The Small Unit Tactics SMARTbook

Leader's Reference Guide to Conducting Tactical Operations

Tactics is the employment and ordered arrangement of forces in relation to each other. Through tactics, commanders use combat power to accomplish missions. The tactical-level commander uses combat power in battles, engagements, and small-unit actions.

Establishing a common frame of reference, doctrine provides a menu of practical options based on experience. It provides an authoritative guide for leaders and Soldiers but requires original applications that adapt it to circumstances.

The Small Unit Tactics SMARTbook translates and bridges operational-level doctrine into tactical application -- in the form of tactics, techniques and procedures -- and provides the “how to” at the small-unit level, providing a ready reference at the battalion, company, platoon, squad and fire team level.

What's Inside:
The Small Unit Tactics SMARTbook includes chapters on Tactical Mission Fundamentals, Offensive Operations, Defensive Operations, Stability and Counterinsurgency Operations, Tactical Enabling Operations, Special Purpose Attacks, Urban Operations and Attacking Fortifications, and Patrols and Patrolling.


SMARTbooks - The Essentials of Warfighting!


Recognized as a doctrinal reference standard by military professionals around the world, SMARTbooks are designed with all levels of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Civilians in mind.

SMARTbooks can be used as quick reference guides during actual tactical combat operations, as study guides at military education and professional development courses, and as lesson plans and checklists in support of training. Serving a generation of warfighters, military reference SMARTbooks have become "mission-essential" around the world.

The SMARTbook series consists of eight professional military titles:

- The Joint Forces Operations & Doctrine SMARTbook (Guide to Joint, Multinational & Interagency Operations)
- The Army Operations & Doctrine SMARTbook (Guide to FM 3-0 Operations & the Six Warfighting Functions)
- The Naval Operations & Doctrine SMARTbook (Guide to Designing, Planning & Conducting Maritime Operations)
- The Battle Staff SMARTbook (Guide to Designing, Planning & Conducting Military Operations)
- The Small Unit Tactics SMARTbook (Leader's Reference Guide to Conducting Tactical Operations)
- The Stability, Peace & Counterinsurgency SMARTbook (Nontraditional Approaches in a Dynamic Security Environment)
-  The Leader's SMARTbook (Doctrinal Guide to Military Leadership & Training for Full Spectrum Operations)
- The Sustainment & Multifunctional Logistician's SMARTbook (Warfighter's Guide to Logistics, Personnel Services, & Health Services Support)