[OT] Stupid Military Terminology Question

16 posts ยท Dec 30 1998 to Dec 31 1998

From: John C <john1x@h...>

Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 08:05:48 PST

Subject: [OT] Stupid Military Terminology Question

What is a good generic term for an individual vehicle or squad, other than
element? Or, in other words, in the following sentence, what word would you
substitute for X?

"One Unit consists of one or more seperate X."

...where X is a tank, helicopter, infantry platoon, secret weapon, or
something similar. I am currently working on the military rules for Destroy
All Monsters!, and I need a nice, simple term. "Elements" just

seems a little...unfriendly, if that makes any sense. Any ideas? I'm not
normally this brain dead, but the holidays have taken a lot out of
me.  Please reply directly to me--there's no need to clutter up the list

with my foolishness.

Thanks,

From: ScottSaylo@a...

Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 11:45:51 EST

Subject: Re: [OT] Stupid Military Terminology Question

<<"One Unit consists of one or more seperate X." <<

I'm not sure of the unit scale in the game you mention, but a good generic
military sounding term is "maneuver element"

Currently Corps are made up of divisions, divisions of Brigades, Brigades of
Battalions, Battalions of Companies, Companies of Platoons, Platoons of
Squads, Squads of Fire Teams, and Fire Teams of soldiers.

A vehicle Platoon is made up of individual vehicles.

From: bug@i... (M. Ridout)

Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 12:00:19 -0500

Subject: Re: [OT] Stupid Military Terminology Question

> <<"One Unit consists of one or more seperate X." <<

How about X = element

Just my 2 cents

Michael

From: bug@i... (M. Ridout)

Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 12:01:51 -0500

Subject: Re: [OT] Stupid Military Terminology Question

oops babies sure make u foregetful

> <<"One Unit consists of one or more seperate X." <<

Ment to say X = entity

doh!

just my 2 cents worth

Michael

From: ScottSaylo@a...

Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 15:16:29 EST

Subject: Re: [OT] Stupid Military Terminology Question

They wouldn't call them "tracks" if they were wheeled, hover, or grav
vehicles, now would they?

From: Wasserman, Kurt <wasku01@m...>

Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 15:30:15 -0500

Subject: RE: [OT] Stupid Military Terminology Question

Howsabout... Treaded = Tracks Wheeled = Tubes Hover = Winds Grav = Hums
Surface Craft = Tubs SubSurface Craft = Sinks Fixed Wing Aircraft = Flyers
Rotary Wing Aircraft = Flutters AeroSpace = Flitters
?

<Cloaks then Ducks>

-=Kr'rt
Look, it's been slow at work, OK? <G>

> ----------

From: Nathan Pettigrew <nathanp@M...>

Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 12:49:49 -0800

Subject: RE: [OT] Stupid Military Terminology Question

<overhead> Well the Narn bat squad please report to the C&C. We have a
situation...
</overhead>

> -----Original Message-----

From: ScottSaylo@a...

Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 16:00:45 EST

Subject: Re: [OT] Stupid Military Terminology Question

Tubes? guns are tubes.

How about: Wheeled = Flats Hover = Farts Grav = Bloats Surface Craft = Bobs
Subs = Coffins Fixed Wings = Screamers VTOL's = Fans

From: John C <john1x@h...>

Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 13:12:01 PST

Subject: Re: [OT] Stupid Military Terminology Question

Just to explain the kind of thing that I am going for here...Destroy All

Monsters! is a game of my own design (with elements liberally borrowed from
many sources) that deals with combat between giant Monsters, aided
by low-budget special effects.  The rules are on my website, at

http://www.voicenet.com/johncrim/Monsters.html

if anyone is interested. I am working on rules right now for the Army: those
poor, hapless fools who are doomed to be crushed in droves beneath

the feet of uncaring Monsters. I am trying to create a reasonably accurate
simulation of the kind of battles you see in Godzilla movies, while still
giving the Military player a fighting chance. The resulting

rules won't be suitable for playing realistic modern Armor battles (see DSII
for that), but should do the job for me.

The available forces will be limited to tanks, missile tanks, helicopters, a
Secret Weapon (Oxygen Destroyers and the like), and infantry squads. If there
is any kind of demand, I'll add a few other things, like APCs and heroes, but
I want to playtest the basic rules first.

All I really want is a generic term for an individual vehicle or
squad--I'd just use "vehicle" if it weren't for those pesky squads of
infantry--that I can use to designate them in the rules.  I'm using Unit

to designate a group of tanks (or whatever) that all move at the same time.
"Good Guy" is not a bad idea, and I now have something to fall back upon, but
I would like something a little more formal.

By the way: Thank you all for the responses. I assumed that everyone was off
on vacation, since the list has been so slow for the past week.

Apparently, I was wrong....

From: ScottSaylo@a...

Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 16:33:37 EST

Subject: Re: [OT] Stupid Military Terminology Question

We've all had fun offering suggestions. However, if you're l;ooking for a good
generic term, I would suggest "platform". It stretches to fit about anything,
and won't confuse the reader.

From: Los <los@c...>

Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 13:50:14 -0800

Subject: Re: [OT] Stupid Military Terminology Question

> ScottSaylo@aol.com wrote:

> A vehicle Platoon is made up of individual vehicles.

Which are also just called "tracks". (i.e. there's four tracks in a Triton IV
platoon)

From: Los <los@c...>

Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 18:52:49 -0500

Subject: Re: [OT] Stupid Military Terminology Question

I don't know, maybe they would. The Triton IV in my example is a tracked
vehicle. BTW there are still plenty of tracked vehicles in the future. Heck
they still call vehicles mounts (a very common term today) too after the old
cavalry terms for horses. Last time I looked around the 1st Cav isn't fighting
wars with horses now are they?

From: John Leary <john_t_leary@y...>

Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 19:14:30 -0800

Subject: Re: [OT] Stupid Military Terminology Question

John C
...snip...JTL
> All I really want is a generic term for an individual vehicle or

From: CartoGrafx@a...

Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 23:11:41 EST

Subject: Re: [OT] Stupid Military Terminology Question

I think Combat Elements
                  or
Component Units

From: John Fox <jfox@v...>

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1998 01:47:07 -0800 (PST)

Subject: Re: [OT] Stupid Military Terminology Question

John: There are several word that come to mind at this moment. 1) Weapons
Platform(s) 2) Operations Unit(s) 3) Fighting Asset(s) 4) Firepower Delivery
System(s) 5) MDU(s) [Monster Destroying Unit(s)] 6) MEU(s) [Monster
Extermination Unit(s)] 7) EBB(s) [Enemy Ball Buster(s)] 8) Operations
Formation(s) 9) Good Guys

Hope this helps John

> X-Originating-IP: [170.115.188.114]
just
> seems a little...unfriendly, if that makes any sense. Any ideas? I'm

> not normally this brain dead, but the holidays have taken a lot out of

> me. Please reply directly to me--there's no need to clutter up the

From: Randall Case <tgunner@e...>

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1998 08:04:59 -0600

Subject: Re: [OT] Stupid Military Terminology Question

> John C wrote:

> What is a good generic term for an individual vehicle or squad, other
just
> seems a little...unfriendly, if that makes any sense. Any ideas? I'm

Sorry guy, but that was what we called them: elements or teams. A lot of
people (including the military wise guys) say that the smallest unit in use
is the squad. It isn't... it's the fire-team. Squads split into fire
teams (in the US, there are usually two teams).

Dismount infantry teams split into two fire teams Mech Infantry split into
three teams: two dismount fire teams and a vehicle
team/crew
Tanks and other IFVs are called crews, although vehicle team wasn't unheard