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Combat Excerpt
Working Examples

You name it, I've heard it. Guys with accents so thick you can't understand 'em, guys who talk too slow, talk too fast, talk with the mic in their mouth. Guys who sound like women, women who screech instead of talk, folks that mutter, folks that won't shut up, even the odd dweebling who won't quit cussin. Some guys who freeze cause they can't fly and talk, guys that leave stuff out, guys that read you a damn novel, and guys who just plain whine. But you gotta live with it, especially in this game. Cause all those goobers are your squaddies and your life depends on 'em.
--- Unknown

Rollin in hot!

    The following is a series of examples using brevity code on vox. Learning a new language is pretty tough without some idea of how you use these words. Just for reference, field targets are called off by their first letter. Alpha-26 would be A26, Victor-7 would be vehicle field 7, and Pappa-36 would be port 36. Carrier groups are called off as charlie victor. A basic example of reporting a carrier group would be: "Lead, four, tally one charlie victor our right 2 low".

    Whizer flight, lead, reference 120
    Two
    Three
    Four
    Whizer lead, this is Nail, how copy?
    Nail, Whizer lead has you five by five
    Roger, Whizer. What state and long can you party?
    Whizer has 30 minutes with full pistol, one pair 500's each, and lookin for words
    Nail has four panzers, with osty support, just south of that big hill near Alpha-15
    Copy, Nail, ETA is three mikes.
    Whizer, Nail, work the east side to get those panzers. Ostys are on the plateau to the north. Suggest east-west runs, south pull-off to avoid the triple-A
    Roger Nail, we'll get 'em good
    Whizer flight, lead, split into elements and go eyeball/shooter. Number three shooter, call it
    Lead, three, I copy. Let's hit those two panzers on the west end
    Lead element rollin in hot
    Four, two, let's hold eyeball
    Copy two, holding off your right 5
    Whizer lead, Nail, you had a mess of triple-A comin back up at you on that run. Must be a couple flak-tracks in there.
    Two, lead, you see where that fire was comin from?
    Roger lead, we had a real nice view of it. We're rollin in hot on it now
    Copy two, watch that fire from the ostys
    Watch it, hell! We're eatin it!

    Need a translation? To begin, Whizer lead tells everyone to turn to heading 120 (reference). The "two, three, four" bit which follows is simply the rest of the flight saying "gotcha, we're turning". A minor side note: formation flying requires the trailing aircraft to stay on the high side of the flight lead. So if two and four are turning left, four would stay around two's 5 o'clock. Five by five is comm-talk for "loud and clear". Panzers are tanks, ostys are pretty much only in Aces High and consist of a panzer body with a 37mm gun in a turret mount. Nail is a forward air controller (FAC) doing a pretty good job of keeping things under control. The "what state and how long can you party" bit is asking Whizer lead what he's got for ordnance and how much gas he has left. "Three mikes" is three minutes. "Flak-track" is short hand for a triple-A gun mounted on a tank or half-track chassis. The eyeball/shooter position is something that sounds complex, but isn't. One element holds high (eyeball) to watch things and spot any hidden units that might fire on the lead element (shooter). When lead says "number three shooter" he's letting the less-experienced guy take a crack at leading the first bomb run. Elements are flight pairs; the lead and number three man are the "lead element" while the number 2 and 4 drivers are the "support element". When a fight breaks up into elements for air-to-air combat things are a bit different. The eyeball/shooter formation isn't done by two elements, it's done by each pilot. So the number 2 man would be the shooter while 4 would hold high as the eyeball.
    Nail saying "suggest east-west runs, south pull-off" lets any driver in the area know how to make a semi-safe run on the target. Without a FAC, the second element (two and four) would head down to find out where the bad guys are. Run directions are dependent on terrain and the location of targets. Making bomb runs right into a hill is stupid, so you make the run parallel to the hill. When attacking an airfield, runs are made in an arc; you duck into the triple-a fire, hit a target, and duck back out. By not flying right over the field you minimize your exposure to enemy fire.

    Below is a CAP mission excerpt from two P-47D pilots (Cheez Whiz one and two) who get in a little scrap. Note how the lingo changes to quick, short phrases once things get nasty.

    Lead, two, tally two bogies my left seven, low
    Roger two, bogey dope?
    Rough heading 320, cruisin right over the cloud deck. Neg ident but they look German
    Copy. Reference 090
    Roger

At this point the two-man flight makes a left turn to get both behind the unknown aircraft and get close enough for an ID

    Two, lead, got 'em. Looks like a pair of one zero niners snoopin around. Switch loose trail, guns hot
    Roger lead
    Two, lead, bounce on three, right break, smoke 'em
    Tally ho!

After the gun pass

    Lead, two, confirm one bandit down
    That's a roge! Second bandit broke left
    Two, go eyeball/shooter, you're shooter!
    Copy lead!

Two breaks hard right to swing in behind the 109. While he's turning, lead continues an easy right turn and goes high to keep an eye on things. Two finds the 109 facing him head-on as he comes around

    Two, lead, break!

Two yanks on the stick to avoid getting shot, or possibly ramming the 109. While the 109 suddenly hauls the nose up and breaks to climb up after lead

    Lead, one bandit your right five low!
    Tally, visual. Got a shot?
    Neg

Lead pulls into a sharp, climbing right spiral while Two slides in behind the 109. The 109 opens fire half a second before Two, causing minor damage to Cheez Whiz lead. Two's blast from his eight, 50 cal machineguns nearly saws the 109 in three pieces

    Lead, two, splash one bandit!
    Roger, two. What state?
    Uhh, forty mikes play time, half pistol, and no dents
    Roger two. I've got two bent guns and a bent flap. Let's call in Gomer and head home
    Copy lead, divert to alpha-11?
    Neg, lead has thirty mikes play time. Nothin critical
    Roger, lead

    Damage of any sort is reason enough to either call off the patrol or call in reinforcements. In the case of Cheez Whiz, he's calling for replacements to continue the CAP while he and two head home. Two damaged (bent) guns and a flap are not something you want to be caught with over enemy territory. One thing I didn't explain was the "bounce on three, right break, smoke 'em". Bounce on three is a quick way of saying "We're gonna dive in and try to score a couple kills", while "right break" means hang a hard right turn after the pass. "Smoke 'em" is simply saying "if you get a shot, wax 'em". All in all it goes pretty fast, and like you've probably heard the average dogfight is over within a minute. Look above and you'll find one perfect example of brevity code. "Tally, visual, got a shot?" actually means quite a bit.
    Cheez Whiz lead, in those four words, said "I see you, I see the bad guy, can you kill him?". Remember, "tally" means "I see me a bad guy" while "visual" means "I see my friend". That's the whole point of brevity: to say as much as you can without reading a novel over the radio. Five or six words can convey several sentences worth of info very quickly. But never forget, if you or someone else gets confused you can always speak plain english. Brevity is mostly buzz-words, custom phrases, and slang used to replace given words or descriptions. Since you can replace a whole sentence with four or five words, you spend less time chatting and more time shooting the enemy.