United States Army Field Manual
The United States Army Field Manuals ( FM ) designate binding regulations or field manuals of the US Army , which u. a. serve for the organization, structure, tactics in battle, weapons knowledge and handling. And thus forms the counterpart to the central service regulation of the Bundeswehr .
history
The first regulations were adopted by the British Army in 1792. General Silas Casey wrote three manuals on infantry tactics that were published in 1862 and 1863. At the beginning of the American Civil War, the US President Abraham Lincoln commissioned Francis Lieber to write a paper on guidelines for the fight against regular units and the fight against partisans. This work, the Lieber Code , issued by Lincoln as General Orders No. 100 in 1863 , is considered the first field manual of the US armed forces .
Lieber's writing influenced the Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 and can also be regarded as the forerunner of the Geneva Convention . The regulations of the US armed forces in the period from 1900 to 1913 already included special descriptions for the organization and use of branches of service such as artillery .
The field manuals from 1920 onwards described increasingly complex military tasks. But also detailed descriptions of weapons, their handling and their use are published. In the period from 1954 to 1962, the regulations became more detailed and comprehensive in their reflection of military developments.
Current status
The Field Manuals are published by the US Army Publishing Directorate . Almost all current issues are publicly available. Manuals that are considered historical today are commercially available.
Field manuals that are inaccessible or that have been re- declared as classified deal with issues that are subject to military secrecy or which may be subject to secrecy in the future. One example of this is the FM 34-52, which deals with the interrogation methods of prisoners. Also the manual FM 5-31, which is the production of booby traps and hidden charges ( Boobytraps treated), is no longer publicly available.
A created in in recent times Field Manual is published 2006 FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency that the new policy of the US Army for Counterinsurgency ( counterinsurgency group) and in charge of Lieutenant General David H. Petraeus was created.
swell
- ↑ Field Manual 3-24 Counterinsurgency ( Federation of American Scientists ; PDF document; English; 13.2 MB)