What is six in military time?
Military time is a 24-hour clock designed to avoid confusion between daytime and nighttime hours, since the armed forces are in operation around the clock.
Also called the "24-clock," the system is commonly used in industries and professions in the United States and other parts of the world in which 24-hour operations are routine, including law enforcement, fire departments, hospitals, airlines and railroads.
There is no a.m. or p.m. in military time, as numbers are not reused, but instead, each hour has its own number.
Any given time of day is expressed in four digits. The day in military time begins at midnight with 0000, pronounced "zero hundred hours" or simply "zero hundred."
You then add one hundred for each hour, so 1 a.m. is 0100 (zero one hundred) hours, 2 a.m. is 0200 (zero two hundred) hours and so forth.
In the four-digit expression of time, no colon separates the hours and minutes. For example, 6:30 a.m. in civilian time is written simply as 0630 in military time.
The morning hours are simple enough to understand. This ease continues through midday, which is 1200 (twelve hundred) hours.
Read More: Making Sense of Military Time
The military references to the afternoon and evening hours often take new enlistees in basic training longer to learn by heart.
After noon, instead of starting over with 1, military time continues chronologically, so that 1 p.m. is 1300 hours, 2 p.m. is 1400 hours and so forth.
The day ends just before midnight at what civilians would call 11:59 p.m., but which in military time is 23:59, or twenty-three fifty-nine hours.
For those still learning the 24-clock system, a simple way to translate afternoon and evening hours into civilian time is to subtract 12. For example, for 2000 hours, subtract 12 from 20 to get 8 p.m.
Read More: Military Lingo for New Military Spouses
One of the main advantages of using military time is eliminating ambiguity. Military routines and operations demand precision, and the use of the 24-clock system prevents any confusion over a.m. versus p.m.
"Precise time is crucial to navigation, geographical positioning for locating forces and targets, and secure communications," according to the Encyclopedia of Military Science. "Military time, therefore, is more than a method for counting the hours. It's also an authoritative source of time and a set of methods to disseminate synchronized time worldwide."
Although the phrase "military time" is commonly used, this time system was not invented by the military. The 24-hour clock had already been employed throughout Europe for years before the U.S. military adopted it.
The U.S. Navy began using the 24-hour clock in 1920, after becoming familiar with it during World War I.
The U.S. Army didn't officially adopt military time until 1942.
Read More: The Military Alphabet
Military Time operates on a unique time system. Military time is a concise method of expressing time that is used by the military as well as emergency services such as law enforcement, firefighting and emergency medical personnel as well as hospitals. Military time operates on a 24- hour clock that begins at midnight which is referred to as 0000 hours, with 1:00 a.m. being 0100 hours, 2:00 a.m. being 0200 hours, etc. all the way to 11:00 p.m. being 2300 hours.
The most notable difference between regular and military time is the manner in which hours are expressed. Regular time uses numbers 1 to 12 to identify each of the 24 hours in a day. With military time, the hours are numbered from 00 to 23. Under this system, midnight is 00, 1 a.m. is 01, 1 p.m. is 13, and so on. Minutes and seconds are expressed exactly the same way with military and regular time. It is not necessary to change anything regarding minutes and second when one switches from military time to regular time and vice versa.
Military time utilizes a rather special two-digit number to identify each of the twenty-four hours in a day so a.m. and p.m. are not necessary. Regular time requires the use of a.m. and p.m. to clearly identify the time of day.
The chart below provides a summary and comparison of Military Time and Regular Time.
Military Time and Regular Time use the same number of minutes per hour and in the same way. One does not need to convert minutes between these two systems because military minutes do not exist. Occasionally encounter time written in a format that appears to use minutes larger than 59 (for example 7:82 or 7.82). Time written in this manner is being expressed in decimal hours (hours and hundredths of hours), not military time. Converting from decimal hours to hours and minutes is a different issue than converting between regular and military time.
The question sometimes arises whether midnight is written as 2400 or 0000. Military and emergency services personnel refer to midnight both ways. However, digital watches and clocks that display time in a 24-hour format and computer equipment treat midnight as the start of a new day and express it as 0000.
Military Time will be written differently by various organizations and professional groups. The military, emergency services and hospitals usually write military time as hours and minutes without a colon and often add the word “hours” afterward. The format is:
hoursminutes
Example: 1331 or 1331 hours
When expressing time down to the second, they insert a colon between the minutes and seconds using the format
hoursminutes:seconds
Example: 1331:42 or 13:31:42 hours
Colons are usually inserted between the hours, minutes, and seconds by science and engineering entities. The formats used to express time are:
hours:minutes
Example: 13:31 and
hours:minutes:seconds
Example: 13:31:42
Both digital wristwatches and 24-hour clocks are sources of military time. Many digital watches provide the option of displaying the time in either regular or military format. Switching back and forth is usually done by pressing a button labeled “12/24” or something similar several corporations manufacture 24-hour clocks.
One assumes that an event occurs at 0001 military time. In order to convert this to regular time, separate the hours from the minutes. The hours are shown below in red:
0001
Look up the hour digits (00) in the conversion table (above). The table shows that 00 hours in military time is 12 a.m. in regular time.
The next two digits (01) represent the minutes past the hour. Since military time and regular time use minutes in exactly the same way, no conversion is required.
Thus, 0001 military time translates to 12:01 a.m. or one minute past midnight regular time.
When you wish to convert 1:17:42 p.m. (forty-two seconds past 1:17 in the afternoon) to military time. Using the above conversion table, we see that this translates to 13:17:42 or 1317:42 military time (depending which style you use to write it).
Military time is a day clock that measures hours to 24 instead of 12 hours like civilian time. Military time is used to avoid confusion between a.m. and p.m. hours. The 24-clock is used by militaries, most European countries, and businesses engaged in 24-hour operations, like airlines and railroads.
Here is a conversion chart converting regular time to military time and how you would read or say that military time.
In the 24-hour format, midnight has two designations, 0000 and 2400:
Military time read and spoken to four digits. A leading 0 is read or spoken for the first 12 hours of the day. On radio and for maximum clarity, every digit is spoken. When reading or in casual conversation, times can be read as three- or four-digit numbers:
Spoken numbers follow the custom of the NATO Phonetic Alphabet, so their pronunciation is exaggerated:
Military time is written in a four-digit format. But you only need to concern yourself with the latter part of the day since the early morning hours are familiar. From midnight of a new day to noon, the 12-hour and 24-hour times are just about the same:
After reaching noon, add the first 12 hours of the day to each of the 12-hour clock times to get the military time:
Military time is used to prevent confusion between a.m. and p.m. times. If you were to arrange to meet a friend at 8, how would your friend know whether you meant 8 a.m. or 8 p.m.? With military time, no confusion exists because 0800 is 8 a.m. and 2000 hours is 8 p.m.
While the U.S. military and militaries around the world use military time, so do other large operators whose business takes them through different time zones.
Airlines typically use the 24-hour clock. In the United States, NASA uses military time down to thousandths of a second.
