Hello everyone,
Recently I have been doing research on the Japanese aircraft designation system during the second world war. I am quite surprised by what I learned. What I realized is that, from 1920 to 1943, the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (IJNAS) used a long form of the Type and Model Number system. From 1943 to 1945, IJNAS adopted a new, short designating system that is similar to the United States Navy system (1922 to 1962) to replace a long form of type and model number. I also learned that IJNAS (from 1931 to 1945) used "Shi" numbers designating the specification aircraft were designed for.
In IJNAS short designation system, it looks like this:
[Aircraft role name code] [Aircraft number] [Manufacturer name namecode] [variant/sub varaint]
For A6M1 as an example, 'A" is the reserved codename for Carrier-based fighter, 6 is known as 'sixth type of carrier fighter for this designation, 'M" is the reserved codename for Mitsubishi, and '1' being the first variant of A6M. That is very interesting! For more information, you can go to this link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_military_aircraft_designation_systems#Imperial_Japanese_Army_Air_ServiceOn the other hand, Imperial Japanese Army Air Service (IJAAS) used the system based on year of service and type, which is similar to the IJNAS's pre-1945 long type and model number system. As you can see, later in the era, IJAAS used "Ki" as an abbreviation of "Kitai" which means airframe as the aircraft designation.
Looking through the historical aircraft designation, I realized this: If I were to use only historical designation, it would be difficult for many of us to tell which aircraft it they are specifically. For example, with IJNAS long type and model number, we wouldn't see A6M1, A6M2, etc.. until 1943 onward. So I came up with this solution: I am naming the aircraft list with the purpose of providing the ease of readability. The system looks like this:
[Short designation system] / [Semi-long type and model number]
What is 'the semi-long type and model? If I use translated English version of the long type and model number for aircraft, there would be no space left for the IJNAS short designation system of 1943 - 1944 when displayed in aircraft selection list in IL-2 1946. so I trim out "Navy" and role of aircraft with only Type number and model.
Here is what updated aircraft list looks like (Sample) for Japanese aircraft:
NOTE: Regarding aircraft given name, if there is no official aircraft name, then it will use the nicknames given by the Japanese military. However, if there is none of that, then the allied codename will be displayed.
A6M2a / Type 0 Model 11 Reisen, 1940
A6M2b / Type 0 Model 21 Reisen, 1941
A6M3 / Type 0 Model 21 Reisen (Late), 1943
A6M3 / Type 0 Model 22 Reisen, 1942
A6M3 / Type 0 Model 32 Reisen, 1942
A6M5a / Type 0 Model 22a Ko Reisen, 1943
A6M5 / Type 0 Model 22-KAI Reisen, 1943
A6M5 / Type 0 Model 52 Reisen (Early), 1943
A6M5 / Type 0 Model 52 Reisen, 1943
A6M5a / Type 0 Model 52a Ko Reisen, 1944
A6M5b / Type 0 Model 52b Otsu Reisen, 1944
A6M5c / Type 0 Model 52c Hei Reisen, 1944
A6M5 / Type 0 Model 54 Reisen, 1945
A6M7 / Type 0 Model 62 Reisen, 1945
A6M7 / Type 0 Model 63 Reisen, 1945
When the updated list is completed, the new version of AAL will be released as v1.7.
If there are enough requests, I might create sub-mods for AAL for fully historical aircraft names and designations for the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy aircraft. Ideally, there could be two versions: WAW_EARLY and WAW_LATE.
Cheers
Author
Topic: Alternative Aircraft List v1.9.1a ALL ERA BATv 4.2.2 HOTFIX 4 - BETA RELEASE (6/28/2023) (Read 13515 times)
