Dictionary

This page will be a dictionary of acronyms that may or may not  be common knowledge. I will endeavor to ensure that I update it to include every acronym I use in articles. If I miss one, let me know. If you SAY I missed one, then I find that it’s already herein, expect a not-too-pleasant response to the comment. (Holy fuck me! I just found a webpage that is nothing but a dictionary of military acronyms. There’s shit on there I’ve never even heard of…..Basic Advanced Tactical Surveillance Heat/Air Infrared Targeting System, anyone?) I’m probably not going to take the time to put them in alphabetical order anytime soon though, so…..

And, honestly? It’s not that hard to type the acronym into Google and find a definition, so don’t get too uptight if I don’t go any faster than a moderate range walk to get this page further along.

ABN; Airborne, specifically referring to parachute-deployed forces, such as the Eighty-Douche, not used in reference to airborne in the sense of flying aircraft.

TTPs: Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures. Should be pretty fucking self-explanatory.

METT-TC: Mission, Enemy, Terrain, Troops, Time, Civil Considerations (Yeah, I probably got my Ts mixed up. In damned near twenty years, I’ve YET to be able to keep them in the doctrinal order.)

UW: Unconventional Warfare

UWO: UnderWater Operations, typically SFUWO. The cool-guy name for Special Forces SCUBA shit. I’m not dive-qual’d, so I don’t generally discuss that (Never mind the fact that I live somewhere between 5000 and 10,000 feet ABOVE sea level...).

OAKOC: Observations and fields of fire, Avenues of Approach, Key Terrain Features, Obstacles, and Cover and concealment. Used to analyze the Terrain aspect of METT-TC.

SF: Special Forces. Not the same as SOF. While SF is a SOF, not all SOF are SF….Got it?

SOF: Special Operations Forces. SF, Ranger Regiment, 160th SOAR, SEALs, MARSOC, JSOC, etc….

ODA/SFODA: Operational Detachment Alpha. 12-man Special Forces operational detachment
HH6/Household Six: In military radio parlance, “six” is the designator for a unit commander. In common usage (within the .mil), Household Six is the vernacular term for the missus.

TMO=The Morale Officer. A personal term for my daughter, this prevents me from using her name online. Since she has a very unique name, it would be a target identifier for some people in the SOF world who know me in real-time.