Acronyms andSelected Glossary

A-1E	A-1E Skyraider, propeller-powered, tactical attack aircraft, USN, USMC, and USAF
A-7E	A-7E Corsair II, carrier-based, subsonic, light attack aircraft, flown during Desert Storm and earlier in Vietnam, USN
A-10	A-10 Warthog, close air support fighter-bomber, USAF
AA	antiaircraft
Abwehr	German intelligence service
ACR	armored cavalry regiment
AEI	American Enterprise Institute
AFSA	Armed Forces Security Agency (later NSA)
AH-64	AH-64 Apache, attack helicopter
AirLand Battle	army doctrine of the AirLand Battle where four tenets drove planning and offensive action: initiative (change the terms of battle through aggressive action), depth (fight deep, close, and rear battles simultaneously), agility (think and act faster than the enemy), and synchronization (arrange battlefield activities in time, space, and purpose to concentrate the greatest possible combat power at the decisive point)
AK-47	Officially known as Avtomat Kalashnikova, the AK-47 is a selective-fire, gas-operated, 7.62 mm assault rifle, first developed in the USSR by Mikail Kalashnikov; easy to mass produce, it has been sold globally in quantities of tens of millions
ALCM	air-launched cruise missile
AO	area of operation or holding area
AP	armor-piercing
APC (M-113)	armored personnel carrier
AQI	al Qa’ida in Iraq (Iraqi Wars III and IV)
Arc Light	Code name given to the use of B-52 strategic bombers in Southeast Asia
ARDF	airborne radio direction finding (ARDF) aircraft
Armeegruppe	army group (German)
ARPA	Advanced Research Projects Agency (until 1972), DoD
ARVN	Army of Vietnam (South Vietnam)
ASW	antisubmarine warfare
ASWORG	Anti-Submarine Warfare Operations Research Group
ATO	air tasking order
Auftragstaktik	mission tactics, element of German military doctrine, a flexible command-and-control system that enabled subordinate commanders to assess a situation quickly and act equally on their own
AV-8B	AV-8B Harrier II, single-engine, VSTOL (vertical short takeoff and landing), tactical attack aircraft, USMC
AVRE	armored vehicle, Royal Engineers
AWACS	Airborne Warning and Control System, USAF
B-1	B-1 Lancer, four-engine, variable-sweep wing, strategic bomber, USAF
B-2	B-2 Spirit, subsonic, twin-engine, low-observable (stealth) strategic bomber designed to deliver nuclear and conventional weapons, USAF
B-17	B-17 Flying Fortress, long-range, four-engine, World War II bomber flown mostly in ETO, built by Boeing, USAAF
B-24	B-24 Liberator, heavy, four-engine World War II bomber, USAAF, USN
B-29	B-29 Superfortress, advanced-design, long-range, four-engine, World War II bomber used to bomb Japan, 1944–1945, and also flown during the Korean War; built by Boeing, USAAF and later USAF
B-52	B-52 Stratofortress, long-range, subsonic, high-altitude, jet-powered, nuclear-capable strategic bomber, configured and flown as B-52G in Vietnam and Iraq to drop conventional bombs
BBC	British Broadcasting Corporation
bbl	barrel
BCCF	Baghdad Central Confinement Facility (Abu Ghraib)
BDA	bomb damage assessment
B-dienst	Beobachtungs und Entzifferungs Dienst, observation and cryptanalytic service, the German navy’s SIGINT service
Bewegungskrieg	war of movement (and maneuver)
Blitzkrieg	lightning war
Bocage	A mass of small, irregularly shaped farm fields in Normandy separated by hedgerows consisting of earthen banks, several feet high, topped with a mass of tangled vegetation; the bocage provides natural cover, concealment, and ready-made engagement areas—a patchwork quilt ideal for the defense.
