Military technology is covered in nicknames, both official "Reporting Names" used for quick communication and unofficial nicknames. Some of the best...
- Weapons:
- The world-famous AK series gets a number of endearing names, like Kalash, All-Killer, African Credit Card, Kal, Soviet Security, Russian Lover, Avtomat, and more.
- The best names go to the M16 and ilk, which had a rough rollout in Vietnam because of its initially poor reliability. Favorite nicknames include: M-shitsteen, Jammomatic, The Silent Wonder (no shot = no bang), The Clicker, MacNamara's Bastard, the matte-black mouse gun, The civil servant (you can't fire it or make it work), The Mattel Toy...
- The underslung grenade launcher for an M16, the M203, is named by soldiers as a forty mike mike.note
- In a somewhat morbid example (considering the reference point) a common nickname in the swedish military for Claymore-type mines is Lille Skutt.
- The Stielhandgranate 'stick grenades'
of the Germans in WW1 and WW2 were nicknamed 'potato mashers'. Compare. - American grenades tended to get nicksnames as well: the externally scored Mk 2 grenade was known as the "pineapple," the M26 as the "lemon," and the current spherical M67 is nicknamed the "baseball."
- The M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle was often called the 'Big Ass Rifle'. The BAR fires the same rounds as the M1 Garand rifle, but is a bit larger in appearance, magazine size, and is automatic. And weighs more than twice as much as the Garand, which at 10 pounds is no lightweight itself.
- The Chinese QBZ-03 assault rifle's macho nickname inside the PLA and some fans is "Hard & Black".
- The Thompson submachine gun had a multitude of nicknames, such as the "Trench Broom" and the "Chicago Typewriter". The Other Wiki can show you.
- Relatedly, the WWII US Navy's quad-barreled 1.1"/75 caliber anti-aircraft gun mount was nicknamed the "Chicago Piano".
- In WWII, Red Army soldiers nicknamed the Ppsh-41 submachine gun the "papasha" (Russian, "daddy").
- Fragmentation grenades are simply shortened to the name 'frags'. Carried over into 'murdering an unpopular superior officer' in The Vietnam War, since using a fragmentation grenade to do so would make it impossible to prove the killer did it as long as nobody snitched on him, which carried over later to Video Games (though when used as a verb there, it just means 'kill').
- The M3 submachine gun is generally called the grease gun, having some similarities in appearance to the mechanic's tool.
- Stemming from the /k/ board of 4chan, the Mosin–Nagant rifle is irreverently nicknamed "moist nugget" or the "garbage rod".
- The M2 Browning heavy machine gun has been known as "Ma Deuce" since World War II, as "she always has the last word."
- The PHALANX Close In Weapons System (CIWS), an anti-missile Gatling gun and radar combination, is so mechanically complex and breakdown-prone it is said CIWS stands for "Captain, It Won't Shoot!" Also, because of the way it looks, it is sometimes called R2-D2 or more crudely "R2-D2 with a hard-on."
- Another one, at least when it first came into service, was "Sea Wiz" based on the name, though this is now a general term for all CIWS systems.
- The British 4.5 Inch Naval Gun, due to its shape has been nicknamed the Kryten gun.
- The FAMAS rifle is called le Clairon (the bugle) by French-speaking soldiers, due to its shape, though later users speculated if it is because all it is good for is making noise.
- The FN F2000 is sometimes referred to as the "Combat Tunafish" due mostly to its streamlined shape reminiscent of a tuna.
- The FN FAL rifle, beside having honorific title of "Right arm of free world", got some local nicknames. In the Vietnam War, Australian field-modified rifles were known as "the Bitch". In the Rhodesia, FAL rifles were known as "Slayer".
- The 9x19mm version of the Mauser C96 gained the nickname "Red Nine", due to the large, red 9 engraved into their handles so German soldiers would stop accidentally trying to load 7.63x25mm rounds into them.
- All C96 Mausers are referred to as "broomhandles" due to the shape of their grip.
- In China the C96 was referred to as the "box cannon" both for the box-shaped fixed magazine and the ability to stow the weapon in its own stock.
