Administrative documents are written for readers who were not present, and DA Form 2406 is no exception. Titled MATERIEL CONDITION STATUS REPORT, it is used to materiel condition status report — a transaction that means little in conversation and a great deal in a file. The published edition here carries the date 04/01/1993 and the status ACTIVE. Its 2 page(s) and roughly 200 fields are sized to what the record must prove years later, which is always more than the moment appears to need.
Two offices stand behind the form, and the distinction between them explains most of what follows. G-4 is the proponent: it decides what the form asks and revises it when the underlying process changes. AR 700-138 is the prescribing authority: it decides when the form is raised at all and where the completed document travels. Content and occasion are separated deliberately, so that a change in procedure does not require redesigning the page.
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.
Much of the form's behaviour follows from its being a fixed page. Tab order was set at build time along the reading sequence, which is why tabbing catches boxes a pointer passes over. Exclusive groups release one choice when another is made because a record cannot carry two answers to a single question. Single-line fields refuse to wrap because every entry must print where the layout expects it — text beyond the width is lost at the margin, visible on screen to the end. That is what remarks areas and continuation sheets are for. Marking a field that does not apply matters for a related reason: emptiness is ambiguous, and a reviewer reading the file later cannot distinguish an omission from a decision.
Signing is the act that makes the document evidence, and until it happens the entries are only a proposal. Additional signatures — reviewer, approver, witness — each stand for a separate judgement, dated when applied so the record shows who accepted what and in what order. The common faults all damage that record in the same way: a blank mandatory field breaks the chain of required answers, swapped digits in an identification number detach the document from its subject, an inverted day and month misplaces it in time, and stale data from a reused copy states things nobody meant to state.
The Privacy Act statement is on the page because collecting personal information requires the collector to disclose the terms first — the authority relied on, the purpose, the routine uses, and whether an answer is required or may be withheld. That order is the point: the statement is read before the entries it governs, since consent given afterwards is not consent. Once completed, the copy is a personal record and carries the handling obligations that attach to one.
Download the form
The published formats — PDF, XFDL — reflect the range of places a form gets filled in. Where there is a computer, the fillable pdf supplies live fields that keep entries positioned and readable. Where there is not, the printable pdf gives the identical page as flat artwork for pen entry. The distinction is one of setting rather than of authority; the page is the same document in both.
Where a file opens matters more than it appears to. A browser will display a pdf, but browser viewers were built to read documents, and some accept keystrokes into fields they never intended to store — the entries are gone at tab close, without warning, because saving was never part of what that viewer does. A dedicated reader is built around the file's own structure and keeps what you enter. The xfdl file belongs to a different lineage entirely: IBM Lotus Forms, adopted across Army systems for the routing and signature handling built into it. That is why only the Lotus Forms Viewer reads it.
No charge and no account apply: these are published documents, and access to them is not something a distributor is entitled to price.
What the form asks for
- ATH_QTY
- ATH_QTY_1
- ATH_QTY_10
- ATH_QTY_11
- ATH_QTY_12
- ATH_QTY_13
- ATH_QTY_2
- ATH_QTY_3
- ATH_QTY_4
- ATH_QTY_5
- ATH_QTY_6
- ATH_QTY_7
- ATH_QTY_8
- ATH_QTY_9
- AVAIL_D
- AVAIL_D_1
- AVAIL_D_10
- AVAIL_D_11
- AVAIL_D_12
- AVAIL_D_13
- AVAIL_D_2
- AVAIL_D_3
- AVAIL_D_4
- AVAIL_D_5
The routing in AR 700-138 decides where the document goes — a named office, the administrative channel, or the individual's file — and the records schedule for the series decides how long it stays. Neither is a local judgement, because a record system loses its meaning if each office keeps things for its own preferred interval. Copy the form before submitting it.
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.
A word on where this page sits. These are reproductions of published Department of the Army documents, made available by an independent site with no official role and no authority to issue forms. The structure described above — proponent, prescribing directive, records schedule — exists apart from this site entirely, which is why nothing written here is legal advice and why acceptance by any office is not something that can be promised. Put questions of entry, requirement or eligibility to G-4 or to the administrative office servicing your unit.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 2406?
- MATERIEL CONDITION STATUS REPORT
- Which edition is current?
- 04/01/1993
- Who is responsible for this form?
- G-4
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, XFDL, PDF
Publisher notes
- 44-CRITICAL ITEM
- 41-ITEM ALSO PRODUCED IN ELECTRONIC MEDIA
- 02-REQUIRED FOR MOBILIZATION USE (AT MOB SITE)