FM 3-50: Smoke Operations

Official US Army Field Manual in Acrobat PDF file format. Field Manual 3-50 provides US Army units with doctrine, tactics, techniques, and procedures to use smoke and obscurants to attack and defeat specific enemy targets, sensors, target acquisition systems, weapon guidance systems, and other enemy electro-optical devices. Also, it describes techniques to reduce friendly degradation in smoke. The scope of this manual is smoke operations at the operational and tactical levels of war. The target audience is maneuver unit commanders and staff officers, particularly the G2/S2, G3/S3, FSO, and chemical officer at corps level and below. Most of the examples depict smoke support for brigadelevel operations. The focus is on synchronized smoke planning — smoke integrated into the commander’s tactical plan, sustained as necessary to defeat the enemy’s electro-optical systems andcreate a "one-way mirror" — one which our forces can both see and shoot through to set the terms of battle. Smoke is a