Most Awesomely Bad Military Acronyms

ASWBL- Armed Services Whole Blood Processing Laboratory

Sound it out: ASS WOBBLE!

CEXC (pron. "sexy")
Combined Explosives Exploitation Cell

ASRAAM - Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile (AIM-132, in service with the RAF and RAAF. One has to wonder what the state of their Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell policy is.)

NCES - Net Centric Enterprise Services, but if you sound it out rather than say the letters.....

BOING- Basis Of Issue Narrative Guidance

CUSRPG - Canada-US Regional Planning Group - or a cursing pig?

GPALS - Global Protection Against Limited Strikes - or a kids cartoon?

STIG - Security Technical Implementation Guide - or the best driver in the world!

TEWT (Toot) - Training Exercise Without Troops was the replacement for the more enjoyable acronym: Practical Exercise, Not Involving Soldiers (PENIS). Very rarely could you call one company command to another and ask "Want to go on my PENIS to Gettysburg". Or, my personal favorite, "The Battalion is going to have a large PENIS in the Fulda Gap. All subsequent small PENIS'(check spelling) will join the battalion for evaluation".
I love the Army.

Battlefield Airborne Communications Node and Expeditionary Ground Gateway System. Put together - BACN and EGGS

You forgot MANPADS, I know, pretty immature.

DILDO (I'm NOT kidding)-Direct Input Limited Duty Officer. Limited duty line officers that typically have no experience and are highly specialized. For example, some of the instructors at Nuclear Power School in Charleston, SC. Their sole function for their tenure (4-5 years) is to teach classes here.

PSTOF - Precision Strike Targeting Software

Pronounced Pissed Off

FARRT-- Floor Action Rapid Response Team (I've seen used by leg affairs types).

all Military Acronyms are bad some are just moe bad than others.

My favorite has always been from my ROTC days: PMS = Professor of Military Science. "Yeah, my PMS has been bothering me more than usual lately."

Believe the source for many of the most incomprehensible is DARPA. They seem to create the most uncreative acronyms I have run across. Strange, because one would think that their choices, based on their (alleged?) brilliance, would be incredibly, brilliantly clever.

Another Sigh....! for the little disappointments of life.

@CPT Doug: PMS in the Navy stands for periodic maintenance schedule. "Aw, man! I have to do the PMS on the PSN-11 today."

CIWS Close in weapons system pronounced C- WIZZ

MILF or Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a terrorist group in the phillipines

Prime base engineer emergency force (Prime BEEF)

Prime readiness in base service (Prime RIBS)

Two of my favorite engineering groups in the USAF.

When I was a lieutenant in the US Army, I swore that someday I would create a organization dedicated to fighting the proliferation of acronyms. The name: AFA AFA (Americans For An Acronym-Free America).

LOL GUYS! BE HAPPY YOU ARE NOT IN RUSSIAN ARMY!!

The USA PATRIOT Act's acronym stands for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act"

ASS and FSTR were pretty bad.

From my ROTC days: FUBAR. It's a drill team move. And yes, it does me f**k up beyond all repair. :)

TEWT
Tactical Exercise Without Troops

which I sometimes replaced in Operations Orders (OPORDs) with a Practical Exercise Not Including Soldiers

the current Iraq War was originally to be called "Operation Iraqi Liberation" until somebody figured out there was alittle too much truth in that one... it spells OIL

PMS - Planned Maintenance Schedule

The always great TLA: Three Letter Acronym.

Usage: "Hey, Jim, have you developed a TLA for the new process?"

CINCUS- Commander-in-Chief, United
States Fleet

"sink us"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Fleet

None are as cool as the Central Utah Narcotic Task Force. CUNT-F

ASACoE (Application Software Assurance Center of Excellence). An acronym so ambiguously unpronounceable that even its management can't agree on how it is pronounced.

What about UNA: Use No Acronyms

What about UNA: Use No Acronyms

I had a summer job a defense contractor, which was very excited to get a piece of the ANEW Project ... turns out, someone had written on a blackboard, "A New Project" ....

I had a summer job a defense contractor, which was very excited to get a piece of the ANEW Project ... turns out, someone had written on a blackboard, "A New Project" ....

the TEMATA on spanish means literally "this kill you"

I'm just glad that the Global War On Terrorism (GWOT) isn't called the Total War Against Terrorism (TWAT).

