The Tactical Notebook is an “evergreen” blog composed of short articles about various aspects of the military organizations, events, practices, and ideas of the modern era. While the majority of the articles deal with European and American armies of the years between 1900 and 1950, the Tactical Notebook also publishes pieces about other times, places, and institutions.

As its name suggests, the Tactical Notebook continues the work done by the print publication of the same name of the 1990s. Indeed, many of the articles in this blog are updated versions of pieces that originally appeared in the earlier incarnation of the magazine. As was the case with the analog Tactical Notebook, the articles that make up this blog are heavy on facts and light on opinion. Some, indeed, are little more than lists of various kinds, while others are translations of material found in foreign-language books and archives.

If you like what you see on Tactical Notebook, you will probably find much of interest in the “flotilla” of small blogs connected to the Military Learning Gateway. The same website is also linked to the Military Learning Library, which also contains articles, transcripts, and documents about the same sorts of subjects covered by the Tactical Notebook.

As of July 2023, five hundred articles have been posted on Tactical Notebook. With that in mind, the following article provides some approaches to navigating the site.

For more on the philosophy behind the Tactical Notebook, please see:

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The Tactical Notebook explores the armies that are, the armies that were, and the armies that might have been.

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Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson

I write two Substacks: The Tactical Notebook and Extra Muros.