BSP	Baghdad Security Plan (Iraqi War IV)
BUA	Battlefield Update and Assessment (Iraqi Wars III and IV)
C3	command, control, and communications
C3I	command, control, communications, and intelligence
C4/ISR	command, control, communications, and computers/intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance
CAP	combat air patrol (WWII) or Combined Action Platoon (Vietnam)
CBO	Congressional Budget Office
CCS	Combined Chiefs of Staff, Allied
CENTCOM	US Central Command
CEP	circular error probable
CERP	Commander’s Emergency Response Program (Iraqi Wars III and IV)
Chicom	Chinese communist
CHOP	change of operational control
CIA	Central Intelligence Agency
CINC	commander in chief, pronounced “sink”
CINCCENT	commander in chief, Central Command
CINCFE	commander in chief, Far East
CINCPAC	commander in chief, Pacific Fleet
CINCUNC	commander in chief of the United Nations Command (Korea)
CJCS	chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
CJTF-7	Combined Joint Task Force–7 (Iraqi War IV)
CMH	Center of Military History, US Army
CNN	Cable News Network
CNO	chief of naval operations
COIN	Counterinsurgency
COM Z	Communications Zone, the forward logistical headquarters for US forces operating in Northwest Europe during World War II
COMSOPAC	commander, South Pacific
COMUSMACV	commander, US Military Assistance Command Vietnam
CONUS	Continental United States
COP	combat outpost (Iraqi War IV surge)
CORDS	Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (Vietnam)
COSSAC	chief of staff to the supreme Allied commander
COSVN	Central Office for South Vietnam. This organization served as the headquarters of the Lao Dong Party in South Vietnam. It directed the military and political activities of the communist insurgency. Until 1967, it was located inside South Vietnam but was driven into eastern Cambodia and US military forces. (Finlayson, Rice Paddy Recon, glossary, 297)
CPA	Coalition Provisional Authority
CSO	Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (State Department)
CSR	Office of the Coordinator for Construction and Stabilization (State Department)
CTZ	Corps Tactical Zone (Vietnam)
DARPA	Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (after 1972)
DCI	director of central intelligence
Deutsches Afrikakorps	German Africa Corps, deployed to North Africa in 1941 with General Rommel in command and became Panzergruppe Afrika, consisting of both German and Italian divisions, of which the DAK was a part; it then became Panzerarmee Afrika (January–October 1942), and then subsequently went through another evolution of more grandiose designations inversely proportional to their military success. At the time of the Alamein defeat, Axis forces became Deutsche-Italienische Panzerarmee.
DGSE	Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure (French intelligence service)
DIA	Defense Intelligence Agency
DMZ	demilitarized zone
DoD	Department of Defense, United States
DOS	Department of State
DPRK	Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
EA-6B	EA-6B Prowler, electronic warfare aircraft, USN and USMC
E-8A	E-8A Joint STARS aircraft, USAF
EF-111A	EF-111A Raven, electronic warfare aircraft, USAF
ECB	engineer combat battalion
ECCM	electronic counter-countermeasure
ECM	electronic countermeasure
EFP	explosively formed penetrator, enhanced IED or VBIED causing more lethality and damage when detonated, supplied by Iranians to Iraqi insurgent groups; EFP roadside bombs looked like large coffee cans with a precisely milled copper disc at one end; when activated by a passive infrared sensor, explosives in the can detonated, propelling the disc forward and turning it into a mass of molten copper that could penetrate through heavy armor (Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 151)
Einsatzgruppen	German special-operations groups tasked to eliminate designated racial groups in Mitteleuropa, especially Jews
Elektroboot	advanced German submarine design
Enigma	Allied encryption equipment derived from Polish mathematicians breaking into German message traffic in the 1930s
EOGB	electro-optically guided bomb
ePRT	embedded PRT (Iraqi War IV)
ERP	European Recovery Program
Erprobungsgruppe	operational trials wing, special Luftwaffe unit
Erprobungskommandos	operational test commands
ESG	Executive Steering Group (George W. Bush era)
ETO	European theater of operations
EW	electronic warfare
F	Fahrenheit
F-4 or F-4 G	F-4 Phantom or F-4G Wild Weasel, flown in Desert Storm for enemy radar suppression mission
F-14	F-14 Tomcat, tactical attack aircraft, USN
F-15	F-15 Eagle, all-weather, tactical attack aircraft; F-15 C/D, improved model for tactical strike missions; F-15E Strike Eagle, an improved and enhanced version of earlier models, USAF
F-16	F-16 Fighting Falcon, tactical attack aircraft, USAF
F/A-18	F-18 Hornet, supersonic, twin-engine, all-weather, carrier-capable, tactical attack aircraft designed for interception and ground-attack missions, USN
F-86	US Sabre jet fighter flown in Korea, built by North American Aviation, USAF
F-111 E/F	F-111 E/F Aardvark, supersonic, medium-range interdictor and tactical attack aircraft, flown in Vietnam, with later E/F variants with more advanced engines and avionics, flown in Desert Storm
F-117A	F-117 Nighthawk advanced stealth fighter
flak	Flugzeug Abwehr Kanonen, antiaircraft artillery (German)
FLIR	forward-looking infrared
FM	field manual, US Army
FOB	forward operating base
Fortitude	Operation Fortitude was an Allied deception: the creation of the bogus First United States Army Group (FUSAG) under the command of a general known and respected by the German officers, Lieutenant General George S. Patton Jr.
