Military Abbreviations

Hi.

I've been thinking, that as a "civvie" I don't understand what many of the military related abbreviations stand for and wonder if we can have a sort of "dictionary" that anyone can edit/add to? So we can refer to it when we don't know what the abbreviations stand for.

Example:

MLU: Maple Leaf Up
CMV: doesn't mean Country Music Video in here!
ZOMBIE:

etc.

Thanks. Carman the Civvie

[Steve Guthrie]

Hello there

Good point.

Questions (and answers) about such abbreviations are posted regulary here.

I always find them interesting, but just as often can't find them again when I need them.

I wonder what can be done
:

Steve

Originally posted by Steve Guthrie
Hello there

Good point.

Questions (and answers) about such abbreviations are posted regulary here.

I always find them interesting, but just as often can't find them again when I need them.

I wonder what can be done
:

Steve

STEVE: Thanks for your two-cents worth :-) Maybe that will help buy us what we want!

I've had that problem too...wanting to find the abbreviation's meaning again, and couldn't. Would be a whole lot easier to just have one place to look, then the people who know what they're talking about won't get requests like:

"What did those abbreviations stand for????"

It would also make for less time and words posting the replies in a thread and keep the post on-topic
instead of "explaining". I don't mind looking up the abbreviations and "understanding shop talk" is the norm in here so, as a visitor not knowing, I feel like I should be the one having to learn the meanings rather than asking people to explain.

That's another 2 cents worth from the peanut gallery me

Carman

[Jon Skagfeld]

Carman, Steve, et al:

Compiling such a list would be a formidable task for anyone who set out to do so. Military abbreviatioons span the three elements (sea, land, air) and in some cases, depending on the time frame, could mean different interpretations to different people in different elements.

Apart from most military books having a list of abbreviations attached for reference, military writing conventions dictate that the phrase is spelled out in full the first time it appears, with its abbreviation following in parentheses, i.e.:

"...upon the appearance of the Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers (AVRE), the situation stabilized...", or,

"...the General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG) is a crew-served weapon...".

I'm possibly one of the worst to include mil abbreviations in my posts, being forgetful that most MLUers wouldn't necessarily have had mil svc.

However, I'm sure that most MLUers would leap to your aid in answering an abbreviation query, probably overwhelming you with a cornucopia of info.

[Mark W. Tonner]

Hi Carman;

If it blew-up your inbox, don't blame me, you asked for it.....

Cheers

JON: Thank you. It's not hard for me to see your point when you put it thus! I withdraw my irrational request(GRIN!!!)Carman

=========================

And now for YOU, you old F#RT...M A R K>>>> what the heck have you DONE???? Oiy... if my mailbox is full I'm gonna sick my dearly departed VIKING GODS on you... and watch it, they're gonna be bringing along THORS HAMMER to thunp the daylights out of you GRIN!...Carman

Originally posted by Mark W. Tonner
Hi Carman;

If it blew-up your inbox, don't blame me, you asked for it.....

Cheers

[Mark W. Tonner]

Oh! Oh!.........................

[herr-pear]

It's even harder for us Yanks to grasp British and Canadian abreviations. One that has puzzled me for years is BUMF. ????

Could I assume it is the equilivant of the U.S. FUBAR or FUBB?

[Jon Skagfeld]

Go <Search>, <Google>, page 1 bottom, 06-28-20bloom.

This will give you the mildly scatological history of the term which derived from WW II Britain in relation to the mounds of paperwork cranked out by various War Department offices in support of the equipment in use at the time.

[Dana Nield]

BANG!