Official Italian military designations (February 2022 system)

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After coming across several military designations that looked suspiciously American, yet weren't, I had to dig a little further and found out the reason: the Italian government has chosen to "take inspiration" from the US system, as clearly explained in this official Italian Ministry of Defense document which I translated via Google Translation. Please note that bold type is mine, and meant to emphasize parts of the document which I thought interesting and relevant to the subject.

USE OF THE “MISSION DESIGN SERIES” (MDS) NOMENCLATURE IN DAAA TECHNICAL PUBLICATIONS (PPTT)

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MINISTRY OF DEFENSE
General Secretariat of Defense and National Armaments Directorate
Directorate of Aeronautical Armaments and Airworthiness
AER(EP).0-0-12
Basic edition 03 February 2022
Amendment 2 of 16 October 2024

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INTRODUCTION
For aircraft nomenclatures, at the moment, there is no STANAG at NATO level that standardizes the nomenclature in order to make the actual type and operational purpose of the aircraft clearly, unambiguously and immediately identifiable.
For the above reasons, it was decided to take inspiration from the US regulation DAFI16-401 which provides that each military aircraft line be assigned a “Mission Design Series” (MDS) and a “Popular Name”.
The MDS is the official nomenclature for aircraft, represents a specific category of aircraft and must always be used when referring to operations, support and official documentation.
The “Popular Name” is used as a colloquial identification term for the aircraft and facilitates its reference by the Media.
Both names must be used as a general reference but the MDS must always be used in official publications and technical manuals.
The AM General Staff has implemented the MDS with the SMA-LOG-006 directive.
In order to clarify the main reference interfaces for the Configuration Management and Applicable Technical Publications of each aircraft, this edition introduces information about the “Entity Responsible for the Identification and Registration of the Configuration” (EIRC) and the “Competent Division” (DC) of the DAAA.
This document is issued to publish the list of “Mission Design Series” (MDS) assigned to each aircraft under the jurisdiction of the DAAA.

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RELATED DOCUMENTATION
The following publications are considered an integral part of this PT:

• DAFI16-401 Designating and Naming Defense Military Aerospace Vehicles.
• SMA-LOG-006 AD Aircraft Nomenclature
• AER(EP).0-0-2 Definition and regulation of the PPTT System of the Directorate of Air Armaments and Airworthiness (ARMAEREO)
• AER(EP).00-00-6 Identification and Registration of the Configuration of Aeronautical Articles - Guidelines for the Armed Forces and CdS

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APPLICABILITY
This PT enters into force from the date of approval and is applicable to the Technical Publications (PPTT) relating to aircraft under the jurisdiction of the DAAA. In particular:

• for programs already in progress: to newly issued PPTTs and to new editions of PPTTs already issued which must therefore be renamed;
• for new programs: to all PPTTs.

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DEFINITIONS
For the purposes of this rule, all acronyms, terms and phrases present in the PT AER.Q-2010 apply, plus the following specific ones:

• DAFI Department Air Force Instruction
• MDS Mission Design Series

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HOW TO USE THE MDS
In order to avoid doubtful cases of applicability of a PT to a specific aircraft, the entire body of PPTTs under the jurisdiction of the DAAA must be progressively adapted in terms of aircraft identification, moving from the commercial name to the Mission Design Series.To allow this transition in a gradual and systematic manner, the following rules are established.

• For the purposes of coding the PPTTs, in case of applicability to multiple versions of the same aircraft or to multiple aircraft, the identification code and the text of the PT must report all the MDSs involved, separated from each other by a slash “/”.E.g.: AER.1H-OH-500A/OH-500B-01 “List of Applicable Technical Publications (LOAP) to OH-500A and OH-500B helicopters”.
• For PPTTs belonging to the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th categories of AER(EP).0-0-2, the replacement of the commercial name with the MDS must take place when issuing a basic edition, a re-edition or an amendment.
• For PPTTs of the 3rd category of AER(EP).0-0-2, the replacement of the commercial name with the MDS must take place exclusively when issuing a basic edition or when issuing a new edition (re-edition) for those Technical Manuals already in existence.

In any case, on all PPTTs already issued, pending their renaming in accordance with the above, the new nomenclature of the prescribed MDS must be understood as being used.
Therefore, when the commercial “Denomination” of the aircraft is present, it must be understood as the relative “MDS” associated according to table “A”. A specific notation must be placed only on the front page of the PPTT (citing this PT) by the personnel in charge of the PPTTs themselves in their units.
The Commanders of the maintenance bodies, groups, etc. must monitor the application of this PT, which must also be introduced in future derived documentation (e.g.: databases, telex, SIPP22, etc.) to ensure the unambiguous identification of the aircraft in question.
The Companies, in addition to providing for the renaming, must, at the next update (even in the case of a supplement or amendment), issue the front page with the correct coding showing the MDS. Furthermore, when updating the LOAP, the identifiers of all the PPTTs that have been updated even only via a supplement must be corrected.