- During the invasion of the Soviet Union in WWII, the German army was equipped with the 37mm Pak 35 (later 36) anti-tank gun. It was so woefully inadequate against Soviet tanks that it gained the nickname "Heeres Anklopf-Gerät" (translates loosely as "Army Device for Knocking Politely").
- The 88mm PaK 43 was known as "Scheunentor" (Barn door) due to its size and weight which made it almost impossible to handle in mud or snow.
- The German MG 42 machine gun became known to the West as 'Hitler's Buzzsaw' and 'linoleum ripper'; to the Soviets it was 'Hitler's Zipper.' The gun's extremely high rate of fire - 1,300 rounds a minute give or take depending on configuration - gave it a very distinctive continuous sound when firing, with individual shots impossible to distinguish.
- The weight of the M60 machine gun led to the nickname of "the pig" or "the hog" in Vietnam.
- The American Bazooka and German Panzerschrek are better known for their nicknames than their real ones, respectively M1 / M9 / M20 rocket launcher and Raketenpanzerbüchse. The Panzerschreck's first variant was also called the Ofenrohr (stove pipe) due to its size and the enormous amounts of smoke created on firing.
- The much-feared German Schrapnellmine (S-Mine), a bounding antipersonnel mine used during World War 2, had a series of nicknames. The Americans called it the "Bouncing Betty," Australians and New Zealanders called it the "Jumping Jack," while the French preferred the extremely ominous nickname "The Silent Soldier."
- American Tankers who found themselves getting whacked by the Panzerfaust in the Hedgerows of Normandy invented the saying "Don't try to catch one of them footballs because they come at you slow and hit the tank and burn its way through."
- US Special Forces who have tested the XM25 grenade launcher have nicknamed it the "Punisher."
- The AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground missile has been called "The Gopher Zapper" for it's accuracy.
- British Royal Navy pilots during the Falklands War gave the AIM-9L Sidewinder the name "Wish Me" because it was so reliable you merely had to wish the target dead and it would be done.
- The name "Sidewinder" is the official name for the AIM-9 series of weapons but started out as a nickname based on two ways the missile was similar to the venomous rattlesnake of the same name: it tended to leave a zig-zagging smoke pattern as it tracked its target, like the snake leaves in desert sands, and it seeks its prey using thermal vision.
- The FGM-148 Javelin ATGM has been nicknamed Saint Javelin after its use during the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine and its perceived key role in halting the Russian advance on Kyiv.
- White phosphorus is also known to American soldiers as "Willy Pete". Yes, this is where that Empowered villain got his name.
- Military Aircraft:
- Any military aircraft has a number of nicknames.
- Many helicopters have a single large nut on top of the main rotor axle which holds the rotor blades on. In the (predominantly Christian) US it's nicknamed the "Jesus Nut" since if it were to come loose and fall off, so will the rotors, and the unfortunate crew is about to meet Jesus. In reality, the nut is very well secured with devices to prevent loosening, so accidents attributed to the nut on properly maintained aircraft are vanishingly rare, but the idea of a single fastener being the only thing between the helicopter's occupants and falling out of the sky remains unsettling.
- Due to their tendency to crash, US Marines will sometimes call Harrier jets "Carolina Lawn Darts"
- The La GG-3 was one of the most advanced fighters available to the Soviets early in WWII. Made of wood, Russian pilots nicknamed it the "Flying Guaranteed Coffin".
- The World's Leading Distributor of MiG Parts - the F-4 Phantom II, for shooting a lot of the Soviet-built aircraft down. The F-4 has a lot of nicknames, including The Double Ugly, Flying Brick, the Spook, and the Louisville.
- The F-4E variant was sometimes known as the "Rhino", as its nose had to be noticeably enlarged in order to fit its new rotary cannon.
- The German nick is "Luftverteidigungsdiesel", or "The Air Defence Diesel" (its engines trail out black smoke).
- Another German nickname for the Phantom is "Eisenschwein," which translates to "Iron Pig." It's not the most maneuverable plane in the world.
- Naval jet aircraft with low-slung, wide air intakes (particularly the F-8 Crusader, A-6 Intruder and A-7 Corsair II) have been nicknamed "Sailor Inhaler." The Boeing X-32 Joint Strike Fighter prototype, with its particularly gaping maw, was a special recipient of this nickname.
