OP by: mathfreak231
Category: Not Tropeworthy
Intro
Military Alphabet is written more as a Useful Note than a trope. The page gives absolutely no narrative meaning.
Question
Is the trope People Sit on Chairs? Are there any associations or variations that are tropable? 50 wicks were checked.
Findings
- 19/50 wicks were examples without context or didn't go deeper than "the military alphabet is used".
- 1/50 was an example of the character using it because they act like a military stereotype. (Do We Have This One?)
- 3/50 were using it for Censorship by Spelling
- 13/50 were using it for Theme Naming. There's a pretty thin line between "using them as just letters" and "using them as actual names" but I used my best judgement.
- 14/50 were potholes that didn't fit any above categories.
open/close all folders
"Military alphabet is used" or ZCE
- Series.Major Dad: Useful at home and in the office.
- VideoGame.Americas Army: (no example text)
- Film.Battleship: As to be expected in a modern military film. Also used prominently when the crew are calling out grid coordinates in Nagata's "water displacement" strategy.
- Literature.Generation Kill: If you don't have a basic working understanding of this, the show will destroy your brain. The book, however, is much easier to follow for the non-military. One thing not explained in the miniseries is FPF (when Delta is shooting on a village). Final Protective Fire is only supposed to be used when a Marine position is about to be overrun, and involves setting up a solid wall of ammunition. Hence why the rest of Recon thinks it's hilariously unnecessary.
- Recap.Person Of Interest S 04 E 13: As usual, used by the Machine.
- Podcast.Oakpodcast: "That's OSCAR ALPHA KILO PERU OSCAR DELTA CHARLIE ALPHA SIERRA TANGO."
- Webcomic.Cry Havoc: Used by all the main characters to refer to targets.
- VideoGame.There Came An Echo: The NATO alphabet, letters Alpha through Foxtrot, are used to designate waypoints.
- Literature.Biggles: Uses the old World War I era British one (Ack for A and so on).
- Film.The Men Who Stare At Goats: Oscar Mike.
- Film.Die Hard 2: The plane that is bringing General Esperanza to the United States is designated FM (Foreign Military) 1, though later in the film, both Colonel Stuart and Esperanza refer to it as "Foxtrot Michael 1", despite the military alphabet using the shortened name Mike for the letter M.
- Music.Yankee Hotel Foxtrot: The album's title is the NATO Alphabet spelling of "YHF"; it is taken from a Numbers Station broadcast sampled in "Poor Places".
- Characters.Mash: One of a handful of nurses whose name comes from the Military Alphabet as it was during the Korean War, along with Nurse Able and Nurse Charlie (though the latter was quickly dropped while Able and Baker stuck around until the end).
- Series.Last Resort: The lieutenant uses the NATO phonetic alphabet to validate the launch codes received. A good thing too, as launch authorization codes aren't the sort of thing you'd want to have any confusion over.
- Magazine.PS Magazine: Constantly used, obviously.
- Literature.World War Z: Designation of some weapons and tactics against the undead.
- VideoGame.Wolfenstein The New Order: Blazkowicz uses the US World War II one to spell Da'at Yichud while on the radio with the Doylist benefit of spelling out the word for players. Bonus points for accurately using the only version BJ would be familiar with (the NATO phonetic alphabet wasn't standardized until 1956, and may not have been created in this Nazi-ruled timeline anyway.)
- Film.Dr Strangelove:
- Most famously "Wing Attack Plan R for Romeo." Also used by the bomber crew. Major Kong's accent could be a shining example of why a phonetic alphabet is useful.
- General Ripper uses "R for Robert" when speaking to Mandrake on the phone. The Royal Air Force commonly used a different phonetic alphabet (including R for Robert) until adopting the NATO standard in the late 1950s — shortly before the events of the film. Since Group Captain Mandrake is a former RAF fighter pilot, Ripper may use it for Mandrake's convenience. Or maybe it's only an oversight filmed before someone could do the research. Romeo, being the name of a famous lover, fits better with the film's theme.
- VideoGame.Modern Warfare: Military game. Natch.
