Field Artillery Slang Glossary: 25 Terms Only a Redleg Would Know

Every branch has its own vocabulary. Field artillery's is built around fire missions, gunnery math, and a few nicknames that have stuck around for decades. Here are 25 terms worth knowing.

• Redleg — A nickname for artillerymen, tracing back to the red trim historically worn on artillery dress uniforms.
• Cannon cocker — Informal slang for a cannoneer, the crew member actually loading and firing the gun.
• Fire mission — The general term for a call for indirect fire, from first request to last round.
• Fire for effect — The order to fire full rounds on target once adjusting rounds have confirmed accuracy.
• Shake and bake — A mission combining high explosive ("shake") and white phosphorus ("bake") rounds in the same fire mission.
• Cleared hot — The radio call authorizing an aircraft to release weapons on a close air support mission.
• Danger close — A fire mission requested close enough to friendly positions that it requires special authorization and risk acceptance.
• Splash — The radio call warning an observer that rounds are about to impact, typically given a few seconds out.
• Shot, over — The radio call confirming a round has left the tube.
• Check fire — An order to immediately stop all firing, used any time continuing would be unsafe.
• FDC — Fire Direction Center, the section that turns a call for fire into a firing solution for the guns.
• FO — Forward Observer, the soldier forward of the guns who locates targets and adjusts fire onto them.
• Battery — An artillery unit roughly equivalent to a company in size, built around a set of guns.
• Section chief — The NCO in charge of an individual gun crew, responsible for everything that gun does.
• Grid square — A square on a military map used to describe a location by coordinates.
• Hip shoot — An emergency, unplanned occupation of a firing position, done fast and without the usual survey and setup.
• Deflection — The horizontal aiming direction of a gun, measured in mils.
• Quadrant — The vertical elevation angle applied to a gun tube to achieve a given range.
• Charge — The specific propellant load used for a round, which determines how far and how high it travels.
• At my command — A fire control instruction meaning the guns hold their final shot until the observer or FDC gives the exact word to fire.
• Rounds complete — The report confirming all rounds for a fire mission have been fired.
• Smoke mission — A fire mission using smoke rounds to obscure friendly movement or blind enemy observation.
• Illum mission — A fire mission using illumination rounds to light up a target area, typically at night.
• Steel rain — An informal, descriptive term for a heavy, massed artillery barrage.
• Bite the primer — Gun-line slang riffing on the old "bite the bullet" phrase, reworked around the primer that actually ignites the round.

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