How to pronounce this crap

[MikeyD]

Dumb question from a non-military dilletent.

There are lots of vehicles and weapons out there that go by names and numbers and combinations thereof. Can someone fill me in on how you soldiers out there actually refer to the equipment?

As an example, I heard an Iraq vet on the radio talking about "eleven-fourteens", referring to the M1114 armored hummer. That was the first time I had heard them referred to that way. So how do you refer to the bigger M1117 armored car - 'eleven-seventeen'? Do you call Strykers 'Strykers' or do you refer to them by vehicle type "eleven-twenty six" (M1126)?

This reminds me of debates about WWII naming practices. Old Brit soldiers claim that nobody in NW Europe in 1944 was using the names Firefly or Archer or Wolverine for their vehicles.

[hellfish]

Firstly, there are no "hummers" in the Army unless you're a REMF up for promotion. There are only humvees. Strykers are just Strykers, AFAIK, except for the MGS - which is called "MGS" or "taking too damn long to get here".

[gibsonm]

Mythical Gun System

[M1A1TC]

M1A1/A2 Abrams tank- "M1" and "A2"

M113 - "113"

Bradley is just "Bradley"

HEMT - "Hemmet"

Infantry and scouts - "Crunchies"

[mun13f]

There's no predicting what soldiers will end up calling something, though the highest likelihood is that the name will be based on numerical nomenclature or a name like "Abrams". Here are some examples from the artillery:

M109A6 self-propelled howitzer: "Gun", sometimes "Paladin" or "howitzer"

M981, fire support team vehicle: "FIST-V"

M548, old crappy ammo supply vehicle:" five-four-eight"

M992, ammo supply vehicle: most often "CAT", derived from "Carrier, Ammunition Tracked"; sometimes "FAAS-V" (official acronym for Field Artillery Ammunition Supply Vehicle)

M88, armored recovery vehicle: "eighty-eight"

M577 tracked command vehicle: "five-seven-seven"

as for Humvees, we called the ones with a weapon station in the middle (M1025) a "gun-truck" and the two-seater with an open back a "high-back", and the four-seaters "low-backs", and every now and again we referred to the latter two as "nine-nine-eights"

[oren_m]

In the IDF we have a small urban myth.

The myth says that when the IDF got his first M52 5 Ton trucks, they had writings on them, and on all the trucks there was written "R10", and some stupid (but important) officer had decided that it is not "R10" but "RIO", and since then, all the 5 Ton trucks are called RIO.

Oren_m

[SgtMuhammed]

In OPFOR land we called them:

M1 - Mike 1

M2/M3 - Brad

Any Humvee or truck - Ash and trash

Medic 113's - Band aids

(The order to kill the last two was "Give them a training event.")

Leopard II - Leo's

Any Dutch APC - Yip

The rest were the same as everyone else calls them.