1980 Military Designation Protocol (Notreceau)

The 1980 Military Designation Protocol (Notreceauen: Protocole de désignation militaire de 1980) is a system of designation implemented to codify and standardized the naming conventions for the various weapons and equipment equipping the branches of the Notreceauen National Armed Forces. The designation system incorporated elements of previous naming and designating conventions while also implementing a proprietary system for some munitions and weapons. The 1980 MDP was first presented in the 1979 Defense White Paper at which point it was approved by the Marshal of Notreceau for full implementation the following year. Ground vehicles and aircraft were excluded from the protocol, with the system primarily focused on personal weapons and munitions.

Weapon Designations

Firearms

In keeping with traditional Notreceauen naming conventions firearms are issued with their factory designation. In this case the type of firearm is denoted with a letter or series of letters first, followed by the weapon firm of manufacture and finally the year of introduction. For example the FMAC 47 is broken down as the Fusil (F) de la Manufacture d'Armes de Châtouge (MAC) introduced in 1947 (47) or Rifle of the Châtouge Weapon Factory model 47. The one exception to this rule is the FAMAC assault rifle that was not assigned a year designator due to it being the first assault rifle to enter Notreceauen service.

Aircraft Munitions

In order to better categorize the purpose and type of the ever expanding Notreceauen aerial munitions armament, a common designation system was devised by Colonel Claude Lachance of the Department of Defense Research and Development in 1977 and implemented as a part of the protocol. Throughout its period of use it has been updated several times to account for the changing technologies present in the guidance system of weapons and as well as the shifting roles of weapon systems both new and old. The most recent update occurred in the late 90s and early 2000s with the introduction of laser guided munitions.

The system utilizes a two letter, four numeric designation scheme. The first two letters indicate if the weapon is a missile (MD), bomb (BD), or rocket (RD). The first number designates the launch platform; the second number designates the guidance type, the third number designates the purpose, and the final number designates the model series number of the weapon. For weapons that have multiple launch platforms, guidance types or purposes multiple designations exist depending on how the weapon is being employed for a given mission.

System

First letter designating weapon type

Letter	Type	Detailed description
M	Missile	An unmanned, self-propelled vehicle with remote or internal trajectory guidance.
B	Bomb	A guided or unguided freefall weapon system
R	Rocket	An unmanned, unguided, self-propelled vehicle.

First number designating launch platform

Number	Type	Detailed description
1	Ground	Launched from a ground vehicle, movable platform or infantryman.
2	Air	Air-launched from manned or unmanned aircraft, such as a fighter-bomber, helicopter, or drone.
3	Sea	Launched for a ship or submarine.

Second number designating guidance type

Number	Type	Detailed description
1	Infrared Homing	A passive weapon guidance system which uses the infrared (IR) light emission from a target to track and follow it.
2	Active Radar Guidance	A missile guidance method in which a missile contains a radar transceiver and the electronics necessary for it to find and track its target autonomously.
3	Passive Radiation Homing	A missile designed to detect and home in on an enemy radio emission source.
4	Inertial Guidance	A guidance device that uses a computer, motion sensors and rotation sensors to continuously calculate by dead reckoning the position, the orientation, and the velocity of a moving object without the need for external references.
5	GPS	A satellite-based radionavigation system.
6	Unguided	Containing no post-launch guidance system.
7	Laser Guided	Uses semi-active laser guidance to strike a designated target.

Third number designating weapon purpose

Number	Purpose	Detailed description
1	Anti Ground	Used to destroy ground based enemy combatants.
2	Anti Air	Used to destroy airborne based enemy combatants.
3	Anti Shipping	Used to destroy enemy maritime targets.
4	Anti Logistic	Used to destroy hostile infrastructure or logistic positions.
5	Nuclear	Used to deliver a nuclear payload.