Every entry in the Defense records system exists because some decision needed a documented basis, and DD Form 2683 is one of those instruments: DD Form 2683, Design Criteria Summary Worksheet, February 1994, created to Design Criteria Summary Worksheet. The reason it carries a DD number rather than a service designation is structural — the Department maintains a single body of forms for matters that arise identically in every service, so that a record created in one component remains intelligible in another.
This is why the arrangement matters to you rather than only to the archivists. not stated governs the form throughout the Department, with not stated as the responsible office, so the record you create is legible outside your own component. Joint assignments, agency details and cross-service transactions all depend on that: the paperwork does not have to be reconstructed each time it crosses a boundary.
You are looking for edition not stated, listed as not stated. Department-wide supersession is a single event rather than a rollout, which is what distinguishes edition currency on a DD form from the same question on a service publication: nobody anywhere is still accepting the previous version out of habit.
The sequence printed on the form is the sequence in which a reviewer will read it, and the two should agree. Header data frames every entry below it; the substantive fields depend on that frame; the certification stands at the end because its whole function is to vouch for what came before. Entries made out of sequence commonly contradict entries made earlier.
Before the first entry, compare the date printed on the form face with not stated. This is not bureaucratic fussiness. Editions change field numbering, and a receiving office working from the current layout may look for information where your copy does not put it. On a Department form the exposure is wider than usual: your record may be reviewed by an office in another service entirely, one with no reason to remember what the previous edition looked like.
Fill all of it, marking inapplicable items N/A. A record with gaps cannot later demonstrate whether the gap was a decision or an oversight, which is exactly the ambiguity documentation exists to remove. Dates go in the form's own format — on a document that crosses service lines, an ambiguous date is a real hazard rather than a pedantic one.
The Privacy Act Statement is not boilerplate appended for legal cover; it is the mechanism by which a statutory obligation is discharged at the moment of collection. When the government asks an individual for personal information, it must state the authority under which it asks, the principal purpose, the routine uses to which the data may be put, and whether answering is voluntary or mandatory. Those four disclosures are placed ahead of the data fields deliberately, because the point of telling you is to inform a choice you have not yet made.
Signature is the point at which a completed form becomes a certification, and the requirement follows from that. On paper it means ink in the designated block; electronically it means a credentialed digital signature, ordinarily applied with a Common Access Card in software that supports it. A name typed into the signature field is data, not an act — it demonstrates nothing about who entered it. The date beside the signature fixes when the certification was made, which is why a signed but undated block is treated as incomplete.
Recurring defects have a pattern to them, and it is mostly the pattern of a record that cannot be relied on: an edition that does not match, gaps that cannot be interpreted, entries that cannot be read after scanning, dates that could mean two things, and a certification nobody executed. For an ambiguous field, read the form's own instruction, then not stated, which controls.
Download the form
Formats available: PDF, across 1 pages and about 200 fields. That several formats coexist is a consequence of scale — the Department cannot standardize the software on every desk that needs this form, so it standardizes the document instead.
Fillable and printable are not two presentations of one file but two different objects. One holds your entries as structured data within the document; the other is a static picture meant to meet a pen. Since a DD form frequently moves outside the organization that created it, the durability of the entry matters more here than on a record that stays in one drawer. Typed text reproduces indefinitely; handwriting degrades at every copy.
What the form asks for
- Column a. Enter primary or secondary
- Column b. Enter asset category
- Column c. Enter asset value
- Column a. Design Basis Threat, D B T, Moving vehicle bomb. Enter here.
- Column a. Level of protection, L O P, Moving vehicle bomb. Enter here.
- Column b. Design Basis Threat, D B T, Stationary vehicle bomb. Enter here.
- Column b. Level of protection, L O P, Stationary vehicle bomb. Enter here.
- Column c. Design Basis Threat, D B T, exterior. Enter here.
- Column c. Level of protection, L O P, exterior. Enter here.
- Column d. Design Basis Threat, D B T, stand off weapons. Enter here.
- Column d. Level of protection, L O P, stand off weapons. Enter here.
- Column e. Design Basis Threat, D B T, ballistics. Enter here.
- Column e. Level of protection, L O P, ballistics. Enter here.
- Column f. Design Basis Threat, D B T, forced entry. Enter here.
- Column f. Level of protection, L O P, forced entry. Enter here.
- Column g. Design Basis Threat, D B T, covert entry. Enter here.
- Column g. Level of protection, L O P, covert entry. Enter here.
- Column h. Design Basis Threat, D B T, insider compromise. Enter here.
- Column h. Level of protection, L O P, insider compromise. Enter here.
- Column i. Design Basis Threat, D B T, visual surveillance. Enter here.
- Column i. Level of protection, L O P, visual surveillance. Enter here.
- Column j. Design Basis Threat, D B T, acoustic eavesdropping. Enter here.
- Column j. Level of protection, L O P, acoustic eavesdropping. Enter here.
- Column k. Design Basis Threat, D B T, electronic emanations eavesdropping. Enter here.
Route the executed form as not stated or local guidance directs, and retain a duplicate first. Cross-component routing is ordinary for DD forms, which is precisely why a personal copy earns its keep: the receiving office may belong to an organization you have no standing to query about a missing document.
Cross-referenced documents are found by series and number, with nothing further required. That the DD sequence is unified across the Department means a cited number identifies one form and no other, which is the practical payoff of centralizing the numbering in the first place.
It helps to see the DA and DD sequences as what they are: separate registries with separate custodians. One serves a single service under a service proponent, the other serves the Department under not stated or an equivalent office, and neither was ever indexed against the other. A number that appears in both systems points to two unrelated documents, which is why reading the prefix comes before reading the digits.
Understanding why editions change explains why checking them is not optional. Revision follows directive reissue, changes in what data is required, and amendments to mandatory notice text — decisions made at Department level and communicated through publication rather than notification. The file you saved does not update itself, so the edition date at download is what you rely on.
What you have here is the document and a description of it, which is a different thing from guidance. This page is not an organ of the Department, gives no legal or procedural advice, and makes no representation about the outcome of any filing; the offices that administer the requirement are the only ones positioned to answer that. Applicability, eligibility and procedural questions belong to not stated, to your servicing personnel office, or to the office designated in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 2683?
- DD Form 2683, Design Criteria Summary Worksheet, February 1994
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?