FRUS	Foreign Relations of the United States, US official diplomatic documents
FSB	Federal Intelligence Service (Russian intelligence service)
FUSAG	First United States Army Group
G3	Alpha-numeric designator for staff responsible for military operations
GAO	US Government Accountability Office
Gauleiter	party leader of a regional branch of the NSDAP
GC&CS	Government Code and Cypher School, UK (Bletchley Park)
GCHQ	Government Communications Headquarters, UK
GDP	gross domestic product
Generalplan Ost	German plan for the Germanization of usable, arable lands in the east, the wholesale relocation and reallocation of national populations according to German criteria of population density, and the relocation and genocide of Jewish populations everywhere in Europe
Gestapo	Geheimnestaatpolizei, secret state police
GHQ	general headquarters
GIGO	garbage in/garbage out
Glückliche Zeit	happy time, German expression when U-boats were successful off the US eastern seaboard
Goldfasane	“Golden Pheasants,” pejorative term referring to top National Socialist party members
GPO	US Government Printing Office
GPS	Global Positioning System
GRC	General Research Corporation
GRT	gross registered tonnage
GVN	Government of (South) Vietnam
GWAPS	Gulf War Air Power Survey
hamlet	The smallest administrative entity in South Vietnam, usually a small grouping of houses within the larger entity of a village. Hamlets varied in size from one hundred to one thousand people.
HE	high-explosive
Heeresgruppe	army group, German
HES	Hamlet Evaluation System
HF	high frequency
HF/DF	high-frequency direction-finding equipment, pronounced “huff-duff”
HIDE	Handheld Interagency Identification Detection Equipment
HMMWV	high-mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle
HMS	His Majesty’s Ship or Her Majesty’s Ship, depending upon the British monarch’s gender at the time of service
HUMINT	human intelligence
Hunger Plan	plan to implement German policy to uproot between thirty-one and forty-five million people from their homes in what became a murderously violent process of dispossession to enable Germanization of conquered territories
IAEA	International Atomic Energy Agency
ID	infantry division
IEA	International Energy Agency
IED	improvised explosive device (Iraqi Wars III and IV)
IGC	Interim Governing Council to submit a plan for drafting a constitution and electing a government established by the CPA during Iraqi War IV
Igloo White	code name for classified program for the aerial insertion of electronic sensors to detect and interdict vehicle and personnel traffic along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos and Vietnam
IJA	Imperial Japanese Army
IJN	Imperial Japanese Navy
IMINT	imagery intelligence
ISAF	International Security Assistance Force (Afghanistan)
ISF	Iraqi Security Forces
ISI	Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (Pakistani intelligence service)
ISIL	Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (used interchangeably with ISIS during the Obama administration to avoid explicit identification of Syria)
ISIS	Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Syria)
JAM	Jaish al-Mahdi, also known as the Mahdi Army, an Iraqi paramilitary force, created by Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr
JCS	Joint Chiefs of Staff
JFC-E	Joint Forces Command–East (Iraqi War I)
JFC-N	Joint Forces Command–North (Iraqi War I)
JN 25	Japanese Naval Code 25, cracked by American code breakers
JSAT	Joint Strategic Assessment Team (Iraqi War IV)
JSS	joint security stations (Iraqi War IV surge)
JSTARS or Joint STARS	Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System (Iraqi Wars I–IV)
Ju-88	Junkers 88, German two-engine, medium bomber
kamikaze	Japanese word for “divine wind,” referring to a systematic campaign to sink Allied ships by flying one-way combat sorties where pilots crashed conventional fighter, bomber, and torpedo planes into ships. Also refers to any Japanese piloting a boat or submarine on a suicide mission against a target.
