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Military schools - Glossary of military school terms Category: Military and Defence > Glossary of military school terms Date & country: 10/11/2010, USA Words: 396

Slightly wounded
(DOD) A casualty that is a sitting or a walking case.

Smoke screen
(DOD, NATO) Cloud of smoke used to mask either friendly or enemy installations or maneuvers.

Soft missile base
(DOD, NATO) A launching base that is not protected against a nuclear explosion.

Solenoid sweep
(DOD, NATO) In naval mine warfare, a magnetic sweep consisting of a horizontal axis coil wound on a floating iron tube.

SO-peculiar
See special operations-peculiar.

SORTIEALOT
See sortie allotment message.

SOTAC
See special operations terminal attack controller.

SOWT/TE
See special operations weather team/tactical element.

Space support operations
(DOD) Operations required to ensure that space control and support of terrestrial forces are maintained. They include activities such as launching and deploying space vehicles, maintaining and sustaining space vehicles while on orbit, and recovering space vehicles if required.

TACINTEL
See tactical intelligence.

Tactical air observer
(DOD) An officer trained as an air observer whose function is to observe from airborne aircraft and report on movement and disposition of friendly and enemy forces, on terrain, weather, and hydrography and to execute other missions as directed.

Tactical air support
(DOD, NATO) Air operations carried out in coordination with surface forces and which directly assist land or maritime operations. (DOD, NATO) Air operations carried out in coordination with surface forces and which directly assist land or maritime operations.

Tactical combat force
(DOD) A combat unit, with appropriate combat support and combat service support assets, that is assigned the mission of defeating Level III threats.

Tactical level of war
(DOD) The level of war at which battles and engagements are planned and executed to accomplish military objectives assigned to tactical units or task forces. Activities at this level focus on the ordered arrangement and maneuver of combat elements in relation to each other and to the enemy to achieve combat objectives.

Tactical nuclear weapon employment
(DOD) The use of nuclear weapons by land, sea, or air forces against opposing forces, supporting installations or facilities, in support of operations which contribute to the accomplishment of a military mission of limited scope, or in support of the military commander's scheme of maneuver, usually limited to the area of military operations.

Tactical warning and assessment
A composite term. See separate definitions for tactical warning and for attack assessment.

TALCE
See Tanker Airlift Control Element.

TALO
See theater airlift liaison officer.

Tank, main battle
(DOD) A tracked vehicle providing mobile firepower and crew protection for offensive combat.

Target area survey base
(DOD, NATO) A base line used for the locating of targets or other points by the intersection of observations from two stations located at opposite ends on the line.

Target combat air patrol
(DOD) A patrol of fighters maintained over an enemy target area to destroy enemy aircraft and to cover friendly shipping in the vicinity of the target area in amphibious operations.

Target discrimination
(DOD, NATO) The ability of a surveillance or guidance system to identify or engage any one target when multiple targets are present.

Target system component
(DOD) A set of targets belonging to one or more groups of industries and basic utilities required to produce component parts of an end product such as periscopes, or one type of a series of interrelated commodities, such as aviation gasoline.

TECDOC
See technical documentation.

Technical operational intelligence
(DOD) A Defense Intelligence Agency initiative to provide enhanced scientific and technical intelligence to the commanders of unified commands and their subordinates through a closed loop system involving all Service and Defense Intelligence Agency scientific and technical intelligence centers. Through a system manager in the National Military Joi...

TELINT
See telemetry intelligence.

Terminal velocity
(DOD, NATO) 1. Hypothetical maximum speed a body could attain along a specified flight path under given conditions of weight and thrust if diving through an unlimited distance in air of specified uniform density. 2. Remaining speed of a projectile at the point in its downward path where it is level with the muzzle of the weapon.

Terrestrial reference guidance
(DOD) The technique of providing intelligence to a missile from certain characteristics of the surface over which the missile is flown, thereby achieving flight along a predetermined path.

Thermal crossover
(DOD) The natural phenomenon which normally occurs twice daily when temperature conditions are such that there is a loss of contrast between two adjacent objects on infrared imagery.

Threat and vulnerability assessment
(DOD) In antiterrorism, the pairing of a facility's threat analysis and vulnerability analysis.

TIARA
See tactical intelligence and related activities.

Tie down point pattern
(DOD, NATO) The pattern of tie down points within a vehicle.

UAV
See unmanned aerial vehicle.

Uited States Naval Ship
(DOD) A public vessel of the United States in the custody of the Navy and is: a. Operated by the Military Sealift Command and manned by a civil service crew. b. Operated by a commercial company under contract to the Military Sealift Command and manned by a merchant marine crew.