- The F-4's successor in the US Air Force (and on McDonnell Douglas' production lines), the F-15 Eagle, is known as the "Starship" and "Tennis Court" (referring to the area of its tremendous wings, as well as the size of its radar return).
- Warthog or the Hog - The A-10 Thunderbolt II.
- This is even better on Osan Air Base in Korea. Where a statue of a Warthog is a major landmark, and referred to as the "Pig on a Stick"
- Relatedly, the act turning the GAU-8 Avenger on a convoy of ground vehicles and hosing them down with several continuous seconds of gunfire is known as the Warthog Stomp. Don't ask about the odd few cases where helicopters received an airborne Warthog Stomp; you would need a large broom to collect the results.
- Grach (rook) - The Russian Su-25 "Frogfoot", from the callsign its pilots used in the Soviet-Afghan War.
- Another well-known Russian machine, Mi-24 "Hind" was nicknamed "Crocodile", probably for its distinctive silhouette and nasty "bite". The Mujahideen referred to it as "The Devil's Chariot" for its lethal effectiveness.
- For a more obscure example, the Russian Su-27 was sometimes nicknamed "Crane"; presumably its large, elegant body was likened to that of the bird. In Western nations, the Su-27 and its derevatives are much more commonly known and the "Flanker".
- Russian fighter jets generally do not have "popular names" like Western aircraft do (such as the F-15 Eagle or F-14 Tomcat), however the MiG-29's NATO reporting name, "Fulcrum," has become popular among its pilots, making it both this trope and Ascended Fanon.
- Viper - The preferred pilot name for the Lockheed Martin (originally General Dynamics) F-16, which is officially the Fighting Falcon. Don't use the latter around F-16 pilots. Or "Lawn Dart," to the less charitable.
- The B-52 bomber, officially nicknamed the "Stratofortress", is far more often called the BUFF, or "Big Ugly Fat... Uh... Fellow." Yeah. Fellow. That's the ticket.
- The F-111 was known to its pilots in the U.S. as the "Aardvark", a name that was actually made official at its retirement ceremony, the Australians took it further by nicknaming it "the pig". Two possible reasons for this: the charitable one is due to its terrain following radar allowing it to 'hunt amongst the weeds' much like a pig, the less charitable reason is the colloquialism 'pigs might fly'.
- The EF-111 (electronic warfare variant of the F-111) was known as the "Spark Vark".
- The F-117 is more commonly known as the "Stinkbug." Also called the "Frisbee". Or the "Goblin", sometimes prefixed as the "Wobblin' Goblin", which is a holdover from the prototypes being unstable and tending to wobble at slow speeds, such as during in-air refueling.
- The initial concept that became HAVE BLUE and then the F-117 was nicknamed the "Hopeless Diamond" because, while a perfect shape for a stealth aicraft, it lacked certain key design features, such as wings.
- The F-15E Strike Eagle is the "Mud Hen."
- The Douglas A-1 Skyraider (AD in the pre-1962 scheme) was known as the Able Dog or the Spad. The latter refers to the French biplane that was the main aircraft of the Allies in World War I; as a piston-engined straight-winged aircraft designed during World War II, the Skyraider looked ludicrously out of place among the supersonic jets of the Vietnam War.
- The Vought F4U Corsair was affectionately(?) nicknamed 'the bent-wing bastard from Baltimore' by British pilots.
- Also the "Ensign Eliminator" for its temperamental flight characteristics.
- Another Vought fighter that also earned that nickname was the F7U Cutlass. Sadly, the Cutlass was nowhere near as good a fighter as the Corsair was, as it didn't have the latter's redeeming characteristics.
- The Japanese called the F4U "Whistling Death" due to the noise it made in a dive and its superb kill ratio against their own planes.
- Curtiss' SB2C Helldiver bomber was called "Son of a Bitch, 2nd Class" even by admirals due to the wide variety of reliability problems and structural flaws, that initially even prevented it from performing its supposed main task - divebombing.
- The F-105 Thunderchief was called "Thud", supposedly from the sound it made when crashing, mainly because of its massive size and weight.
- The B-1B Lancer is called the "Bone," from an early newspaper article about it that referred to it in the headline as the "B ONE". Aircrews found this immediately hilarious for it's more vulgar connotation.
