The Military Date Time Group (DTG) format is used in everything from operations orders to airlifts and is essential for every service member to know. Understanding how to put together a DTG format correctly is imperative.
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Military Date Time Group Example
Date Time Group is traditionally formatted as DDHHMM(Z)MONYY
An example is 630pm on January 6th, 2012 in Fayetteville NC would read 061830RJAN12
DD-Day of the month (e.g., January 6th=06)
HHMM- Time in 24 hr format +military time zone (e.g. 6:30pm in =1830).
Z- Military identifier- see below for a complete list
MON- 3 digit month code, (e.g. January= JAN)
YY- 2 Digit year, (e.g. 2012= 12)
Military Time Code
The military time zone is used as a representation to Coordinate Universal Time (UTC) which is based on hours + or – Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) which is considered hour 0.
In military time code reference, Greenwich Mean time is referred to as Zulu (Z). In operations spanning multiple time zones, Zulu will be used to give all operating units a time zone to adjust their time to so that everyone is on the same page.
One common mistake when using the military time code is to use “L” as Local time. In fact “L” is used to represent the time code for UTC+11 which covers parts of Russia and Australia. When referring to your time zone, be sure to see what your local code identifier is by using the reference below.
Military Time Code Letter Reference
UTC -12: Y- (e.g., Fiji)
UTC-11: X (American Samoa)
UTC-10: W (Honolulu, HI)
UTC-9: V (Juneau, AK)
UTC-8: U (PST, Los Angeles, CA)
UTC-7: T (MST, Denver, CO)
UTC-6: S (CST, Dallas, TX)
UTC-5: R (EST, New York, NY)
UTC-4: Q (Halifax, Nova Scotia
UTC-3: P (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
UTC-2: O (Godthab, Greenland)
UTC-1: N (Azores)
UTC+-0: Z (Zulu time)
UTC+1: A (France)
UTC+2: B (Athens, Greece)
UTC+3: C (Arab Standard Time, Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar)
UTC+4: D (Used for Moscow, Russia, and Afghanistan, however, Afghanistan is technically +4:30 from UTC)
UTC+5: E (Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan)
UTC+6: F (Bangladesh)
UTC+7: G (Thailand)
UTC+8: H (Beijing, China)
UTC+9: I (Tokyo, Australia)
UTC+10: K (Brisbane, Australia)
UTC+11: L (Sydney, Australia)
UTC+12: M (Wellington, New Zealand)
2 questions about years.
What would the two digit year code be for 2112?
Where would the two digit year code do in the DTG?
Thank you, this website is very informative.
Year code would still be 12, and it goes at the end.
Thanks for this. I was a USAF radio operator decades ago and then Army afterward. This is a great, quick primer.