U.S.

ARMY MEDICAL DEPARTMENT CENTER AND SCHOOL AMEDD NONCOMMISSIONED OFFICERS ACADEMY ADVANCED NONCOMMISSIONED OFFICER COURSE Military Symbols and Overlay Techniques Supplementary Reading #1

WVBN-09B 0698

Overlays are tools military leaders must use to clarify and shorten complicated written orders. They make exact transfer of information from map to map, and from leader to subordinate easy and quick. The operations section of your higher headquarters normally prepares overlays. However, there may be times when you will have to construct and overlay. You will make it using either your situation or operations map, depending on the information you want to provide. The purpose of this lesson is to teach you one fundamental of constructing an overlay; the knowledge of military symbols. When you come to resident training you will prepare a map overlay using unit symbols to depict the location of friendly and enemy units using six-digit coordinates. To begin, military symbols are signs composed of diagrams, numbers, letters, abbreviations, colors or combinations that identify and distinguish a particular military unit, activity or installation. We show only the detail with which the report is directly concerned. An overlay loses its value if it becomes complicated or cluttered with unnecessary symbols. Simplicity, uniformity, and clarity are keys to good overlays. Plot only essential details. If you havent worked with symbols recently you will see, in this lesson, the impact of technology on doctrine. For example, IAW FM 101-5-1, circles replace squares or rectangles. Important for the AMEDD, the symbol for a basic medical element is no longer a circle around a cross, but a rectangle around a cross. A major change concerns friendly and enemy units. You may remember these symbols as squares, with the friendly drawn in black and enemy drawn in red. Now, friendly is a rectangle and, if hand drawn, the color is blue. If computer generated the color is cyan. Enemy elements are now diamonds and if hand drawn or computer generated the color is red.

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WVBN-09B 0698 This lesson covers the fundamentals of construction and techniques of depicting military symbols used on situation maps, planning maps, operations maps and overlays. No attempt is made to depict all military symbols. However, the symbols that you will study will provide you with techniques and uniform methods for graphically portraying various units, activities, control measures, and other tactical information. Once you are familiar with the techniques and basic construction of military symbols you will be able to develop any desired symbol by following a clear, logical, and concise sequence.

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