Stereotypical usage
- Characters.Animal Crossing Main NP Cs: Wilbur speaks like a soldier on a field mission, giving himself and the player codenames, discussing their outings to other islands like a battle plan, and using the NATO Phonetic Alphabet unnecessarily. However, due to the game being rated E, instead of "Whiskey" for W, he says "Whisker".
Referencing swear words
- Recap.The Good Wife S 3 E 09 Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: The title spells out WTF.
- VideoGame.Counter Strike: What the Hell, Player?:
- UnusualEuphemism.Webcomics: Later, the readers are given "Charlie Foxtrot" and interesting derivatives, such as "Charlie danced the Foxtrot." This one actually makes perfect sense: Charlie Foxtrot is the Military Alphabet phonetic version of CF, which is short for clusterfuck.
Theme Naming
- Series.Dollhouse: The Los Angeles Dollhouse names its Actives from it. Washington DC uses Greek gods instead, suggesting that each branch uses a different scheme.
- This could theoretically lead to multiple-doll pairings such as "Hotel Uniform" or "Golf Uniform," if they follow the entire alphabet.
- "Romeo Juliet."
- At one point we're told the L.A. Dollhouse has well over 26 Dolls, so one wonders what the others are called...
- Literature.Team Yankee: The eponymous Team Yankee and its sister unit, Team Bravo, designated "Y" and "B" respectively on maps. The military alphabet is also featured prominently in all radio communications.
- Alphabetical Theme Naming: Pikmin 3 has Alph, Brittany and Charlie, the three playable characters. Also a potential Genius Bonus, as Alph and Charlie's names are derived from the NATO alphabet.
- Characters.Waterworks: Theme Naming: Their names reference the NATO Phonetic Alphabet.
- Manga.Until Death Do Us Part: Theme Naming: The Wall uses the Military Alphabet to name their operatives.
- VideoGame.Rebel Inc: Zones are given designations in the NATO Phonetic Alphabet, such as Alfa Uniform.
- WesternAnimation.Planes: Theme Twin Naming: Also the two F-18s, Bravo and Echo.
- Characters.Rivers Of London: They use names based on phonetic-alphabet words, like Sugar Niner or Indigo. Interestingly, it's not the current version used by NATO, but an older alphabet used during WWII.
- Pinball.F 14 Tomcat: Yagov's forces are identified as Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Fox, and Golf, followed by Yagov himself.
- Characters.The Railway Series: "Pip Emma" is old-fashioned English slang for PM (as in the time of day), based on the First World War-era British Army phonetic alphabet.
- Characters.Pikmin Captains: Alph is a contraction of Alpha, or "the first". Apart from the brief sequence with Charlie, he is the first captain you control in Pikmin 3.
- Reporting Names: All submarine classes are named, in random order, for a letter in the Military Alphabet (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc..). When they ran out, the next class was named "Akula" ("shark" in Russian). It should be noted that the same name was actually given by the Soviets to what the West called the "Typhoon", which causes some confusion among sub spotters. The Cold War ended before more classes came out post-"Graney". The intention was to continue using fish names, but since Russia has been somewhat less secretive about the introduction of new submarines (publicly announcing the names of each new sub while it's under construction) NATO has simply used the name of the first ship as the reporting name. These are sub-divided with a Roman numeral afterwards for modified versions, such as "Delta IV" for the Delfin type of Soviet SSBN. Though in at least one case (the "Echo I" and "Echo II") the Soviets considered them to actually be separate classes; Project 659 for the former and Project 675 for the latter despite their extreme similarity.
- Family Theme Naming: Paperinik New Adventures has the Delta family. Everyone is involved in the military or some sort of SpecOps, BlackOps, and every other kind of Ops, and the parents specifically namde their kids after the NATO signaling alphabet. Currently they have three kids, Alfa Delta, Bravo Delta, and Charlie Delta. If they had any more, they'd be Delta Delta, Echo Delta, and Foxtrot Delta. Charlie's partner, Fransisco de Gamma, follows the theme even though he's not part of the family.