- It's worth noting that the B-1 has a proposed second version; the B-1R. You do the math.
- The Vought A7 was called the "SLUF" (Short Little Ugly Fellow, or a different F-word when not in polite company).
- The tiny, notoriously unsafe F-104 Starfighter was often called "The Missile With a Man in It" or, less affectionately, "The Widowmaker", particularly among German pilots who were a disproportionately large portion of Starfighter pilot fatalities. In Italy, it was nicknamed "Bara Volante" (Flying Casket) for the same reason. It was also known in Germany (especially among American servicemen stationed there) as the "Lawn Dart"; wherever it was deployed, it was said that every yard near the base had one stuck in it.
- UAV pilots are sometimes called the "Chairforce" by conventional pilots.
- And the Air Force in general is called the same thing by the other military branches.
- The McDonnell Douglas-General Dynamics A-12 Avenger was intended to replace the venerable A-6 during the Nineties, but was canceled due to cost overruns. Its triangular shape, for stealth purposes, earned it the inevitable nickname "The Flying Dorito."
- The Douglas SBD Dauntless divebomber was known as the "Slow But Deadly" to its crews: despite their relative slowness in comparison to the fighters of the time period, SBDs managed to sink a number of Japanese vessels, most famously the aircraft carriers at Midway.
- SBD aircrews also had a "positive" air-to-air kill record (more enemy planes shot down than Dauntlesses killed), an enviable accomplishment for a Naval bomber.
- The Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka rocket-powered kamikaze aircraft was called "Baka" (Japanese for "idiot") by the Americans.
- The SR-71 Blackbird, when it was operational, was nicknamed the Habu, after a deadly snake found on Okinawa, from which the Blackbirds operated.
- The Douglas A3D Skywarrior was by far the largest plane ever deployed from a carrier (excluding experiments involving resupplying carriers with C-130 transport aircraft, which did make successful takeoffs), thus the nickname "Whale". When reconfigured for electronic countermeasures, it became known as the "Electric Whale". And, since it had a crew of three and no ejection seats, it was also referred to as "All Three Dead".
- A Popular Mechanics issue from the early nineties had its main article dedicated to the (still widely popular in media back then) F-14 Tomcat. In it, it was revealed that the pilots from the aircraft carriers had nicknamed such fighter "The Turkey" and preferred to fly the F/A-18 Hornets.
- During the Vietnam war, the AC-47 gunship was officially nicknamed the "Spooky", but the massive amounts of smoke it generated when firing its three 7.62mm gatling guns earned it the unofficial nickname "Puff the Magic Dragon".
- The Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter used by Those Wacky Nazis was in its heyday arguably the deadliest fighter aircraft in the world, and earned the nickname "Butcher Bird" from the British. Its German pilots called it "Würger", German for "Shrike".
- For those that don't know, butcher birds and shrikes are the same thing. Specifically, a Little Perching Bird with a tendency for impalement.
- Another World War II aircraft, the Il-2 Sturmovik, a sort of spiritual predecessor to the aforementioned A-10 Warthog, was known for its incredible durability and gained a whole slew of nicknames from the Soviets and Germans alike. Among its nicknames are "Concrete Plane", "Flying Tank", "Flying Infantryman", "Black Death", "Iron Gustav", "Tractor", and "Slaughterer". The name "Sturmovik" itself means "Storm Trooper" in Russian, though thanks to the fame of the Il-2 it also became the standard Russian term for any attack aircraft.
- The B-26 Marauder earned a number of derogatory nicknames for its high skill demands on the pilot, and the high speeds at which it had to land and take off. "Martin Murderer" was popular at the Marauder training base in Tampa during 1941/1942. The test pilots called it the "Flying Prostitute" or "Baltimore Whore" because it had "no visible means of support", a reference to its very small wing area in relation to its size.
- The F/A-18C Hornet is also known as "The Bug" due to its official name and its bubble canopy. The introduction of the heavily upgraded and enlarged F/A-18E/F Super Hornet has also caused it to be called the "Baby Hornet" at times. The F/A-18E/F is nicknamed "the Rhino" or "Super Bug" instead.
- Some US Air Force refer to the F-35 Lightning II as the "Panther", likely owing to its dark color scheme and status as a stealth fighter.
