List of military time zones


This is a list of military time zones as defined in the ACP 121 standard. for Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, and is used by many nations' armed forces. The names are identical to the NATO phonetic alphabet.
Going east from the prime meridian at Greenwich, letters "Alpha" through "Mike" represent the 12 time zones with positive UTC offsets until reaching the international Date Line. Going west from Greenwich, letters "November" through "Yankee" represent zones with negative offsets.
The letters are typically used in conjunction with military time. For example, 6:00 a.m. in zone is written "0600R" and spoken "oh six hundred Romeo".
Time zone nameDescriptionDesignation LettersOffset
Alpha Time Zone
Bravo Time Zone
Charlie Time Zone
Delta Time Zone
Echo Time Zone
Foxtrot Time Zone
Golf Time Zone
Hotel Time Zone
India Time Zone
Kilo Time Zone
Lima Time Zone
Mike Time Zone
November Time Zone
Oscar Time Zone
Papa Time Zone
Quebec Time Zone
Romeo Time Zone
Sierra Time Zone
Tango Time Zone
Uniform Time Zone
Victor Time Zone
Whiskey Time Zone
X-ray Time Zone
Yankee Time Zone
Zulu Time Zone0

The system apparently originates from Nathaniel Bowditch's 1802 American Practical Navigator book, where time zones were labelled with letters and "J" was skipped to avoid confusion with "I".
The letter "J", originally skipped, may be used to indicate the observer's local time.
The letter "L" is commonly mistaken for "local".
The letter "Z" indicates Coordinated Universal Time.