Ultraviolet imagery
(DOD) That imagery produced as a result of sensing ultraviolet radiations reflected from a given target surface.

Unexpended weapons or ordnance
(DOD) Airborne weapons that have not been subjected to attempts to fire or drop and are presumed to be in normal operating conditions and can be fired or jettisoned if necessary.

Unified Action Armed Forces
(DOD) A publication setting forth the policies, principles, doctrines, and functions governing the activities and performance of the Armed Forces of the United States when two or more Military Departments or Service elements thereof are acting together.

United States Armed Forces
(DOD) Used to denote collectively only the regular components of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard.

Unitized load
(DOD) A single item, or a number of items packaged, packed or arranged in a specified manner and capable of being handled as a unit. Unitization may be accomplished by placing the item or items in a container or by banding them securely together.

Universal Joint Task List
(DOD) A menu of capabilities (mission-derived tasks with associated conditions and standards, i.e., the tools) that may be selected by a joint force commander to accomplish the assigned mission. Once identified as essential to mission accomplishment, the tasks are reflected within the command joint mission essential task list.

Unwarned exposed
(DOD, NATO) The vulnerability of friendly forces to nuclear weapon effects. In this condition, personnel are assumed to be standing in the open at burst time, but have dropped to a prone position by the time the blast wave arrives. They are expected to have areas of bare skin exposed to direct thermal radiation, and some personnel may suffer dazzl...

UTM-grid
See also universal transverse mercator grid.

UXO
See unexploded explosive ordnance.

Value engineering
(DOD) An organized effort directed at analyzing the function of Department of Defense systems, equipment, facilities, procedures and supplies for the purpose of achieving the required function at the lowest total cost of effective ownership, consistent with requirements for performance, reliability, quality, and maintainability.

Vectored attack
(DOD, NATO) Attack in which a weapon carrier (air, surface, or subsurface) not holding contact on the target, is vectored to the weapon delivery point by a unit (air, surface or subsurface) which holds contact on the target.

Very seriously ill or injured
(DOD) The casualty status of a person whose illness or injury is classified by medical authority to be of such severity that life is imminently endangered.

Vignetting
(DOD, NATO) A method of producing a band of color or tone on a map or chart, the density of which is reduced uniformly from edge to edge.

Visual mine firing indicator
(DOD, NATO) A device used with exercise mines to indicate that the mine would have detonated had it been poised.

Voice call sign
(DOD, NATO) A call sign provided primarily for voice communication.

Vulnerability analysis
(DOD) In information operations, a systematic examination of an information system or product to determine the adequacy of security measures, identify security deficiencies, provide data from which to predict the effectiveness of proposed security measures, and confirm the adequacy of such measures after implementation.

Vulnerable point
See vital area.

War air service program
(DOD) The program designed to provide for the maintenance of essential civil air routes and services, and to provide for the distribution and re-distribution of air-carrier aircraft among civil air transportation carriers after withdrawal of aircraft allocated to the Civil Reserve Air Fleet.

Warehouse chart
See planograph.

WARMAPS
See wartime manpower planning system.

War reserve stocks for allies
(DOD) A Department of Defense program to have the Services procure or retain in their inventories those minimum stockpiles of materiel such as munitions, equipment, and combat essential consumables to ensure support for selected allied forces in time of war, until future in-country production and external resupply can meet the estimated combat con...

Waterspace management
(DOD, NATO) The allocation of surface and underwater spaces into areas and the implementation of agreed procedures to permit the coordination of assets, with the aim of preventing mutual interference between submarines or between submarines and other assets, while enabling optimum use to be made of all antisubmarine warfare assets involved.

Weapon debris (nuclear)
(DOD, NATO) The residue of a nuclear weapon after it has exploded; that is, materials used for the casing and other components of the weapon, plus unexpended plutonium or uranium, together with fission products.

Weapons recommendation sheet
(DOD, NATO) A sheet or chart which defines the intention of the attack, and recommends the nature of weapons, and resulting damage expected, tonnage, fuzing, spacing, desired mean points of impact, and intervals of reattack.

Weather (VAT B)
(DOD) Short form weather report, giving: a. V--Visibility in miles. b. A--Amount of clouds, in eights. c. T--Height of cloud top, in thousands of feet. d. B--Height of cloud base, in thousands of feet. (The reply is a series of four numbers preceded by the word "weather." An unknown item is reported as "unknown.")

WEZ
See weapon engagement zone.

