Armor (magazine)

ARMOR is the professional journal of the U.S. Army’s Armor Branch, published by the Chief of Armor at Fort Knox, Kentucky, training center for the Army’s tank and cavalry forces (United States Army Armor School). Armor magazine is the US Army's oldest professional journal, founded by US Cavalry Officers in 1885, and originally titled as The Cavalry Journal.^[1]

History

the Journal was originally created by Cavalry Officers on the American frontier as a forum for discussing doctrine, tactics, and equipment among soldiers geographically separated by the great distances of the American West. With the creation of the US Armored Forces in 1940,^[2] The Cavalry Journal was renamed to Armor, the Magazine of Mobile Warfare. In the 1990s the US Army changed the name and status of the journal, reclassifying it as Armor-The Professional Development Bulletin of the Armor Branch PB-17-94-1.

Present

ARMOR continues this mission today, although the horses have yielded to tanks and armored fighting vehicles, and the distances between soldiers and units now span duty stations across the globe.

ARMOR’s reason for being is not to reinforce official positions, or to act as a command information conduit, but to surface controversy and debate among professionals in the force. Significantly, the articles in ARMOR are not picked by a publications review board, but by the journal’s editor-in-chief and staff. Indeed, ARMOR authors frequently deal with problems they have encountered while attempting to implement official doctrine, concerns about the wisdom of particular tactics, useful discoveries they have made within their own units, and techniques that need to be shared with others. These articles have, in turn, stirred readers to reply, and the resulting debate has enlivened many of the journal’s letters to the editor.

Notes

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Army.

References

• United States Armor Association, Fort Knox, KY, USA
• Zaloga, Steven J. Armored Thunderbolt; The US Army Sherman in World War II. Mechanicsville, PA (USA): Stackpole Books. ISBN 978-0-8117-0424-3.