- The C-2A Greyhound is a cargo plane that is designed to take off and land on aircraft carriers. Since this is the most practical way to get light objects to and from a carrier in a reasonable amount of time, it is sometimes called a "mail truck". The pilots and crew often wear US Postal Service patches as a result.
- The Bayraktar TB 2 drone has been nicknamed in similar circumstances as the Javelin Missile as Saint or Imam Bayraktar for its effect on Russian tanks and equipment.
- Ships:
- "Sprucans"- Spruance-class anti-submarine destroyers, due to the traditional description of destroyers as "tin cans". Being much larger than most previous destroyers, as large as many cruisers, they merited a separate nickname.
- In a related case, after her collision with the guided missile cruiser USS Belknap (which left the smaller ship looking like this◊), the carrier USS John F Kennedy acquired the nickname "Can Opener." While not a officially destroyer, Belknap was originally designated a "frigate" (DLG; what other navies would call a "destroyer leader", and that's originally what DL hull numbers stood for in the US Navy) and was built with an aluminum superstructure.
- After this incident, a lighted forward mast was added to the front of all aircraft carriers to make it easier to tell which way they are heading in the dark. It's called the Belknap pole.
- The US Kidd class destroyers were originally built under a contract with the Shah of Iran, which was canceled pretty quickly when the Iranian revolution took place in 1979. The destroyers were instead completed and put into US service and where they were known as the "Ayatollah class". In USN service all four ships were named after admirals who were killed in action in World War II, so they were also sometimes called the "Dead Admiral class".
- The USS New Jersey was one of the top battleships of WWII, and was known as "Black Dragon" due to her paint scheme and impressive muzzle flashes.
- Her sister ship, the USS Missouri, was affectionately nicknamed "The Mighty Mo."
- In a humorous twist on this, the modern guided missile cruiser USS Cowpens (CG 63) is also known as "The Mighty Moo".
- USS Enterprise (CVN-65) was also known as the "Mobile Chernobyl" due mainly to the fact that she was powered by eight nuclear reactors, more than any other ship ever built. The designers figured that she'd need as many reactors as a conventional ship would need boilers. The later nuclear-powered carriers of Nimitz class use much more advanced reactors, getting just as much power out of only two. She is also known as:
- "Three-Quarter Mile Island", referring to her length (the longest warship ever built at the time) and the other infamous nuclear reactor incident.
- "The Big E", a nickname shared by her World War II predecessor, USS Enterprise (CV-6).
- "The Big E=mc^2", a play on the previous based on her nuclear propulsion.
- "The Grey Ghost," "The Lucky E," "The Big E," "The Galloping Ghost" - USS Enterprise (CV-6). Called a ghost because on several occasions she was able appear seemingly out of thin air, strike at the Japanese, get away and escape detection, and then do it again shortly thereafter. Also, she was reported sunk by the Japanese several times, yet survived to the end of the war.
- "Lusty" - HMS Illustrious.
- "The Great White Whale" - SS Canberra
- "The Grand Old Lady" - HMS Warspite
- "Enraged P&O" - HMS Malaya, a result of her flag. Due to being paid for by the Federated Malay States (a British colony), not only was the ship named after Malaya she also flew the naval ensign of the Federated Malay States instead of the White Ensign of other Royal Navy vessels. Said flag bears a considerable resemblance to the flag of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O), and thus many found it rather amusing to see that flag flown on a battleship rather than an ocean liner.
- "Showboat" - USS North Carolina (BB-55)
- "Battleship X - USS South Dakota (BB-57), a nickname arising form wartime propaganda. Many of her exploits were forwarded to the press, but without revealing the name of which battleship was being referred to so that the enemy couldn't use press reports to track fleet movements.
- "Big Mamie" - USS Massachusetts (BB-59)
- "Already Broke" - USS Arleigh Burke (DDG-51), so called because she was the first of her class and suffered from many of its teething problems.
- "Shitty Kitty" or "Shitty Hawk"- USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63), which was known for being in terrible condition for many years before leaving service.
- "The Big Stick" - USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) from Theodore Roosevelt's famous quotation "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far".
- "The Fighting I" and "The Evil I" - USS Intrepid (CV-11). (Intrepid had famously bad luck during WWII.)
