Here is a quick reminder on how to read or write a NATO DTG as used in all UNSGC documentation etc.

The standard NATO expression for just the date without time, is given in the order: day date / month / year. For example the 16th of March 2017, would be written as:

Note that the month is fully capitalised and comprises just the first 3 letters. Thus the months are written as JAN, FEB, MAR, APR, MAY, JUN, JUL, AUG, SEP, OCT, NOV, and DEC respectively. While the year is given as just the last two digits ONLY.

If you wish to express several days covering an event you write it thus:

If it bridges a change of year then you get:

NATO time uses the 24 hour clock and has three parts, the hours, the minutes, and the time zone. As an example the time two minutes to three in the afternoon in the month of March, which counts as the winter months here in the UK, would be expressed as:

"Z" or ZULU is our winter Time Zone, whereas in British Summer Time (BST), we are in the "A" or ALPHA Time Zone. The addition of the letter marks the four digits out as an expression of time. Note that a colon is not used to separate the hours and minutes as is commonly done in civilian documents.

Midnight is expressed as 0000A or 0000Z as appropriate, and never as "2400". Thus time runs from 0000 to 2359.

Combining the two to enable you to stipulate a specific time on a specific date, the time element is inserted between the day date and the month.

So the full order is: day date / hours / minutes / time-zone / month / year.

And thus we get:

Remember that the first pair of digits is always the day date, and the clutch of four, is the time. This is done to ensure that in a document all such expressions appear in the correct order.

Finally, when space is at a premium, the DTG is written without spaces, so the above would be rendered as:

Or at its most complex you might get:

But a little easier is:

However in either case, using these instructions it is easy to break down and read.

If you want even more details see the article on  UNMC Military Time .

END OF DOCUMENT