KBR	Kellogg Brown & Root (Wars II and IV contractor consortium in Iraq)
Kesselschlacht	cauldron battle
KIA	killed in action
Kido Butai	Mobile Unit/Force, was IJN’s Combined Fleet tactical designation for its carrier strike force
km	kilometer
KMAG	US Army Korean Military Advisory Group
KPA	Korean People’s Army (North Korea)
Kriegsmarine	German navy
KTB	Kriegstagebüch, daily war diary
KTO	Kuwait theater of operations
lb.	pound
LC	landing craft
LCA	landing craft assault
LCI	landing craft infantry
LCM	landing craft mechanized
LCT	landing craft tank
Lend-Lease	US program to provide war matériel to Allies
LGB	laser-guided bomb
LIC	low-intensity conflict
LOC	line of communication
LORAN	long-range navigation
LST	landing ship tank
Luftflotte	air fleet, German
Luftwaffe	German air force
LZ	landing zone (helicopter)
M2/M3	Bradley fighting vehicle
M-16	officially known as rifle, caliber 5.56 mm, the M-16 is the US military designation for the AR-1 Armalite rifle adapted for semiautomatic, three-round burst, and full automatic fire, built by Colt Manufacturing Company
MAAF	Mediterranean Allied Air Force
MAAG-V	Military Assistance Advisory Group–Vietnam
MACCORDS	Military Assistance Command Vietnam, Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support
MACV	Military Assistance Command Vietnam
madrassa	Islamic boarding school in Pakistan that teaches mostly Islamic subjects but in many cases may serve as a indoctrination and training center for jihad
Magic	Allied cryptanalysis project during World War II, principally undertaken by US code-breaking units
MAP	Master Air Plan (Iraqi War I)
MARCENT	Marine Central Command (Iraqi War I)
Marine-Funkschlüssel-Maschine M	German radio naval decryption machine
Me-109	Messerschmitt 109, German fighter
Me-262	Messerschmitt 262, advanced German jet fighter design, flown in combat during last months of the war
MEF	Marine Expeditionary Force
Metox	French firm (also Grandin) that produced the electronic equipment that could receive signals over some radar frequency ranges; Metox receiver sets were called FuMB for Funkmessbeobachtergerät, radar observer device
MI6	British Secret Intelligence Service
MiG	Soviet military aircraft design bureau, Mikoyan-and-Gurevich Design Bureau; the MiG prefix was placed in front of numbered fighter models
MiG-15	Soviet jet fighter, circa Korean War
MiG-29	Soviet jet fighter, circa Iraqi Wars I–III
MILES	Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System
Mitteleuropa	German term for central Europe
MLR	Main Line of Resistance
MLRS	M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System
mm	millimeter, generally referring to rifle, gun, or artillery calibers
MNC-I	Multi-National Corps–Iraq (Iraq War IV)
MNF-I	Multi-National Force–Iraq (Iraqi War IV)
MOBA	military operation in a built-up area
Montagnard	French term meaning “people from the mountain,” referring to the indigenous, non–ethnic Vietnamese population inhabiting the Central Highlands of Vietnam; used routinely by Americans in Vietnam
MOUT	military operation in urban terrain
MP	military police
MR	Military Region (Vietnam)
MRAP	mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicle
MTO	Mediterranean theater of operations
Mulberry	code name for artificial floating harbor, several of which were deployed for the D-Day Normandy landings
NARA	National Archives and Records Administration
NATO	North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NAVSHIPS	Bureau of Ships, USN
NBC	nuclear, biological, chemical
NCO	noncommissioned officer
Nebelwerfer	“fog thrower,” a German five-barreled multiple rocket launcher mounted on a towed carriage
NFZ	no-fly zone
NKIDP	North Korea International Documentation Project (Woodrow Wilson Center)
NKP	Nakhon Phanom (province in northeastern Thailand)
NKVD	Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del, People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, Soviet secret police organization during the Stalinist era
NLF	National Liberation Front
NSA	National Security Agency
NSC	National Security Council
NSC-XX	National Security Council directives from Truman era, generally designated by NSC, followed by the number of the directive
NSDAP	National Socialist German Workers’ Party, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei
NSDD	National Security Decision Directive (Reagan era)
