Download the form
DA Form 461-5 handles one job: vehicle classification inspection. The official title is VEHICLE CLASSIFICATION INSPECTION. Download it below, fill it in, sign it, send it where your directive says. The edition on this page is 01/01/2000, status ACTIVE, running 1 page(s) with about 200 fields to complete.
Authority sits in two places. G-4 owns the form, AR 58-1 says when it is raised and where it goes. Routine cases need neither read in full — the page itself carries the sequence. The entries are completed by their subject or by unit administrative staff working from what that person supplies.
PDF, XFDL are available and the decision takes one second. Type your entries: fillable pdf. Write them: printable pdf. The published layout is common to both, so the format governs your method and nothing more.
Use a full pdf reader, not the browser viewer. Browser viewers display fields they cannot always save, and the loss shows up only when you reopen the file — type one entry, save, reopen, verify, then fill the rest. The xfdl file is IBM Lotus Forms, used inside Army systems, and opens in the Lotus Forms Viewer alone — no pdf reader, no word processor.
No charge, no account, no email address. The file is the published document, distributed unaltered.
What the form asks for
- Age
- CA3
- ClassCode
- Condition
- Cost
- CostA
- CostA_1
- CostA_10
- CostA_11
- CostA_12
- CostA_13
- CostA_14
- CostA_15
- CostA_16
- CostA_17
- CostA_18
- CostA_19
- CostA_2
- CostA_20
- CostA_21
- CostA_3
- CostA_4
- CostA_5
- CostA_6
Header first, always. Name as your official records spell it, identification number, unit, date of preparation — these four index the finished record, and an error in them hides the document from anyone searching for it later. The substantive blocks can wait thirty seconds.
Tab through the fields rather than clicking. The tab order was fixed when the form was built and generally follows the page, which catches boxes a mouse skips past. Check boxes and option buttons take a click, and an exclusive group clears the previous selection when you make a new one. Single-line fields do not wrap — text past the field width prints truncated while still showing in full on screen, which is why the loss is discovered after printing. Overflow goes to remarks or a continuation sheet. A field that does not apply gets the mark meaning none; blank space reads as an omission.
Signature comes after every other entry — ink or an approved electronic means, and without it the document is a draft. Where reviewing, approving or witnessing signatures are called for, take them in printed block order, each dated on the day applied. Before release, one pass from the top. The defects worth hunting are always the same four: mandatory fields left empty, identification digits transposed, dates with day and month reversed, and stale data surviving in a copy reused in place of a blank form.
The Privacy Act statement is read before the personal entries, not after. It gives the collection authority, the purpose, the routine uses and whether disclosure is mandatory or voluntary. Once filled, your copy is a personal record and gets stored and transmitted accordingly.
Send it where the directive says: the office it names, the unit administrative channel, or the individual's file. Take your copy before submission. How long the record is held comes from the schedule for the series, not from the office holding it.
Companion documents come from the same series and number scheme. Within the DA series, a shared proponent or a shared directive usually means shared use, and a form cited on the face of another accompanies it. Gather the whole package first — continuation sheets, cover sheets, transmittals.
Check the edition date before reusing a saved copy. Revisions come from the proponent without notice to you, and the printed date is the only version marker on the page. Already-submitted records under a superseded edition stand as filed; the change does not run backwards.
What is distributed here are reproductions of published Department of the Army documents. Independent site, no official standing, no forms of its own. Nothing on the page constitutes legal advice, and acceptance by any office is outside what can be stated. Put questions about entries, requirements or eligibility to G-4 or your servicing administrative office.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 461-5?
- VEHICLE CLASSIFICATION INSPECTION
- Which edition is current?
- 01/01/2000
- Who is responsible for this form?
- G-4
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, XFDL, PDF
Publisher notes
- 42-ITEM ONLY PRODUCED IN ELECTRONIC MEDIA,