Amusing military acronyms

[Brazen]

This may entertain the more military-minded among you. I'm writing a bit of end-of-year fluff on amusing military acronyms and awkward "backronyms". Among my favourites are MANPADS (sounds like a male sanitary towel), WOMBAT, EXTRM, NACHOS and ASALTT. Do you have any favourites? Include a citation if you want yours to be included and I'll post the link when it's published.

[merithyn]

Well what do those stand for??

[Brazen]

Man-Portable Air-Defence Systems (MANPADS)
Worldwide Observatory of Malicious Behaviors and Attack Threats (WOMBAT)
Extreme Modular Robotics Platform (EXTRM)
Nanoscale Architectures for Coherent Hyper-Optic Sources (NACHOS)
All Semiconductor Airborne Laser Threat Terminator (ASALTT)

[derspiess]

I always thought the ASRAAM missile was pretty funny.  CINCUS was a good one when it was for the Commander in Chief, US Naval Forces.  Can't think of any others at the moment.

[mongers]

These are like the 2nd and 3rd order harmonics of the military bureaucracy.

[dps]

CINCUS was a good one when it was for the Commander in Chief, US Naval Forces. .

For those who don't get it, CINCUS was pronounced "sink us".

[Tonitrus]

I presume this would be "official" acronyms, and not the multitude of unofficial ones that we have. 

[Monoriu]

I think in some of these cases they decide on the acronym first before thinking of the full name 

[Tonitrus]

I think that is definately the case with our REDHORSE (Rapid Engineers Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron Engineer) squadrons.

Almost certainly the same with SEABEES, and pretty much all the women's corps from WW2.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Almost certainly the same with SEABEES, and pretty much all the women's corps from WW2.

Seabee is not an acronym.  Its a proper noun that matches the pronunciation of their acronym (CB, Construction Batallion).

[Brazen]

I always thought the ASRAAM missile was pretty funny.  CINCUS was a good one when it was for the Commander in Chief, US Naval Forces.  Can't think of any others at the moment.

[Brazen]

I think in some of these cases they decide on the acronym first before thinking of the full name 

That's what we call "backronyms" because they work backwards from the acronym.

I'm sure there's an opening for HELMET out there, but I've yet to find on

[Brazen]

I think that is definately the case with our REDHORSE (Rapid Engineers Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron Engineer) squadrons.

Wow, that's an awesome one!

[Agelastus]

SACEUR always used to amuse me, as my mind persisted in pronouncing it as "Sack her" when I was a child.

Come to think of it, I'm not actually certain I've ever heard how the term is correctly pronounced by an American.

[CountDeMoney]

Come to think of it, I'm not actually certain I've ever heard how the term is correctly pronounced by an American.

SACEUR = "SACK YER."

I was always partial to SCAEF and SACSEA, myself.  They both sound like skin conditions.  LULZ FORWARD THIS TO SACPSORIASIS