NSPD	National Security Presidential Directive (Bush era)
NSSM	National Security Study Memorandum (Nixon era)
NVA	North Vietnamese Army
OB	order of battle
OB West	Oberbefehlshaber West, commander in chief, West, German high command designation for Western Front
Oberbefehlshaber der Kriegsmarine	commander in chief of the German navy
OER	Officer Efficiency Report
OIC	Operational Intelligence Center
OKH	Oberkommando der Herres, high command of German army
OKW	Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, high command of German armed forces
OpFor	opposing force
OPSEC	operational security
ORC	Opinion Research Corporation
ORHA	Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (Iraqi War IV)
ORSA	operations research and systems analysis
OSD	Office of the Secretary of Defense
Ostheer	German army on Eastern Front
OV-10	OV-10 Bronco, twin-turboprop, light attack and observation aircraft, USAF, USMC, flown in Desert Storm and earlier in Vietnam
OW	On War
P-38	P-38 Lockheed Lightning, World War II twin-engine fighter interceptor, built by the Lockheed Corporation
P-47	P-47 Thunderbolt, World War II fighter, built by Republic Aviation
P-51	P-51 Mustang, World War II, long-range fighter built by North American Aviation, developed to escort bombers in ETO and provide close air ground support; operated globally and during Korean War
Panzer	German term for tank
Panzerarmee	German tank army
Panzerfaust	German antitank weapon
PAVN	People’s Army of Vietnam (formal term for NVA)
PDD	Presidential Decision Directive (Clinton era)
PF	Popular Force (Vietnam)
Pfc	private first class
PGM	precision-guided munition
Phoenix	The American name for the South Vietnamese pacification program called Phung Hoang. The Phoenix program began in 1967 aimed at defeating the communist political infrastructure in the villages of South Vietnam by forcing all of the American and South Vietnamese organizations involved with defeating the VCI to cooperate and coordinate their efforts at every administrative level of the GVN.
Pillenwerfer	Submarine decoy, a bubble ejector, consisting of a perforated metal cylinder about the size of a standard container of tinned vegetables, released by a submerged U-boat through a special vent. It contained calcium hydride which, when mixed with seawater, produced a dense column of hydrogen bubbles.
PLA	People’s Liberation Army (PRC)
PLO	Palestine Liberation Organization
PLUTO	pipeline under the ocean
POL	petroleum, oil, and lubricants
POW	prisoner of war
PPS	Policy Planning Staff (State Department)
PRC	People’s Republic of China
PROVN	Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of South Vietnam, army staff study in 1966
PRT	Provincial Reconstruction Teams (Iraqi War IV) or Provincial Reconnaissance Team (Vietnam)
PTSD	posttraumatic stress disorder
puzzle diagram	PowerPoint chart, presented by General David H. Petraeus, attempting to display graphically the interrelationships among political, economic, military, and security measures (Iraqi War IV)
Pvt	private
R&D	research and development
RAF	Royal Air Force
RAID	Rapid Aerostat Initial Deployment
RDC	Revolutionary Development Cadre (Vietnam)
RDT&E	research, development, test, and evaluation
Reichskriegsministerium	Reich War Ministry
Reichsminister für Rüstung und Kriegsproduktion	Reich minister for armaments and war production
Reichsminister für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda	Reich minister for public enlightenment and propaganda
RF	radio frequency or Regional Force (Vietnam)
RF-4C	RF-4C Phantom II, tactical reconnaissance aircraft, flown during Desert Storm
RMA	revolution in military affairs
RMK-BRJ	Raymond International, Morrison-Knudsen International, Brown & Root, and J. A. Jones Construction Company, joint venture of contractors in Vietnam
RN	Royal Navy
ROAD	Reorganization Objective Army Division
ROK	Republic of Korea
ROKA	Republic of Korea Army (South Korea)
Route Package	Authorizations and designations of routes for ingress and egress for naval and air force bombing missions during Vietnam War
RPG	rocket-propelled grenade (Vietnam and Iraqi Wars)
S-3 (US Army staff position)	operations officer (battalion level)
S-3 (aircraft)	S-3 Viking, twin-engine, turbofan jet aircraft designed for ASW and USN surface warfare missions, USN, flown in Desert Storm
