Hello Ladies and Gents,
I’m posting a list of the online archive sites I’ve used to find documents on ground vehicles. It will have links to the sites and a short description of the types of docs you can find on them.
Defense Technical Information Center
This is probably one of the more well-known sites. DTIC contains many technical reports about various military projects that have occurred since WW2. They’re usually labeled with an ascension AD number when downloaded.
US Department of Commerce: National Technical Reports Library
This is another primary government archive site. Its file naming system is the same as DTIC’s. However, it’s a bit more difficult to use, as the documents from the site do not generally appear in Google search results. This is because the site has an internal search engine that has to be used to find documents. The direct link can be finicky sometimes, so if necessary, search for the base NTIS site, and there will be a link to the technical reports library there as well.
US Army Heritage and Education Center, Part of the US Army War College
This one is probably one of the most interesting I’ve found so far to search through. It’s a rabbit hole when it comes to finding documents. Once you search for documents with the internal search engine, and find one to look into, you can also click on the show linked records option. Which will show you what collection, Box number, and Folder number the document is from. Which can of course lead to finding many other relevant documents, pictures, pamphlets, brochures, etc… I’ve lost many hours of free time falling into the rabbit hole of this site…
The Hathi Trust Digital Library
This site is the front end for a digitized collection from several college libraries, and I believe at least a few public libraries. However, they do have a vast collection of Military technical documents and manuals that were in the member college libraries that have been digitized by Google and are available for download. However, some of them still have markings for limited circulation on their covers. So if you need to make sure, check the distribution status of the manuals you download from here on the Army Publishing Directorate site which will be linked in a section below.
For the time being, if you do use a document from this library in a forum thread, historical report, or suggestion, please include a link to the Full View version of the document in the library.
Ike Skelton Combined Arms Digital Research Library
This is the online public side of the Ike Skelton Combined Arms Research Library (CARL). It has several digitized documents and papers from the US Army Command and General Staff College, as well as several other Army Historical and Educational organizations. It seems to mostly contain documents from pre-WW2 to maybe the early 70s. As well as many obsolete manuals.
Use these to check document Distribution Code and Reason
Army Publishing Directorate Document Search Index
This link will take you to the document search index for the Army Publishing Directorate site. Here you can enter the document number or title into the relevant search field and execute a search to find out the Distribution Code and status of most technical, field, and maintenance manuals published by the Department of the Army.
Department of Defense Distribution Statement Definitions
DoD site containing an explanation of the Distribution Statement level definitions, and the usual reasons for those levels.
National Archives - Code of Federal Regulations - DoD Freedom of Information Act Program
US Code for the FOIA Act concerning the Department of Defense. Explains in detail the rules and requirements for filing a FOIA document request, as well as any related fees.
Department of Defense FOIA Handbook and FAQ
Contains a general FAQ and some links regarding how the DoD handles FOIA requests.
US Department of Defense Component Agency Directory
List of links for the component agencies of the US Department of Defense. As laid out in the FOIA Handbook/FAQ, when making a FOIA request from the DoD, you have to submit a request to the controlling component agency of the document.
Canadian Digitized Microfilm Archive
There’s a lot more on here than just military stuff. However, there are also a lot of documents about World War 2 vehicles and ammunition testing. The main issue I’ve had with this site is that it’s very difficult and time-consuming to sort through the images, as they’re very rarely in any specific order.
The Canadian War Museum, Main Collection Search
Canadian Museum of History and War Museum, Online Search
This is the online search site link for the Canadian War Museum. There are some documents available for download. However, many have to be searched, and then requested using their reproduction request form.
I’m Sure there are many more Government/Military Web sites out there for other nations, as well as methods for filing FOIA or document reproduction requests. However, I am not familiar with the procedures for requesting documents from those sources. With that in mind, if any other member of the forum staff would like to contribute that information, please feel free to do so. Or, if you’re a regular forum user that regularly does FOIA or archive document reproduction requests from a nation not covered here, feel free to PM me with the relevant procedure information so that it could be added to this post or thread.