Administrative documents are written for readers who were not present, and DA Form 1669 is no exception. Titled REQUEST FOR NATIONAL STOCK NUMBER AND DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE IDENTIFICATION CODE FOR AMMUNITION AND EXPLOSIVE SUPPLIES, it is used to request for national stock number and department of defense identification code for ammunition and explosive supplies — a transaction that means little in conversation and a great deal in a file. The published edition here carries the date 10/01/1976 and the status ACTIVE. Its 2 page(s) and roughly 155 fields are sized to what the record must prove years later, which is always more than the moment appears to need.
Behind any Army form sit two separate decisions. What the document asks is settled by AMC, which maintains and revises it. Whether you raise it, and where it goes once signed, is settled by TB 9-1300-256. That division is the reason a form can outlive several changes in the process it serves.
Identification precedes substance for a structural reason. Name, identification number, organisation and date of preparation are how the finished document is located in a file or a database; the body of the form is what someone reads after the search has succeeded. Spell the name as official records spell it, since the search runs against those records and not against habit.
The rules of entry all trace back to the page being fixed in advance. Tabbing follows the order built into the form, which usually matches how the page reads and misses less than clicking. An exclusive group discards the earlier selection because contradictory entries would make the record unusable. One-line fields have no wrap because print positions are predetermined, so an overlong entry displays fully and prints truncated. Longer text goes to the remarks area or a continuation, both provided for exactly that. Where nothing applies, the nil mark is entered — a blank leaves the reader unable to tell a considered answer from a skipped one.
A signature is what converts entries into a record, which is why it comes last and why an unsigned form remains a draft however complete it looks. Where a reviewing official, an approving authority or a witness also signs, each adds a distinct attestation, and each dates the day of signing rather than the day of preparation — the dates trace the sequence of responsibility. The recurring defects are worth knowing precisely because they defeat that purpose: an empty mandatory field leaves an obligation unmet, transposed identification digits attach the record to nobody, a date with day and month reversed puts events in the wrong order, and entries left in a reused working copy assert facts nobody intended.
Behind the Privacy Act statement is a requirement that anyone asked for personal data be told, in advance, under what authority it is sought, for what purpose, who else routinely sees it, and whether refusal is possible. Reading it after completing the fields defeats its function. And the completed form is itself a personal record from that point on, subject to the handling rules such records carry.
Download the form
Why several files for one page? Because the form has to be completed in a headquarters and in places without a workstation, and PDF, XFDL covers both. The fillable pdf holds interactive fields that fix each entry in place and remove handwriting from the equation. The printable pdf is the same layout without those fields, meant for a printer and a pen. Neither is a lesser copy of the other; each answers a condition the other cannot.
The choice of application decides whether your work survives. Browsers render pdfs as documents to be read; where a viewer shows fields without a mechanism to store them, typed text disappears when the tab closes, and nothing announces the loss. A full reader treats the file as a form and preserves entries on save. The xfdl format comes from IBM Lotus Forms, used across Army systems because of the routing and signature functions built into it, and it opens in the Lotus Forms Viewer alone.
Downloads are free and unregistered. The material was published for general use, and the files are passed on unaltered.
What the form asks for
- AVERAGE
- CODE
- COND
- ContentArea1
- DATE
- DATE_A
- DATE_B
- DATE_C
- DATE_R
- DRAW
- FROM
- FROM_A
- GRADE
- HEIGHT
- ITEM
- LENGTH
- MARK
- NAME_A
- NEW
- NOMEN
- ONHAND
- PACKING
- POUNDS
- PRODC
Disposition is prescribed, not chosen. TB 9-1300-256 names the destination, whether that is a specific office, the unit administrative channel or the personal record, and the applicable records schedule governs how long it survives there. Both rules exist to keep the file consistent across offices with different habits. Take your copy before the document leaves, since it will not come back.
Forms cluster by series and number for the same reason files do: shared proponency and a shared prescribing directive usually mean a shared process. So a document in the DA series referenced on the face of another is generally part of the same transaction, and continuation sheets, cover sheets and transmittals belong to the package from the outset rather than arriving after a query.
An edition marks the form at a point in a process that keeps moving, and the date printed on the page is what distinguishes one from another. Since a saved file never announces its own obsolescence, compare its date against the current edition before using it again. Prior executions remain valid: the change applies forward, and a record is read against the edition it was written under.
It is worth being plain about what this page is within all of the above. The files are reproductions of published Department of the Army documents, offered for download by a site with no official standing and no part in issuing anything. That matters because the machinery described here — proponency, prescribing directives, records schedules — runs entirely elsewhere. Nothing written here is legal advice, and no statement can be made about whether an office will accept a given document. AMC and the administrative office servicing your unit answer questions of entry, requirement and eligibility, and they are the ones positioned to.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 1669?
- REQUEST FOR NATIONAL STOCK NUMBER AND DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE IDENTIFICATION CODE FOR AMMUNITION AND EXPLOSIVE SUPPLIES
- Which edition is current?
- 10/01/1976
- Who is responsible for this form?
- AMC
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, XFDL, PDF
Publisher notes
- 42-ITEM ONLY PRODUCED IN ELECTRONIC MEDIA,