I thought it would be Cpts., as in: "Captains Johansson and Riley were present" -> "Cpts. Johansson and Riley were present", but I cannot find anything definitive online.
Additionally, I would have just used Cpts., except I'm finding lots of results saying CPT should be capitalised, and/or should use Capt (or possibly Capt.) instead. So then I'm wondering if CPTs or CPTS would be the proper usage?
(This is in a purely military usage. And I suspect another issue is based on the country and branch being discussed. I have no specific branch intended. I am American but tend to use British English quite often.)
Answer
As you say, the abbreviation of captain depends on the branch of service (in the US). The plural, then, is created by adding a lower-case 's'.
However, it appears that the plural 'capts.' - especially as used in British English - is archaic. You can find references in 19th century issues of the Asiatic Journal, for example; also note the title of a 1804-6 travelogue of Lewis and Clark (The Travels of Capts. Lewis and Clarke from St. Louis,...)
Here is a usage of 'CPTs' in modern American (Armor, volume 111, issue 5).
In conclusion, if you must abbreviate, I suspect you should use the pluralised form for the service branch you refer to. Or just use 'capts.' for a bit of that old je ne sais quoi.
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