The advantages of a one-time printing of military technical manuals that can be used without change by common language military allies is self-evident. The author describes efforts that have been made in this direction by the ABCA nations. In the process the time-honored method of structuring manuals to follow a rigid maintenance philosophy had to yield to a more flexible approach. Under this approach, each nation or military service is free to set its own maintenance philosophy independently of the pertinent manual. An interesting potential for eliminating further minor differences in the varied requirements of the military services is thereby suggested.