How to understand military time

military time is a system of keeping track of time based on a 24-hour clock, rather than the traditional 12-hour clock used in most countries. It is usually used to help make communication more precise, especially when providing information about times or scheduling events. Though it can seem confusing at first, understanding military time is actually quite simple.

In military time, the day starts at midnight, which is represented by 0000 hours. The hours are then counted up until 2359 (just before midnight the next day). Following this system ensures that there isn't any ambiguity about which day an event should take place on – for example 1200 Tuesday would refer to noon on Tuesday while 1200 Wednesday would refer to midnight between Tuesday and Wednesday. It also avoids any confusion caused by referring to midday as "12:00 PM" rather than "12:00 AM" – in military time it's always understood that noon and midnight are represented as "1200" and "0000" respectively.

The main difference between military time and traditional 12-hour time lies in the way minutes are added after the hour. In 12 hour time, minutes are expressed as two digits after a colon (e.g. 8:32), but in military time the colon is used to express different time zones (e.g. 0032Z). Minutes after the hour use one digit numbers from zero (00) to nine (09), just like regular clock notation – so 8:30 would be expressed as 0830 in military time, for example.

To make telling the time even easier, you can use a simple conversion chart or calculator online if you don't want to worry about memorizing all the numbers from 0000 to 2359! All you have to do is input one format and it will convert it automatically for you into the other format for quick reference.