Research brief: Finding the Army's articles
Research brief: Finding the Army's articles
It is hard to find old articles from the Army’s professional journals.
Army students might understandably struggle to scan across at least 33 different websites to find each issue of each journal. Then, even once an issue is found, a student would need to download and open each issue, and then keyword search for content of interest, which may explain the alarmingly low citation rates. This is hardly a workable system.
Achieving the Harding Project goal of searchable archives will require consolidating, splitting, tagging, and indexing journals that have already been digitized–and locating and digitizing some back issues. This article contributes a single stop to find all digitized back-issues of the Army’s journals—an important step toward searchable archives.
Below, you’ll find a quick description of my approach toward finding the Army’s back issues and then the locations for all of the back issues I could locate. Send me a note if you find gaps or issues!
Finding the Army’s articles
This effort sought to (1) identify the number of back issues of the Army’s professional bulletins, and then (2) the number of back issues that have been digitized. Throughout, I use the term “issues” to describe each published magazine. This is separate from the number of “volumes” issued, which usually include all issues in a specific year. For example, Military Review is currently on volume 104 and issue 1, indicating it has been published for 104 years and that the January - February issue is the first one of this volume.
While Military Review’s history is clear, tracking down volumes and issues of branch journals is trickier. Branch journals have changed names, publishers, and publication frequency many times over their histories. A key reference for this effort is Michael Unsworth’s Military Periodicals for information on journals prior to that book’s publication in 1990. Details on name changes and journal issues generally come from his book.
Fortunately for the Army, hard working editors and librarians have largely digitized back-issues. I estimate that the Army’s fifteen professional bulletins and Parameters have published a total of 5,728 issues, of which 5,192 are online. This leaves only 536 that are likely only held in hard copy or on microfilm.1
The Army’s issues, digitized
Below, I provide a snapshot of each journal’s history, available digitized issues, and links to the sites where the digitized issues can be found. I use Army Publishing Directorate’s codes for each branch journal (technically professional bulletins [PBs]).
PB 1- Aviation Digest started in February 1955, generally publishing as a monthly and quarterly outlet with a break in publication between 1996 and 2012. The Digest published approximately 568 issues in total. 552 of 568 are available online.
2013-2023. https://home.army.mil/novosel/aviationdigest
Before 2012. https://armyeitaas.sharepoint-mil.us/sites/TR-ACOE-DOTDRUCKER/Aviation%20Digest%20Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx
PB 3- Army Chemical Review began as the Army Chemical Journal in 1985 and transitioned to a professional bulletin under the current name in 1987. Before this current incarnation, the Army published Chemical Warfare starting in 1919, which transitioned to the Chemical Corps Journal in 1946 and then the Armed Forces Chemical Journal from 1948-1964.
Army Chemical Review has published approximately 74 issues. 54 of 74 are available online. I could not find the number of issues published between 1985 and 1994, so I estimated that 20 issues were published at the rate of two per year.
PB 5- Engineer was founded by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1971. I estimate that Engineer has published 186 issues—and had digitized them all.
PB 6- Field Artillery has a winding history. The Field Artillery Association founded Field Artillery Journal in 1911. When the Field Artillery and Infantry Associations merged to become the Association of the United States Army in 1950, their journals merged to become the Combat Forces Journal in 1950 and then ARMY in 1954.
Then, in 1957, Fort Sill started a journal published under various names, eventually becoming the Field Artilleryman in 1969. Starting in 1987, Fort Sill’s artillery journal became Field Artillery: A Professional Journal for Redlegs. At some point, Field Artillery became Fires, a joint publication of the Field and Air Defense Artillery branches. However, in 2020, Fires split back out into branch journals and the Field Artillery Professional Bulletin resumed. Field Artillery has also had a close relationship with their revived association, who published the Field Artillery Journal from 1996 to 2007, and then from 2013 onwards.
All 592 issues of Field Artillery are digitized with 15 on DVIDS and the remainder on the Fort Sill website.
2023-2020. https://sill-www.army.mil/USAFAS/bulletin/
2019-1911 [under various names]. https://sill-www.army.mil/fires-bulletin-archive/
PB 7- Infantry has always been published as an outlet of the United States Army Infantry School. Originally started as a literal mailing list of instructional materials from the Infantry School, then-Lieutenant Colonel George C. Marshall brought then-Major Forrest Harding (our namesake) to shape their mailing list into Mailing List, initially a semi-annual publication. Harding published the first volume of Mailing List in 1930, which became the Infantry School Quarterly in 1947, and then Infantry in 1985.