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CORRESPONDENCE TABLE
The table in Annex “A” lists the aircraft in alphabetical order, according to their name, grouped by class. The information in the table is as follows:

• first column “Class” according to the divisions provided by AER(EP).P-7;
• second column “Name”;
• third column “MDS” the Mission Design Series assigned according to the coding established by SMA-LOG-006;
• fourth column the “Popular Name” only where already assigned by the specific FA and/or CdS;
• fifth column “FFAA and CCdS” the Armed Force and/or State Body that has the aircraft in its fleet;
• sixth column “EIRC” reports the Entity or Company to which, in accordance with Technical Publication AER.00-00-6, the Responsibility for Identifying and Recording the MDS Configuration has been assigned;
• seventh column “DC” indicates the Division of the DAAA technically competent for the MDS;
• eighth column “Notes” reports any annotations.
  
  
  
  Note 1:
  The MDS RQ-12A is assigned to both the Micro Sixton APR and the WASP AE.
  Pending a change of MDS for one of the two APRs, this overlap will be managed in coordination between the Air Force and Army General Staffs.

A few comments on this document

• It is undeniable that absolutely ALL Italian military designations in the 2022 system follow as closely as possibly the American DoD's method of designating aircraft: identical mission letters (A-Attack, C-Transport, F-Fighter, G-Glider, H-Helicopter, P-Patrol, Q-UAV, T-Trainer), but also mission modifiers (E-Electronics, H-SAR, M-Multipurpose, O-Observation, R-Reconnaissance, S-ASW, T-Trainer, V-VIP) are all used in the exact SAME manner. In fact, you won't find another military naming system that is as close to the American one as the Italian one is!
• Apart from the ATR-42/72 series which uses the same two digits as P-42A/B, C-42C, P-72A/B, C-72A and the single-digit German Ventus/Nimbus gliders (G-2B, G-4D/DM), the bulk of the Italian military designations is made up of three-digit numbers adapted from company model designations; VC-319A (Airbus A319), UC-228 (Dornier Do 228), VC-900A/B (Falcon 900), E-550A/C-550A (Gulfstream 550), T-339, -345 and -346 (AerMacchi MB 339, M 345 and 346), EC-/VC-180 (Piaggio P 180), A-/TA-200 (Panavia PA 200), U-208 (SIAI 208), T-260 (SIAI Marchetti SF 260), MH-/EH-/HH-/SH-101 (EHI EH 101), G-103A (Grob 103), and of course all the Agusta/Agusta-Bell/Agusta-Westland (now Leonardo) helicopters;
• Then, you will find that when it is possible, some types reuse the same designations as their American equivalents: TAV-8B, AV-8B Plus, C-130J/-30, F-35A/B, KC-767A, CH-47F, RQ-11B/C, RQ-12A (Wasp AE), C-27J.
• However, you will also find some designations/names which are similar or related to the US ones, but not quite identical: MQ-1C Predator A+ (NOT Gray Eagle), MQ-9A Predator B (NOT Reaper), RQ-7C Shadow 200 (although not a US DoD designation, it follows right after the US RQ-7A/B), RQ-27A ScanEagle (the US has it as the MQ-27A/B);
• Finally (and that's the greatest source of confusion), you will find many designations that look like they could be part of the US system but are in fact totally specific to the Italian system and can therefore cause confusion when you find them out of context: A-11A/B, TA-11A/B, C-42C, VC-50A, UG-17A, TZ-1A, and of course all the local UAVs: RQ-10D/F, RQ-12A (Sixton), RQ-24A, RQ-25A, RQ-26A/B, RQ-28A, RQ-29A, RQ-30A/B, especially since they do not use the company model designators, but a sequential numerical system.

As more new designations are bound to be added to the Italian MDS system, it is therefore essential to remain wary of anything that may resemble an American designation but in fact isn't one, especially in the UAV series! Now whether the existence of some ambiguous Italian designations on the foreign markets will compel the US DoD to skip some numbers in order to avoid disambiguation (as had been done with the T-50 Golden Eagle) remains to be seen... especially since there doesn't seem to be much of an effort these days to maintain coherence in the system, what with numbers used twice, big gaps in the sequences, or totally out-of-sequence/logic numbers...

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Legend:
- Aerostato Vincolato = Tethered Balloons
- Alianti = Sailplanes
- APR (Aeromobile a Pilotaggio Remoto) = UAVs (literally: Remotely Piloted Vehicles)
- CCdS (Corpo dello Stato) = State Body
- DAAA / ARMAEREO (Direzione degli Armamenti Aeronautici e per l’Aeronavigabilità) = Directorate of Air Armaments and Airworthiness
- DAFI (Department Air Force Instruction) : self-explanatory
- DC (Divisione Competente) = Competent Division
- EIRC (Ente Responsabile dell’Identificazione e Registrazione della Configurazione) = Entity Responsible for the Identification and Registration of the Configuration
- Elicotteri = Helicopters
- FFAA (Forza Armata) = Armed Force
- MDS (Mission Design Series) : self-explanatory
- PPTT (Pubblicazzioni Tecniche) = Technical publications
- Velivoli = Aircraft

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Adapted from the following source (also attached below):
https://www.difesa.it/assets/allegati/35792/aer_ep_.0-0-12_em.2_ed_16-10-2024.pdf

I'm also attaching the previous version of the same document for reference (it contained types that no longer appear in the updated document):