Is it true that Commander in Chief US Navy was once abbreviated CINCUS ?
Read it in Reader’s Digest once .
At White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, there is an area called the High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility.
http://www.wsmr.army.mil/testcenter/testing/landf/Pages/HighEnergyLaserSystemsTestFacility.aspx
The official acronym is HELSTF. As a D&D geek, I though it would be really cool to work for something called “the Hellstaff”.
I was once stationed at US Naval Station, Treasure Island, San Francisco – or NAVSTA TISFRAN, spoken “nav stay tiss fran”.
NAVSTA TISFRAN, BTW, had the best PFT course I ever ran in my career. It’s a little more than 3 miles around its perimeter, and so the course ran the perimeter, and along the north end of the island the course went atop the sea wall. It’s usually cool in SF, so there’s no hot and humid weather, and you’re at sea level where the air is thick, and you’d just enjoy the great scenery of sparkling blue water close to you and the skylines of San Francisco and Oakland and Angel Island and Alcatraz, the Bay Bridge, and Golden Gate Bridge off in the distance, all while doing your 3 miles.
It was beautiful, just beautiful. NAVSTA TISFRAN.
Years later after they closed down the base, one of the big hangar buildings was used by the film industry. One year I was looking around, and a large diorama for James and the Giant Peach filled the building. That was in Building 2, if you knew the (small) base.
Re: Navy abbreviations.
It’s always been my understanding that CINC in an abbreviation stands for “Commander IN Charge.” “Commander IN Chief” always refers to POTUS.
No, the Navy used to use terms like CINCPACFLT and CINCLANTFLT for Commander-in-Chief, Pacific (or Atlantic) Fleet. It was very early in my career, probably around '94 or '95 that they said that CINC was reserved for the President, and the titles became COMPACFLT and COMLANTFLT Commander, Pacific or Atlantic Fleet.
Actually, Wikipedia tells me the designation changed October 24, 2002… Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet - Wikipedia
I once worked on a project that had to extract information from a massive automobile database and generate reports about said data. I called it the Vehicle Record Output Organizing Machine.
Still proud of that one.
For once, you would have been okay with the pedants if you just used Acronym.
(Though, personally, I think acronym should mean any pronounceable abbreviation and initialism mean any abbreviation made from initials. Some just happen to be both. But I’m not the king of English.)
(Sink Us) Heh. 
If anyone cares, NAVAIR just released a promotional video about MAGIC CARPET. It can be found here:
Not the Navy - this was done by some bureaucrats here in Seattle.
At great expense, and with much fanfare, Seattle built a trolley line in the north end of town, extending, I think, about a mile and a half. This magnificent project went around the south end a body of water named Lake Union. In a burst of enthusiasm, the bureaucrats named it officially the “South Lake Union Trolley”.
Guess how many nanoseconds before tee shirts were selling like hotcakes, with a picture of the trolley, and the words “I rode the S.L.U.T.” emblazoned just beneath. I forget what they changed the name to, but it was done very rapidly.
Who says we never have any fun in Seattle?
Wouldn’t it be a conflict of interest if CINCUS were also named Lord of the Cinque Ports?
(yes, I know the “que” is silent, but shut up.)
The term the Army has for command level simulations is TEWT (pronounced toot). Tactical Exercise Without Troops. We renamed it a Practical Exercise Not Included Soldiers.
I heard the same joke come back around to me over the years. I doubt I invented it. Probably multiple smart asses came up with it when they heard the original ridiculous acronym.
Yes. It was changed just before the start of 1942 to COMINCH.
Edit: Dammit. WW2 history is the only thing I’m good at. Why can’t you guys give me a chance?? (I’m too damn slow.)
Great thread.
In “–All You Zombies–,” Heinlein refers to the Women’s Hospitality Order Refortifying and Encouraging Spacemen, the Women’s Emergency National Corps, Hospitality and Entertainment Section, and the Auxiliary Nursing Group, Extraterrestrial Legions.
I’ve also heard CINCHOME used.
Does that interface with the Specialized Tactical Equipment for Planned Personnel** E**xtended Navy, Worldwide Operations Logistical Force?
When I was a kid I loved to read the Guinness Book Of World Records and they had an extremely long abbreviation which I remember to this day:
ADCOMSUBORDCOMPHIBSPAC
Which has to do with the administrative command, amphibious forces, pacific fleet subordinate command.
Back in my RPG days when every agency in a superhero game had to have a cool acronym (VIPER! SHIELD!) I came up with the Zealous Underground Criminal Command Headquarters International Network of Intrigue. I wish I could have had the heroes caught in the middle of a firefight between ZUCCHINI and BANANA.
Heheh. I was once in a Champions RPG campaign, and the anti-mutant bad guys were in HOGPUS - the Holy Order [for] Genetic Purity [in the] United States.