A Part of the Online Doctrine Library
This website hosts currently 1455 US Army Field Manuals published between 1947 and 2000, They describe doctrine, tactics, and equipment of the US Army during the Cold War and its aftermath.
To ease navigation, the field manuals have been grouped by series, accessible through the navigation on the left. Please note that some series might have no manuals in them, either because we have not aquired or uploaded yet, or because there are currently no field manuals in the series. All manuals are free of copyright, declassified, and have been released to the public. This site was created for historic and scientific purposes and without any financial interest.
If you have any unclassified field manuals that are missing, we would be grateful for an email and the permission to add these to the collection.
This Website is part of the Online Doctrine Library. Other parts of the Library can be accessed by following the links below:
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
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.
Just a minor addendum to the previous update, we're continuing our research and managed to add the following FMs to the library today:
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 ald 75% of all manuals known to us as existing. Happy New Year everyone!
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 knowlegable 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, curtesy 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 differe 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 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.