S-5	civil affairs officer (battalion level)
SAC	Strategic Air Command
SAM	surface-to-air missile
SBN	“Dauntless” dive-bomber, built by Douglas Aircraft Corporation
SCAP	supreme commander, Allied powers (in the Far East)
Schnorchel	snorkel, a tall tube rising from a submarine’s conning tower to above the ocean surface so that a U-boat could take in fresh air while running submerged with its diesel engines
Schwerpunkt	heavy or main point of attack
SHAEF	Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force
SHAPE	Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe
SIGINT	signals intelligence
SIM	Servicio Informazione Militare, Italian military intelligence service
SINCGARS	Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System, US Army tactical radio
situational awareness	ability to identify, process, and comprehend critical elements of information about what is happening in a combat environment; more simply, it is knowing what is going on around you
SNAFU	“situation normal all fucked up,” American World War II colloquial expression
SOFA	status-of-forces agreement
sonar	sound navigation and ranging, Allied submarine detection equipment
sortie	individual operational flight by a pilot
SS	Schutzstaffel, protection echelon (literally); SS initially served as Hitler’s praetorian guard and later evolved into the Waffen-SS, an elite force that fielded by 1944 almost six hundred thousand men (thirty-eight divisions by 1945)
Stabschwarm	staff flight, German
Staffel	flight (Luftwaffe) or echelon (more general)
Stavka	Russian supreme military command (Stavka Verkhovnogo Komandovaniya)
Stellungskrieg	positional, defensive warfare
SVN	South Vietnam
T-34	Soviet medium battle tank, used during World War II and Korean War by communist forces
T-72	Soviet state-of-the-art main battle tank, circa 1990
T-82	Soviet state-of-the-art main battle tank, circa 1990
TAOR	tactical area of operational responsibility
TBD-1	American “Devastator” torpedo bombers, built by Douglas Aircraft Corporation
TERCOM	terrain contour matching guidance system
TF	task force
TLAM	Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile
TNT	trinitrotoluene was a common explosive material used in World War II and Korea, a chemical compound (C6H2[NO2]3CH3)
TOE	table of organization and equipment
TOW	tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided missile
TRADOC	Training and Doctrine Command
UAV	unmanned aerial vehicle, aka “drone”
U-boat	Unterseeboot, German submarine
UH-60	US “Blackhawk” transport helicopter
UK	United Kingdom
Ultra	code name for British code-breaking intelligence products
UN	United Nations
UNDRO	United Nations Disaster Relief Organization (Iraqi War II)
UNMOVIC	United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (Iraqi War II)
UNSCOM	United Nations Special Commission (Iraqi War II)
US	United States
USA	US Army
USAAF	US Army Air Force (until 1947)
USAF	US Air Force (after 1947)
USAFFE	US Army Forces, Far East
USAID	US Agency for International Development
USIA	US Information Agency
USMA	US Military Academy
USMC	US Marine Corps
USMM	US Merchant Marine
USN	US Navy
USSBS	US Strategic Bombing Survey (World War II)
USSR	Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
V-1	Vergeltungswaffe-1, German retaliation weapon, colloquially known in Britain as the “Buzz Bomb” or “Doodlebug.” It was an early pulse-jet-powered unmanned aerial vehicle, built by Fieseler.
V-2	Vergeltungswaffe-2, German retaliation weapon, the first short-range ballistic missile used in armed conflict
VB	abbreviation for USN dive-bomber squadron
VBIED	vehicle-borne IED (Iraqi Wars III and IV)
VCI	Viet Cong Infrastructure
Vernichtungsschlacht	battle of annihilation
VF	abbreviated designation for a USN fighter squadron followed by the squadron number
VHF	very high frequency
village	A grouping of hamlets that constituted the basic rural administrative entity in South Vietnam. Villages ranged in size from one thousand to ten thousand people.
VLR	very long range
VS	abbreviation for USN scouting squadron
VT	abbreviation for a USN torpedo bombing squadron followed by the squadron number
WDF	Western Desert Force, British North African army designation, circa 1941
Wehrmacht	German armed forces
Westheer	German army on Western Front
WMD	weapon(s) of mass destruction
XO	executive officer