According to Unsworth and the publications online since 1989, there are approximately 413 issues of Infantry under the names Infantry, Infantry School Quarterly, and Mailing List. 293 issues are available at the Infantry website, the Fort Moore library’s digital collections, and archive.org. Of the 413 issues, I estimate six issues may have been published between 1927 and 1929 before Harding took over Infantry and started the current volume numbers.
2023-1982. https://www.moore.army.mil/infantry/magazine/IssueYear.html
1982-1957 [confusing documents]. https://www.moore.army.mil/Library/Infantry%20Magazine/index.html
1990-1930 [Mailing List and Infantry]. https://archive.org/details/pub_infantry
PB 17- Armor has a tortured history similar to Field Artillery. Founded at Fort Leavenworth as the Journal of the United States Cavalry Association, this journal ran from 1888 until 1918 and then restarted publication in 1930 as the Cavalry Journal. In 1950, the Cavalry Journal became ARMOR as the armor branch assumed the lineage of the horse cavalry. In 1974, the Armor School took over ARMOR when rule changes forced officers off of association staffs.
ARMOR has published approximately 687 issues. 599 of 687 articles are available online at a variety of outlets.
2023-1983, 1953-1951, 1909-1888. https://www.moore.army.mil/armor/earmor/
1968-1888 [Cavalry Journal and other names]. https://www.moore.army.mil/Library/CavalryArmorJournal/index.html
1888-1938. https://archive.org/details/pub_armor
PB 19- Military Police started as the Military Police Law Enforcement Journal in 1974 after assuming the publication from the Military Police Association. In 1979, it became Military Police, Military Police Journal in 1982, and then Military Police in 1987.
I estimate that there are 279 issues of Military Police between 1974-2023 with 215 of 279 available online. I estimated the publication of 28 issues between 1974 and 1980 at the rate of four per year based on the publication rate in 1980, but could not find any references to the number of issues.
PB 20- Army History has been published by the Center of Military History since 1983. The Center’s website includes all volumes and issues for a total of 131.
PB 27- The Army Lawyer has been published by the Judge Advocate General’s School since 1971. I estimate that there are 586 issues of The Army Lawyer with 10 not digitized.
PB 34- Military Intelligence started in 1974, generally publishing on a quarterly basis. I estimate that there are 190 issues of Military Intelligence with 134 digitized. I estimated the publication of 36 issues between 2006 and 2014 based on publication patterns before and after that period.
2023-2015. https://mipb.army.mil/issues
PB 37- Protection has been published by the Maneuver Support Center of Excellence since 2022. There are three issues.
PB 44- Air Defense Artillery appeared in 1969 as Air Defense Trends, shortly after the Army reestablished the Air Defense branch in 1968. The name shifted to Air Defense Magazine in 1976 and then the current Air Defense Artillery in 1983. However, the AIr Defense branch can also claim lineage back to the old Journal of United States Artillery-Coast Artillery Journal-Antiaircraft Journal that ran from 1892 - 1954 and ultimately merged into AUSA’s ARMY.
In all, I estimate that there are 223 issues of Air Defense Artillery published between 1969 and 2023 with 73 digitized. I estimated 88 issues were published between 1969 and 2019 based on the issues in various years archived by the Hathi Trust.
2023-2020. https://www.dvidshub.net/publication/1333/air-defense-artillery-journal
2023-2020. https://sill-www.army.mil/ada-journal/
Various years. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Search/Home?lookfor=%22Air+defense+magazine%22&searchtype=all
PB 70- Army Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology Magazine (AL&T) has been published by the U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology since 1960 under various names. These names included Army Research and Development from 1960 to 1978 and then Army RD&A from 1980 - 2001.
I estimate there are 390 issues of AL&T with 384 digitized. I estimate that AL&T published six issues in 1972, but I could find no source for the actual number.
2023-2012. https://www.dvidshub.net/publication/526/army-alt-magazine
2023-1960. https://asc.army.mil/web/magazine/alt-magazine-archive/#gsc.tab=0
PB 100- Military Review published 882 English-language issues since 1922. Initially names Instructors Summary of Military Articles, the name changed to Review of Current Military Writing in 1925, Quarterly Review of Military Literature in 1931, and Military Review in 1939.
PB 700- Army Sustainment started as Army Logistician in 1969, converting to Army Sustainment in 2009, and publishing a total of 316 issues, all of which are digitized.
2023-1996. https://www.dvidshub.net/publication/1361/army-sustainment
2023-1996. https://alu.army.mil/alog/backissues.html
Some of these appear to be hosted at DTIC. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA561178
Parameters is the journal of the Army War College, starting in 1971, and publishing 202 issues.
1971-2023. https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/