- "Ike" - USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69), from Dwight D. Eisenhower's presidential campaign slogan "I Like Ike!"
- There's a couple of standards in the US Navy that apply to ships in particular categories:
- A ship with low morale may often be referred to by its crew as "Cell Block [hull number]"
- A ship that rarely leaves port may be called "Pier [hull number]" note or "Building [hull number]."
- "The Destroyer Escort That Fought Like a Battleship" - USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413), posthumously given after the destroyer escort's Dying Moment of Awesome, when it joined a group of American destroyers and aircraft trying to engage a massive fleet of Japanese ships and itself succeeding in damaging two heavy cruisers.
- Whoever is currently the commanding officer of assault carrier USS America (LHA-6) is often referred to as "Captain America". That nickname is also used throughout the services as an unflattering moniker for an overly enthusiastic officer or NCO.
- A particularly overweight sailor may sometimes acquire the unflattering nickname of "#X [very large object aboard the ship]", where X is one more than however many of those objects the ship carries.
- E.g. "#3 DFT" on a ship that only has two multi-thousand gallon Deaerating Feedwater Tanks.
- Critics of the Littoral Combat Ship program have argued that LCS instead stands for Little Crappy Ship. Anyone who's worked with them could also tell you that it also stands for Let's Change Something as they have continually tweaked the ship's design, tactics, and procedures in trying to make it relevant.
- "Combustible, Vulnerable, Expendable" - World War II escort aircraft carriers with the hull symbol CVE. They were very lightly, rapidly, and cheaply built and often converted from merchant ships, and so couldn't take a hit like a fleet carrier.
- "Large, Slow Target" - World War II and later Tank Landing Ships, designated LST. Despite this nickname and being very much a high-value target, LSTs in World War II actually suffered very few losses, with only 39 sunk (26 to enemy action) out over 1,000 built.
- For reasons likely lost to time, autopilot systems onboard US Navy ships are sometimes called "iron mikes".
- The various antennas sticking out of a ship often acquire nicknames based on their shape.
- Cylindrical satellite dishes are called trashcans.
- Long, flexible antennas are called whips.
- Antennas that are cables strung between masts are called spiderwebs.
- Short, stout antennas are referred to as stovepipes.
- Ski-Jumps on an aircraft carrier are sometimes derogatorily called "Cope Slopes", implying that a navy that employs one is doing so to cope with the lack of either the technical ability or budget to build "real" carriers with catapults for launching heavily loaded combat aircraft.
- Armor
- Early life jackets - Mae West, because wearing one gave you ginormous bosoms like West's.
- In Vietnam, helicopter pilots wore armored vests. The hard armor insert became know as the "chicken plate", with the implication that only a coward (chicken) would wear one.
- Modern body armor systems are often referred to as "battle rattle".
- Poorly applied slat armor is nicknamed a "cope cage", implying the military that uses it is coping with their inability to either adequately armor its tanks against modern anti-tank munitions, or provide adequate infantry support to prevent their tanks from being targeted by those munitions. As this sort of armor is rarely effective in practice, it's also been called "emotional support armor" as it's only real benefit is to make the vehicle's crew feel like they're better protected.
- Tanks:
- The M2 light tank with twin machine gun turrets is also said to have been nicknamed "Mae West" because its turrets reminded soldiers of her pair of endowments.
- The M4 Sherman medium tank has several nicknames attributed to it, some perhaps authentic and others probably urban legends. The vulnerable position of its ammo racks and its rather overstated tendency to burn when hit because it was gasoline powered (later versions had wet ammo storage or used diesel) led to them being called "Tommy Cookers" in reference to their use by the British. There's also the story that they were called "Ronsons" after the lighter that lights the first time, every time. Nicholas Moran points out some problems with this one, namely that Ronson didn't introduce that slogan until The '50s, and American soldiers back then didn't use Ronsons, they had Zippos. The only provable association with the name is that the Sherman was one of several tanks that was modified to mount the Canadian Ronson flamethrower.
- Soviet tank destroyers, such as the SU-85 and SU-100, were sometimes called "Zookeepers", after the fact that their primary targets, German heavy tanks, were commonly named after big cats (most famously the Tiger and Panther).
