United States Navy Diving Manual, Revision 4

The U.S. Navy Diving Manual is probably the most complete single reference on diving based on the most extensive research and experience in the world. Its five volumes discuss mixed-gas and oxygen rebreathers, no-decompression diving, open-circuit SCUBA ("conventional" SCUBA), surface-supplied air and mixed-gas (nitrox and heliox) diving, the diving environment, Navy dive procedures, physics, physiology and recompression chamber operation.

Unfortunately, the recreational diver, or even the tech diver, may not find much in here that they can apply to their own diving that they don't already know from the materials from their certification classes. An open water diver will already have no-compression tables, and a tech diver will already already have decompression tables from air and mixed gas. Also, the recreational SCUBA diver may be disappointed to find that the Navy (in my inference anyway, from reading this) eschews OC SCUBA in favor of surface-supplied except when surface-supplied is impractical. You may also bog down reading the sections on Navy procedure. (If recreational divers used these protocols, the number of crew and number of divers on a party dive boat would be reversed!)

A recreational diver looking for more information on recreational OC SCUBA beyond the superficial coverage of open water class materials might be better served by the PADI Encyclopedia of Recreational Diving.

However, the USN Diving Manual covers things that you won't see elsewhere, such as safe operating distances from SONAR and explosives!

I recommend this reference if you are like me - just curious about diving, how the military does it, and/or wants to have a complete reference library on diving.


Excellent Reference   March 8, 2001
 9 out of 9 found this review helpful

The 1999 Version USN Diving Manual discusses topics with the same thoroughness as the NOAA Diving Manual, when both cover the same topic. However, elements related to Navy or military diving, surface supplied air, and hardhat diving are of academic value to most SCUBA divers. Often looked for and thus should be mentioned, both Manuals cover thoroughly diving medicine: USN chamber decompression, dangerous marine animals, and emergent care procedures. However, NOAA's emphasis on SCUBA and many items with some relevance to sport divers, such as survey methods or search and recovery techniques, put it ahead of the USN Manual, on a relevance per dollar basis. One item of note, the USN Manual seems to have omitted the long term 02 exposure tables ... this maybe problematic as nitrox increases in popularity.

The USN Diving Manual is written in an easier to read format compared to the NOAA Diving Manual, and is excellent as a pocket synopsis [ the waterproof USN Diving Handbook.] It can be read quickly, but is also very procedural: do item 1-2-3-4-5. NOAA is more conceptual. However, given its cost [free as a pdf download from the US Navy or Army public websites] the USN Diving Manual has elements for civilian divers and is less wordy per topic that the verbose NOAA manual, to make it an excellent part of a Diving library.