The Official US Army Tactics Handbook: Offense and Defense

Q: Who is this book for?

A: This handbook is for military professionals, officers, NCOs, defense analysts, wargamers, writers, students of strategy, and readers who want to understand how the U.S. Army thinks about offense, defense, and tactical maneuver. It is particularly useful for anyone interested in the practical logic behind battlefield decision-making.

Q: What does the handbook cover?

A: It combines Army doctrine on tactics, offensive operations, defensive operations, reconnaissance, security, troop movement, passage of lines, encirclement, and other enabling tasks. It also explains movement to contact, attack, exploitation, pursuit, area defense, mobile defense, retrograde operations, tactical control measures, and mission tasks.

Q: Is this mainly a strategy book?

A: No. Strategy deals with larger goals and campaigns; this book focuses on the tactical level, where forces maneuver, attack, defend, reconnoiter, secure terrain, and respond to immediate battlefield problems. It is therefore much closer to the practical mechanics of winning engagements than to high-level strategic theory.

Q: What makes this different from a conventional military-history or tactics book?

A: This is official Army doctrine rather than a retrospective account or one author's interpretation. It shows how the Army formally defines tactical concepts, organizes offensive and defensive operations, and expects commanders to combine maneuver, reconnaissance, security, and supporting tasks to achieve battlefield objectives.

Q: Does it cover both offense and defense?

A: Yes. The book gives substantial attention to both. Offensive subjects include movement to contact, attack, exploitation, and pursuit, while defensive subjects include area defense, mobile defense, and retrograde operations. This makes it useful for understanding how the Army thinks about gaining, maintaining, and recovering the initiative.

Q: Is this useful to civilian readers?

A: Yes, particularly for readers interested in military doctrine, history, wargaming, fiction, leadership, or strategic thinking. The military terminology can be technical, but the underlying concepts of initiative, tempo, maneuver, concentration, security, flexibility, and exploiting advantage are broadly understandable.

Q: Is this the old FM 3-90 tactics manual?

A: No. This edition combines ADP 3-90, FM 3-90-1, and FM 3-90-2, the later Army publications that replaced the older single-volume FM 3-90. That gives readers a more current and much broader treatment of Army tactical doctrine.

Q: How does this differ from the Army Operations Handbook?

A: The Operations Handbook works at a broader level, explaining how Army forces conduct and support operations across large formations and campaigns. This Tactics Handbook focuses more directly on how forces maneuver, attack, defend, reconnoiter, secure, and execute specific tactical tasks on the battlefield.

Q: Why choose the full-size edition?

A: This is a substantial reference of more than 420 pages containing dense doctrinal text, diagrams, tables, and tactical concepts. The full 8.5 × 11-inch format gives the material considerably more room than a compact reproduction, making it easier to study, annotate, and consult repeatedly.