft Artillery Field Manual. Service of the Searchlight (1943).pdf
FM 4-176 Antiaircraft Artillery Field Manual. Service of Radio Set SCR-258 (1943).pdf
FM 4-187 Antiaircraft Artillery Field Manual. Barrage Balloon. Service of the Balloon and Balloon Equipment, Low Altitude (1943).pdf