Hi Chris:
Just to add to your growing appreciation of a topic that takes ages to absorb and is always being tinkered with by the Jimmies... Niner is the CO, not the OC, unless its an independent unit which have COs not OCs anyway... it gets worse!
Sub-units (btys, sqns and coys) would be led by 19, 29, 39 etc.
Brigade Comd became, by default, 99 because 9 in the Brigade HQ and Sigs Sqn was the OC of the Sqn (an independent command): RATS! I mean CO!
Letters tend to follow the callsign such as 9A which would be the CO's rover (jeep) to us Gunners as the CO has a much bigger and thicker skinned beast to ride in normally (read M113 in my day, LAV nowadays). Zulu Niner is the callsign adopted by the CO's driver when the CO is out of the vehicle. If the driver responds to a call for Niner with, "Zulu Niner, send over" the other caller knows that the CO is not there but the driver will take a message for him. The "Z" was never actually painted on a vehicle as it was a roving callsign that went where the CO wasn't!
The "long haired Niner" is also referred to as Niner Domestic, Niner Delta, and the
Residential Sergeant Major!
Callsign for the RSM is 97, by the way.
Have fun with the wheels for SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed!)
Mike
