This Is Not a Drill: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"This is [[the Captain]] speaking. We're just about to enter the patrol area. From now until the time we return there will be no drills. All alarms are real."''|Announcement made on US nuclear submarine during 1961}}

The [[Brits With Battleships|Royal Navy ]] simply add a prefix - drills are preceded by 'For Exercise' three times. There's also the Safeguard Rule - when this is in force, no mention is made of drills/exercises, and everything is announced as if it was real. Any genuine incidents are preceded by the word 'Safeguard'. It's a distinctive word, and everyone knows what it means, so there is no need to remind people that 'This is not a drill'. Nothing makes people freeze like hearing 'Safeguard, safeguard, safeguard!' over the main broadcast.

* Averted in ''[[War GamesWarGames]]'': the silo crews in the opening are specifically not told it's a drill to test their reactions in a real WWIII situation.

* In [[Dan Abnett]]'s ''[[Warhammer 4000040,000]]'' [[Gaunt's Ghosts]] novel ''Blood Pact'', {{spoiler|Daur}} tells the other prisoners that it's a drill; {{spoiler|Rawne}} says, "It's not a drill." Later, when the Ghosts are put on active pending status, Dalin Criid questions whether it's a drill.

{{quote|''It's Christmas at ground zero

''The button has been pressed

''The radio just let us know

''That this is not a test .}}

'''Traffic control:''' [[Captain Obvious|This is not a drill.]]<br />

* In ''[[Sinfest]]'', [httphttps://wwwweb.archive.org/web/20140209190841/http://sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2167 Squidly warns of Monique's mood -- and this is not a drill!]

* Oddly enough, the old [https://web.archive.org/web/20111015135000/http://www.ae5d.com/images/EBS-28rzx.png Emergency Broadcast System's script for actual nuclear attack] does not use the phrase "This is not a test".

* Then there is the joke: This is not a drill. Repeat, this is NOT''not'' a drill. This is a chainsaw.

* In the modern US Navy, the actual phrases used differ from ship to ship and branch to branch (i.e. surface vs. submarines), and even different proceeduresprocedures may be used by different training teams on the same ship (engineering vs. combat systems, for example). Sometimes emergencies are simply called away as if they were real, with drill monitors wearing different colors stationed in advance to prevent the crewmen from doing anything that might actually be ''dangerous'', and only inform the crew that it was a drill at the end. Even when the drill is not initially announced as such and was not pre-scheduled, however, the whole crew generally knows they're coming--whencoming—when the guys with red hats start hanging around the engine room for no reason, it becomes pretty obvious. Drills are also generally not held any time there's a higher potential for a real emergency (like entering a combat or patrol zone).

* Subverted... kinda. In the first volume of his war memoir ''Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall'' by comedian [[Spike Milligan]], who was conscripted into the Royal Artillery as a Radio Operator. He quotes extensively from the Regimental War Diary a message about a large invasion force had been spotted in the English Channel heading for Britain was sent by his unit. Shortly after a panicked War Office got in touch asking what steps had been taken and had the Navy been informed... [[Hilarity Ensues|Hilarity Ensures]] and in the end the CO is ordered to London to clear things up. In his book Milligan confesses that the message had been sent by him as part of a drill but that he had neglected to preface the message with the phrase 'PRACTICE' before he sent it.