Historical technical sources: provenance first

Original does not mean correct

A government or industrial manual is a primary source for what its publisher documented at the time. It is not proof that every statement is current, safe, or applicable to different equipment.

Historical arms and military engineering documents are especially sensitive to provenance: edition, revision, distribution context, subsequent corrections, and translation matter.

Archive the source trail

• Preserve title, authoring organization, publication date, edition, and publicly available catalog identifier.
• Distinguish scans from verified transcriptions and original commentary.
• Record superseding guidance and historically changed terminology.
• Separate historical explanation from contemporary engineering claims.
• Check copyright, attribution, and applicable export classification before distributing attachments.

Write the modern chapter

A new handbook chapter should synthesize sources in original language, cite what each source actually supports, and clearly distinguish historical context from current scientific understanding.