Pothole
- Establishing Character Moment: Professionals Play: In the Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes challenge, the Real Bomb Squad show they're not messing around when the Expert asks for the bomb's serial number and the Defuser answers in Military Alphabet. They proceed to ace the challenge.
- VideoGame.Full Spectrum Warrior: You, the player, are put in charge of two fire teams, Alpha and Bravo, each consisting of four soldiers (a team leader, a rifleman, a grenadier, and an automatic rifleman), each with his own name and background. Your primary objective in the game is to maneuver through the narrow streets of Zekistan's capital city and defeat the militiamen hiding in the streets and houses while paying attention as not to get flanked or ambushed.
- Fanfic.The Gentle Art Of Making Enemies: Fun with Acronyms: Combined with Military Alphabet. The shutdown command code for the guard robots on the dust train is, "Sierra Lima Echo Echo Papa Yankee Tango India Mike Echo," or SLEEPYTIME.
- Censorship by Spelling: An article about The Shield's highlights on WWE's official website went the extra mile by using the NATO Military Alphabet to spell out "HOLY CRAP".
- ShoutOut.Modern Warfare: Generation Kill: The level in MW2 where you control the gun of a Humvee is very similar to the end of the second episode, when the Marines of First Recon were shown being ambushed after leaving Nasiriyah. The sudden prevalence of the Military Alphabet compared to the first game, where no one ever even said "Oscar Mike," could be attributed to Generation Kill as well.
- IntentionallyAwkwardTitle.Music: The The Bloodhound Gang song "Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo". Record execs had to swap "Charlie" and "Uniform" in order for it to get any airplay, because people (especially uptight Moral Guardians) love to have Fun with Acronyms. Also note that this is not just an acronym, but also the Military Phonetic Code for the actual spelling of the F-bomb.
- Literature.The Cruel Sea: Attack Pattern Alpha: In the film, the crew refer to "pattern Baker" when adjusting the settings for the depth-charges during attacks on U-boats.
- RunningGag.Video Games: Live A Live includes a pair of son-father (son will always be called Watanabe or variations of thereof). In various timelines, the father will always have the worst of luck of being killed randomly and then his son would hilariously cry over his death and drag him away. They could be encountered naturally, or require some tinkering in how you play. In the Distant Future chapter, knowledge of the Military Alphabet will lead the player to realize that one character is spelling the name, but the last letter is cut off (and indeed, another character is having some pretty bad luck at that moment).
- Walkie-Talkie Static: Goes very well with Danger Deadpan voice, Military Alphabet, Reporting Names, Radio Voice, and Attack Pattern Alpha. However, it doesn't always have to indicate military: Voice with an Internet Connection often sports this sound effect, too, simply for the Rule of Cool.
- Boot Camp Episode: Jake 2.0: Jake has to infiltrate a specialized black-ops army corps. His powers allow him to keep up with the soldiers' extreme training, but the real problem is adapting to their mentality. The episode is called "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot."
- Sustained Misunderstanding:Gilette: "OK"?!? Wait! Stop! You said those last two letters were Oscar Kilo!
- Characters.Manifest: When asked for his aircraft's callsign, MA828, Captain Daly says it the way an ordinary person would: "Em Ay Eight Two Eight." A professional pilot would give it as, "Mike Alpha Eight Two Eight", especially if there was any suspected confusion.
- Fun for Some: Numbers Stations — coded messages broadcast on radio by and for the Government Conspiracy — have something of a cult following. They sound pretty cool, with monotonal voices reciting numbers or Military Alphabet letters, along with weird electronic noises and canned recordings of cheesy musical dittys. Shortwave radio enthusiast Akin Fernandez even released The Conet Project
, a set of CDs with recordings of them, which proved popular with musicians who have used the recordings for sampling purposes (e.g. Wilco did so on the song "Poor Places", but were sued for copyright infringement by the label that released the box set, though a settlement was reached and the sample remained on the album). - VideoGame.Animal Crossing New Horizons: Orville's use of "whisker" in place of "whiskey" in his use of the NATO Military Alphabet standard may be an instance of this, combined with possible Bowdlerization on account of whiskey not exactly being family-friendly.
