U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)

Overview

A United States defense standard, often called a military standard, is used to help achieve standardisation objectives by the U.S. Department of Defense. Standardisation is beneficial in achieving interoperability, ensuring products meet certain requirements, commonality, reliability, total cost of ownership, compatibility with logistics systems, and similar defense-related objectives

Following is a brief description of the primary document categories.

Defense Specifications

Specifications are also referred to as product descriptions. They can be simple or complex, depending on the complexity of the product, the environment in which it is intended to be used, or whether it requires qualification. There are two major types of specifications: performance specifications (MIL-PRF-) and detail specifications (MIL-DTL-). Detail specifications in an active or inactive status published prior to June 1994 that haven't been revised since may still begin as MIL-A-, MIL-B-, MIL-C, etc., where the alpha character is generally the first letter in the nomenclature of the item described in the specification (e.g., a specification beginning with "MIL-T-" might be describing tanks, telephones, tents, transformers, trousers, tubes, and so on). Both performance and detail specifications may have one or more accompanying specifications, often referred to as "slash" sheets, which may describe unique dimensions, tests, or other requirements that apply to one or more parts and are in addition to the requirements in the general specification. For some older documents still in an active or inactive status, these associated specifications were published as MS drawings, which have a unique document designation beginning with the letters "MS."

Defense Standards

Defense standards are commonly referred to as MIL standards. There are five different types: standard practices, interface standards, design criteria standards, test method standards, and manufacturing process standards.