Wheel load capacity
(DOD) The capacity of airfield runways, taxiways, parking areas, or roadways to bear the pressures exerted by aircraft or vehicles in a gross weight static configuration.

WIA
See wounded in action.

WMD
See weapons of mass destruction.

World geographic reference system
See georef.

Wreckage locator chart
(DOD) A chart indicating the geographic location of all known aircraft wreckage sites, and all known vessel wrecks which show above low water or which can be seen from the air. It consists of a visual plot of each wreckage, numbered in chronological order, and cross referenced with a wreckage locator file containing all pertinent data concerning t...

WRS
See war reserve stock(s).

Yaw
(DOD, NATO) 1. The rotation of an aircraft, ship or missile about its vertical axis so as to cause the longitudinal axis of the aircraft, ship or missile to deviate from the flight line or heading in its horizontal plane. 2. The rotation of a camera or a photograph coordinate system about either the photograph z-axis or the exterior z-axis. 3. Ang...

Yield
See nuclear yields.

Zero-length launching
(DOD, NATO) A technique in which the first motion of the missile or aircraft removes it from the launcher.

Zone III (nuclear)
(DOD) A circular area (less zones I and II), determined by using minimum safe distance III as the radius and the desired ground zero as the center, in which all personnel require minimum protection. Minimum protection denotes that armed forces personnel are prone on open ground with all skin areas covered and with an overall thermal protection at ...

Zone II (nuclear)
(DOD) A circular area (less zone I), determined by using minimum safe distance II as the radius and the desired ground zero as the center, in which all personnel require maximum protection. Maximum protection denotes that armed forces personnel are in "buttoned up" tanks or crouched in foxholes with improvised overhead shielding.

Zone I (nuclear)
(DOD) A circular area, determined by using minimum safe distance I as the radius and the desired ground zero as the center, from which all armed forces are evacuated. If evacuation is not possible or if a commander elects a higher degree of risk, maximum protective measures will be required.

Zone of action
(DOD, NATO) A tactical subdivision of a larger area, the responsibility for which is assigned to a tactical unit; generally applied to offensive action. See also sector.

Zone of fire
(DOD) An area into which a designated ground unit or fire support ship delivers, or is prepared to deliver, fire support. Fire may or may not be observed.

ZULU time
See Universal Time.

B-52
See Stratofortress.

C-130
See Hercules

C2-attack
See command and control warfare.

E-2
See Hawkeye.

F-111
(DOD) A twin-engine, supersonic, turbofan, all-weather tactical fighter. It is capable of employing nuclear and nonnuclear weapons. It also has the capability for operating from very short, relatively unprepared air strips.

H-46
See Sea Knight.

J-2X
(DOD) Umbrella organization consisting of the HUMINT Operations Cell and the Task Force Counterintelligence Coordinating Authority. The J-2X is responsible for coordination and deconfliction of all human source related activity.

J-axis
(DOD) A vertical axis in a system of rectangular coordinates; that line on which distances above or below (north or south) the reference line are marked, especially on a map, chart or graph.

M48A3
See tank, combat, full-tracked, 90-mm gun.

M-day force materiel requirement
(DOD) The quantity of an item required to be on hand and on order (on M-day minus one day) to equip and provide a materiel pipeline for the approved peacetime US force structure, both active and reserve.

Q-message
(DOD, NATO) A classified message relating to navigational dangers, navigational aids, mined areas, and searched or swept channels.

Q-route
(DOD) A system of preplanned shipping lanes in mined or potentially mined waters used to minimize the area the mine countermeasures commander has to keep clear of mines to provide safe passage for friendly shipping.

Q-ship
See decoy ship.

S-bend distortion
See S-curve distortion.

V/STOL
See vertical/short takeoff and landing aircraft.

X axis
(DOD) A horizontal axis in a system of rectangular coordinates; that line on which distances to the right or left (east or west) of the reference line are marked, especially on a map, chart, or graph.

X-scale
(DOD, NATO) On an oblique photograph, the scale along a line parallel to the true horizon.

Y-axis
(DOD) A vertical axis in a system of rectangular coordinates; that line on which distances above and below (north or south) the reference line are marked, especially on a map, chart, or graph.

Y-scale
(DOD, NATO) On an oblique photograph, the scale along the line of the principal vertical, or any other line inherent or plotted, which, on the ground, is parallel to the principal vertical.

Z marker beacon
(DOD, NATO) A type of radio beacon, the emissions of which radiate in a vertical cone shaped pattern.

Z-scale
(DOD, NATO) On an oblique photograph, the scale used in calculating the height of an object.