- The SU-152 and and ISU-152 assault guns were called "Beast Slayers" for their ability to kill any of the German animal-named tanks (Tiger, Panther and the heavily-armored Elefant tank destroyer). While it's true that they could do this (the enormous 152mm gun didn't even need to penetrate their armor, because the sheer blast force of its high-explosive shell could blow the turret clean off and would kill any crew quite messily), they were poorly-suited for the role because their relatively low-velocity guns required getting dangerously close to ensure a hit. The nickname was actually spread as morale-boosting propaganda.
- The M3 Grant was a predecessor to the Sherman, and under Lend-lease, quite a few were shipped to Russia during WWII. It supposedly became known as "a coffin for seven brothers," in reference to the unusually large crew size for a medium tank. This was less a knock against the Grant and more a case of dark Russian humor (the presumption in the early days of the war was that any tank crew had very poor survival chances), that is if this nickname was ever actually used.
- M3 Stuarts, a variant with a British-designed turret, Lend-leased to the British. The popular story is that the Brits started calling it "Honey" due to its good handling and reliability, but David Fletcher notes that using the word "honey" to describe something good is an Americanism and the British actually got this nickname from the Yanks.
- A field modification by the Marine Corps in the Pacific was nicknamed "M3 Satan". It was armed with a Ronson flamethrower.
- The 105mm self-propelled gun based on the M3 chassis, the M7, was given the name "Priest" by the British due to following on from the "Bishop" and "Deacon" guns and being equipped with a distinctive machine gun cupola which was dubbed the "pulpit." When several dozen M7s were field-modified into armored personnel carriers by removing the howitzer, they were promptly nicknamed "Defrocked Priests".
- Delays to the British AS-90 self-propelled gun (the first to break the trend of naming self-propelled artillery after church officials' titles) led to it being nicknamed the "choirboy," on account of it spending ten years being buggered by Vickers.
- The German Hummel was a self-propelled artillery piece. Hitler ordered the nickname dropped, however, as he thought "Bumblebee" was inappropriate for a fighting vehicle.
- Similarly, the Sturmpanzer 43, a variant of the Panzer IV medium tank, was known as both the Brummbär ("grumbler") and the "Stupa".
- The German Jagdpanzer 38 tank destroyer is so widely known as the Hetzer ("Baiter") in post-war literature that this is widely assumed to be the official name. The only wartime documentation of the name, however, is a letter from General Heinz Guderian to Hitler that mentions the nickname having been coined by tank crews in response to the harassment tactics the Jagdpanzer 38 was typically used for.
- The Israeli Magach-series is named after a seldom used Hebrew word meaning "Ramming hit". Since not many have heard it, they've come up with explanations like "Movil Gviyot Charukhot" (charred bodies carrier, early models had troubles with flammable hydraulics fluid), "Meshupa Gahon" (one with sloping belly) and "Mechonat Giluach Hashmalit" (electric shaving machine).
- The M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System, an American-made self-propelled rocket artillery piece, was initially designated "General Support Rocket System" in British Army service. Royal Artillery soldiers, however, quickly re-purposed the GSRS initials to mean "Grid Square Removal System", as a full salvo of 12 rockets can cover 1 square kilometer (the standard size of a grid square on metric maps) with anti-personnel bomblets.
- The Challenger 3 main battle tank, introduced by Britain in 2021, has been dubbed the "Challenger 2A7" by some on account of being a Challenger 2 hull with a new turret mounting the same 120mm L/55 smoothbore as the German Leopard 2A7 and similar new fire control systems.
- Bases:
- Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, is nicknamed "Fort Lost-in-the-Woods"
- Troops stationed at Kansas' Fort Riley are derogatorily called "Riley Rats"
- The USMC Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, California, is also known as "Twentynine Stumps" due to its remote location in the Mojave Desert.
- Sailors who particularly dislike Norfolk Naval Station in Virginia have sometimes referred to it as "No Fuck, Vagina".
- Someone who has found that the particularly enjoyed being posted to Guam can be said to have "found the G-spot".
- The US Navy stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii is sometimes called the "Pineapple Navy".
- Fort Drum in New York earned the nickname "Fort Drunk" in the 1990s due to a high number of Alcohol-Induced Stupidity incidents.
