Recent years have witnessed unprecedented efforts by family and other historians to dig out more and more information on Australia's rich military heritage and especially on those who served. This groundswell of interest follows on from milestones such as the centenary of the Boer War and World War I. As a result, historians now seem to be surrounded by an ever expanding plethora of records, most of which they find are digitised. That's where the problem can start. The task of understanding military records is fraught with the difficulties of grappling with and interpreting among other matters, military speak, acronyms, initialisms and abbreviations. Naturally the military has to employ abbreviations and the like which are unique to the Art of War, and that is what it is all about. Failure to be concise, efficient and readily understood within the military machine means that the transition from Peace to War will be jeapardised with any system of military speak which promises less. Therefore, to get the most from military records, be they related to personnel, tactical, equipment, procedural, organisational or operational matters, a grasp of the military abbreviations likely to be encountered is highly advisable. This book fills the need by detailing 6000 abbreviations, initialisms and acronyms found in Australian military records from 1788 to the present day.