Not a military acronym, but awful just the same - The City of Seattle in its infinite wisdom was originally calling the trolleys in one part of town the South Lake Union Trolley or SLUT. Once they realized their error, they hastily renamed it, but the unhappy residents in the area ran with it, and actually sell tee shirts reading, "I rode the SLUT."

DONKEY DICK. Slang for the fuel spout attached to fuel cans when re-fueling trucks, generators, etc. Sorry if someone else mentioned it already.

SNAFU: Situation Normal, All F***ed up.
KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid.
Not really an acronym but still good. The 6Ps: Proper Planing Prevents P*ss Poor Performance.

I like Syd Mead's OBLAGON: Orbital Biolab LA Grange Operations. Full description: "Early in 1978, I started to write a story about the ultimate extension of computer memory systems; what would happen if you took predictive profiling to its ultimate extension and 'built' a duplicate statistical world in computer memory parallel with the 'real' world? The end result of this indulgence was an acronym; Orbital Biolab LA Grange Operations Node or OBLAGON."

My grandfather, a Lt. Commander in the Navy and senior electrical engineer during Vietnam, developed an early flight simulator with Hughes Aircraft christened by the best military acronym I've ever heard: MISTER, for Mobile Integrated System Training Experimentation and Research. I might be paraphrasing the "E" part. Don't rightly recall.

They probably have an acronym for torture techniques too, Nazi bastards.

DCOC (sound it out...)-- Deputy Commander for Outlying Clinics...

Operation Iraqi Liberation

While not military, our previous PM in Australia renamed my employer the Department of Immigration and Citizenship - the DIC. Which was hastily renamed DIAC. Our national office is also known by the acronym NATO.

Fort Knox has the Maneuver Advanced NCO Course = MANCOC. As the briefer said when he was going through the courses on PPT: "Yeah, we're changing that."

LANTIRN - Low Altitude Navigation Targeting Infrared for Night

modem hub burst demodulator

ROWPU - Reverse Osmosis Water Purification Unit.
.
Of course, we came up with a competing acronym.
.
COWPIE - Compression Osmosis Water Purification Installation. The "E" is an unnamed defense contractor I was working for at the time. We figured this would work better in the ensuing ad capaign. Imagine slogans like, "Put a COWPIE in your canteen!"

How about these:

DOD Proposal are "red-teamed" by these two wonderful groups:

"System hardware Integration Team". (SHIT)

"Financial Analysis Review Team " (FART)

for the longest time I thought SCA stood for Society of Creative Acronyms.

don't know what it's called now, but when stationed in the Aleutians back in the '70s we listened to radio broadcast by the Armed Forces Radio and Television Services (AFRTS - pronounced "A-farts").

FAGPAC - Fleet Assistance Group Pacific

NIMPHOPAC - Naval Information, Materiel, and Procurement Help Pacific

In Canada, there was recently a political party, the Canadian Reform Aliance Party... the new name was announced at a press conference, when journalists began to giggle then really laugh when they spelled out the acronym... CRAP

SOROS

Secret
Operation
Resulting in
Oppressive
Socialism

AHOLE

Amurrcan Hero Openly Lives Effeminately.

SWODaddy is telling the truth. I was there for the change from DILDO (Direct Input Limited Duty Officer)to DIO (Direct Input Officer). The best part was the female ensigns that were called DILDOs.

PAST-A! is a fairly cool project even if it has a terrible name. Confiendtially, I can tell y'all that PAST-A! was actually the second name my colleague came up with. Her first choice, which was reject by our management, was AGHAST.

This one may not count, as it's British:
Cambridge University Naval Training Service.

Renamed a while ago to Cambridge University Royal Naval Unit...

ok, NOT an acronym, but a military initiative in the
(abomination that is the) Iraq Occupation: "Centaur Rodeo".....

Actually i like this one a LOT. I imagine centaurs doing gymnastics
that look like a bronco trying to lose the (permanently attached) 'rider'.

WPAS (pronounced "Whoop Ass"): The Worldwide Public Affairs Symposium, or the annual conference for Army public affairs.

MARINE stands for My Ass Rides In Navy Equipment

how about WOMBAT- Waste Of Money Brains and Time (its a british one)
probably related to the WOMBAT recoilless antitank gun/

UMOP Ugliest Mother F...er On Post