Menghean Army designation scheme

The Menghean Army uses a number of designation schemes to name its military hardware, and some of these differ for the same piece of equipment between contexts. This can lead to confusion in efforts at translation, as the Anglian-language acronyms adopted after 1990 are exclusively for foreign reference and do not directly correspond to the Menghean name in many circumstances.

Background

Although the Menghean language has a phonetic alphabet, it is not well-suited to acronyms and other abbreviations in regular usage. All consonants are two syllables, e.g. diŭt for d, and contractions or first-syllable abbreviations of a phrase often produce words with an existing meaning.

Prior to 1945, the Imperial Menghean Army gave most weapons a "Type" designation, in the format of "Type 38 self-loading rifle." Here, "Type 40" corresponds to 38식 / 三八式 (sampal-sik) in Menghean, the numeral reflects the year of the Menghean unification calendar in which it entered service, and the category descriptor that follows is a translation of the Menghean form. In some cases, the name of the manufacturer is added before the Type designator, as in "Chikai Type 40 fighter". In conversation, the Type designator (e.g., sampal-sik) could be used alone if it was clear that this referred to the self-loading rifle and not the anti-air gun.

Unfortunately, operational experience during the Pan-Septentrion War revealed that ambiguity in the subject of the Type designator could result in serious errors in supply distribution, especially later in the war as communications became strained and less experienced personnel were conscripted into logistics duties. Though these mistakes were by no means the largest cause of Menghe's eventual defeat, accounts of their severity led surviving commanders to call for a revised designation system. Similar concerns led to a policy of avoiding using the same caliber measurement for weapons with incompatible ammunition, e.g. mortars and tank guns.

During the Menghean War of Liberation, veteran IMA officers in the Menghean Liberation Army developed a revised scheme for specific weapon designations, the precursor of the formal designation schemes used today. This scheme is known to have already been in use at the time of the MLA's victory in 1964, and was subsequently standardized across the Democratic People's Republic of Menghe.

Unfortunately, while the resulting long-form designations were more specific, they were also more cumbersome in everyday speech, as in the case of the iril kenti sib-i gwan jaju hwajŏn balsagi (11-centimeter 12-tube self-propelled rocket launcher). Despite rigorous enforcement of the "no abbreviation" rule in logistics documents, a number of informal simplifications persisted in conversation, and in 1974 the Army leadership conceded and released a set of official simplifications on the basis that this was preferable to conflicting independently derived ones. These became today's short designations.

Formal designation

The formal designation, also known as the long designation, is the fullest and most specific designation regulated by Army documents. Each formal designation must contain the basic information needed to describe a piece of equipment, and must be fully individualized, i.e., not duplicated for two separate pieces of equipment. Army regulations require that all vehicles, weapons, and pieces of ammunition requested in logistics reports be listed under the formal designation.

Examples include:

• 5호 전차, "No.5 Tank"
• 7호 분대 수송 장갑차, "No.7 Squad-Transporting Armored Vehicle"
• 103식 자동 소총, "Type 103 Automatic Rifle"
• 경 자주 곡사포 152밀리 48구경장, "Light self-propelled howitzer, 152mm, 48 calibers length"

Where there are multiple chronological variants of a single weapon, variants are distinguished from one another by a letter, followed by pan (판) indicating "version". The letters follow the order of consonants in the Menghean Sinmun alphabet, i.e., G, N, D, R, M, B, S. Thus the first variant of the JCh-6 MBT would be written 6호 전차 기윽판, ryuk-ho jŏncha giŭk-pan. Minor variants may be represented by a letter and a number, e.g. JCh-6R1 (ryuk-ho jŏncha riŭl-il-pan).

Short designation

Short designations are official Army-sanctioned abbreviations for pieces of Army equipment. Like formal designations, they are meant to be unique within a range of similar weapons, but they are generally shorter and thus less cumbersome to use in everyday conversation (or issued commands). Army naming guidelines recommend that a short designation be no longer than four syllables where possible.

Most short designations are derived from the long designation, but in cases where a convenient abbreviation is not possible, short forms are derived from objects in nature. In these cases, all weapons in the same category are given short designations of the same category; for example, all self-propelled gun artillery are named for types of trees.

Examples, matched to the above list, include:

• 전차-5, Jŏncha-pal, "Tank 5"
• 수송-7, susong-chil, "Transport 7"
• 103식, illyŏngsam-sik, "Type 103"
• 화수포, hwasu-po, "Birch tree gun"

Foreign designation

From 1990 onward, all official Casaterran-language publications issued by the Menghean Army and its associated organizations have used a specially modified designation scheme to refer to Menghean military hardware. Except where otherwise noted, this scheme is used for the designations in iiWiki links and page titles.

Most foreign designations take the form of acronyms representing the formal designation. Thus, the gu-ho bundae susong janggabcha becomes BSCh-9, and the janggab jaju goksa-po, iroi-milli, salpal-gugyŏngjang becomes JJP-152/48. These acronyms use the letters of the destination country's alphabet, according to official transliteration guides for Menghean, so in Letnia these examples would be written "БСЧ-9" and "ЖЖП-152/48," respectively. In countries linguistically similar to Menghe, such as Dayashina and Themiclesia, a character-based version of the short designation is typically used instead.

The post-1990 designation scheme is used retroactively by current Menghean sources to refer to equipment designed and used before that time, but before then, a variety of unofficial transliteration schemes existed. Standard practice in many Western militaries was to use "Type" prefixes with a number taken from the long form, resulting in "Type 5 IFV" for BSCh-5 and "Type 27 SPG" for JJP-152/27. Some of these, like "Type 67" for the JS-67 assault rifle, are still used interchangeably with the official post-1990 foreign designation in Western circles.

Publicity designation

Also called a "marketing designation" or "stylized designation," this refers to an additional nickname issued to a vehicle for publicity purposes. Examples include Sŏnbong ("Vanguard") for the JCh-6, and Jŏnsa ("Warrior") or Usan ("Rain Mountain") for the JCh-8. Although these names are chosen and published by the Army, they are not used in internal Army documents, and mainly exist for civilian publicity and export advertisements.

See also

• Menghean language
• Age reckoning in Menghe