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Use DA Form 7638 when you need to military sketch panoramic and topographic views. Full title: MILITARY SKETCH PANORAMIC AND TOPOGRAPHIC VIEWS. Everything you need is on this page — the file, the entry rules, the routing. Edition 12/01/2017, status ACTIVE, 1 page(s), roughly 102 fields. Note the supersession: a later edition exists, and this one applies only to records already completed on it.
Two references decide everything about your use of it: T2COM maintains the content, FM 3-22.10 sets the trigger and the routing. Consult the directive when your case is not routine; otherwise the printed blocks tell you enough. The person named in the entries fills it, or the administrative office holding the file does it for them.
PDF 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.
Save the download and open it in a dedicated reader. That single step prevents the common failure: an in-browser viewer accepts your typing and discards it at tab close. Confirm with one field and one save cycle before committing the whole form.
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What the form asks for
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The heading entries carry more weight than the body. Name spelled as in official records, identification number, organisation, date prepared. Retrieval runs on those values, so a transposed digit or a casual spelling costs someone a file search. Fill them before anything else.
Tabbing beats clicking for coverage. The order was set at build time and tracks the page layout, so following it leaves no gaps. Boxes and buttons are clicked; where options are exclusive, one selection cancels another by design. Watch field width on long entries: one-line fields have no wrap, and what runs past the edge disappears in print though the screen still shows it. Move that text to remarks or a continuation. Never leave an inapplicable field empty — enter the nil mark, because a reviewer cannot distinguish a skipped question from a considered answer.
Sign last. An unsigned form is a draft whatever else is on it, and additional signatures — reviewer, approver, witness — follow printed block order with each signer dating the day they sign, not the day of preparation. Four faults account for most returns: a blank mandatory field, transposed digits in an identification number, day and month reversed in a date, and leftover entries in a working copy reused instead of a fresh blank. Read the form once from the top before releasing it.
Read the Privacy Act statement at the point it appears. Authority, purpose, routine uses, mandatory or voluntary — four facts, and they govern what you are about to enter. A completed copy holds personal data and takes the handling rules that attach to it.
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.
Related forms are found by series and number. DA series documents under the same proponent or the same prescribing directive are commonly required as a set, and any form named on the face of this one goes forward with it. Assemble continuations, covers and transmittals before submitting, not after the query comes back.
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.
These are reproductions of published Department of the Army documents, offered for download. The site is independent, connected to nothing official, and issues no forms of its own. Nothing here is legal advice and no statement is made about acceptance by any office. Questions about an entry, a requirement or eligibility go to T2COM or your servicing administrative office.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 7638?
- MILITARY SKETCH PANORAMIC AND TOPOGRAPHIC VIEWS
- Which edition is current?
- 12/01/2017
- Who is responsible for this form?
- T2COM
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, PDF