tigercat2 said:
I wonder why the USAF system was chosen as the basis for this scheme, and if any others were considered, like the UK system of a popular name with various letters after it, ie, Hunter Mk 4, etc.
As one who has spent over 40 years analyzing U. S. armed forces designations and making sense of them, (I made my first lists when I was about nine I think) I can certainly have a go at some explanations, THOUGH they are only my opinion on the subject:
The Navy system was brilliant BUT complicated.
A Navy designation told you at a glance the aircraft's status, type, version, modified mission AND manufacturer: "XSN2J-1" meant that this was the prototype version of North American's first scout trainer, for instance. Pretty handy! but it also had its limitations and drawbacks.
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[*]the use of a single letter for manufacturers was a mess: because"G" had been allocated to Great Lakes, Grumman" had to use "F"... but that in turn led to Fairchild using "K"... In the post-war era, there were far two many manufacturers to aptly allocate one letter to one company in a logical way.
[*]Most letters ended up being used for two or more companies, sometimes one after the other ("H" for Hall Aluminum, then McDonnell) but most often at the same time ("B" was for Boeing, but also for Beechcraft).
[*]The introduction of combined mission ("PB", "SN", "SB", "TB", "HR" etc.) circa 1937 and the addition of suffix letters to reflect modified missions ("G" for Coast Guard or "W" for early warning, for instance) resulted in ever longer designations: "XJR2F-1", "XHRH-1", "ZPG-3W", "P2V-5F" or "JR2F-1G", becoming more difficult to understand at a glance.
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The Air Force system was more limited but simple.
A basic letter for the mission, a number, and a letter for the version... easy. But there was more...
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[*]Everyone knew and understood the Air Force system. When the newly formed USAF inherited the Army's 1924 system in 1948, a few changes were made, but it was more or less the same system, with a logic that was well-known and well-understood by most. Everyone knew what a T-6, a C-47, a B-29, a P-51, an F-100 or an H-34 were! Not just that, but many people casually used the Army/Air Force designations even for the Navy versions. R4Ds and SNJs were often simply refered to as C-47s and T-6s in common language. Often the versions themselves differed very little.
[*]A Navy guy would be telling someone he flew in an "HR2S-1" while the Army guy would simply say he flew in an "H-37". It was much easier to ask the Navy people to embrace such an easy system, with its logical mission prefixes, than to ask the Air Force and Army people to learn the lists of manufacturer letters, missions, combined missions and modified missions of the Navy!
[*]The Air Force system was simple, true, BUT the extended versions of the designations permitted to know the block number AND the manufacturer, not just of the type in general, but of that particular block and even the precise factory. And so you could use the short version for everyday use (e.g. "F-100D"), but also the extended one in official documents if you wanted more information ("F-100D-60-NA").
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Commonalities already existed.
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[*]An interim directive by the Munitions Board aviation committee had already set out in 1952 a policy supposed to simplify things; when the Navy bought a plane designed and produced by the Air Force, it may use the same plane designation as the Air Force, and vice versa. However, this was rarely applied. Only the T-28B benefitted from this policy, and no Navy aircraft ever came into use with the Air Force either.
[*]For many years, all services were using the same designation system for engines. Even suffix numbers were applied to the Navy variants, uneven to the Army/Air Force ones. Letters were added to indicate the manufacturer, just as in the Air Force's block letter system. This system worked fine.
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The Air Force had A LOT more aircraft types, bases and facilities than the Navy and Army combined!
Supposing it was possible to assign Navy type designations to the Air Force and Army planes, it would have been a lot more change to perform than the contrary. Imagine all the paperwork involved!!! It was entirely logical, from a rational and economic viewpoint, to take the less costly option.
The age-old rivalries between the armed forces had to be avoided.
You couldn't ask the Navy to submit to an Army logic. Or the Army to comply to a Navy system. As to the Air Force had obtained its right to be a separate entity after years of struggling. From the days when it was just the Army's Air Service, it moved on to become a very organized and powerful entity as the Army's Air Corps, obtained much autonomy during WW2 as the Army's Armed Forces, and finally broke free from Army control in 1948 with its introduction as a proper, separate entity, a status they defended fiercely.
A TRI- (not BI-) service system was needed.
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[*]It wasn't just about the Navy and Air Force, but also the Army. The latter so much strived to dissociate from the Air Force that they introduced their own system in 1955. Perhaps this, more than anything, was a good incentive to put an end to the nonsense, because from 1955 to 1962, not just two, but THREE distinct designation systems were in use in the U. S. armed forces! A unified system meant a single system, not just for the Air Force, Navy/Marines and Army, but also for the Coast Guard.
[*]If you think the aircraft designations were complicated, consider the ordnance! Despite several changes in the systems, the Air Force's and Navy's missile designations were often a nightmare! Consider only "YTSSM-9a", "SAM-N-6bW1", "TGAM-83D" or "HSM-80F", for instance. Also, missiles, target drones and rockets, many of which were used by two, even three of the forces, ended up with as many distinct designations depending on who used them! For instance, the Radioplane RP-19 was known as the OQ-19B in the Air Force but as the XM23E1 by the Army. The Sidewinder 1A was the Navy's AAM-N-7, the Air Force's GAR-8, but also the Army's Mk. 2!
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A unified system was also a political statement.
It may not be a coincidence that the rationalizing of the U. S. military designations came about at the height of the Cold War, a little after the Bay of Pigs incident. If you want to project the image of a strong country, resolute in its determination to fight all enemies as one man, having divided armed forces using different ways of calling the same things makes NO sense at all!
