NATO code names

[scudsucker]

Inspired by a link in another thread.

The Borei-class (NATO: Dolgorukiy) SSBNs are instrumental to Russia’s post-Cold War strategic arsenal. First launched in 1996, the Borei-class are set to replace the aging Typhoon-class, Kalmar-class (NATO: Delta III), and Delfin-class (NATO: Delta IV) submarine

Russia Submarine Capabilities

Why does NATO assign code names? Why not call a MIG-21 a MIG-21? Why publicise these code words? And the first named in that exerpt is “Dolgorukiy,” which is not at all a simplified naming convention.

So why bother? Just use the Anglicized Russian, surely.

Edit: self flagged to move to FQ

[Smapti]

IIRC, during the Cold War the NATO nations didn’t necessarily know what the Russians called their various hardware.

On top of that, it probably makes radio communication easier in the same way the phonetic alphabet does - “Mig-15” and “Mig-19” might sound similar on a bad connection, but “Fagot” and “Farmer” are harder to confuse for one another.

[engineer_comp_geek]

@scudsucker

Edit: self flagged to move to FQ

Moved.

[Schnitte]

In addition to what has been said before, there’s also a system in the NATO reporting name that is absent in the Russian original. For instance, fighter jets always start with an F (hence Fulcrum, the MiG-29), and bombers always start with a B. So the NATO reporting name conveys additional information about the type of craft you’re talking about.

[Derleth]

It’s better than that, even: One-syllable names are for prop planes, and two syllables go to jets. It’s rather a concise system.

[engineer_comp_geek]

Ninja’d a bit by @Schnitte but anyway…

NATO is made up of a bunch of different countries, and its members speak different languages and even if they use the same words, they often pronounce them differently. The point of the NATO “reporting name” is to allow these different countries to use one set of easily identifiable names over the radio to quickly identify aircraft, submarines, missiles, etc.

The first letter of the word also identifies the type of equipment, F for fighters, B for bombers, A for air-to-air missiles, etc. If you are out in the field and someone says you’ve got three Foxbats heading your way, even if you don’t have all of the names memorized you know that you have three fighters of some sort heading towards you. Or if you don’t know what a Badger is, you at least know that you have a bomber headed your way.

As was already mentioned, in some cases NATO didn’t know what the Soviet/Russian designations were. For example, one of our spy satellites could capture images of a new type of fighter sitting on a runway somewhere. So NATO gives it a reporting name that starts with F. At some point NATO will probably figure out what it’s actual Russian designation is, but NATO has something to call it long before then.

NATO reporting name

The wikipedia article explains the naming conventions used for submarines:

Before the 1980s, reporting names for submarines were taken from the NATO spelling alphabet. Modifications of existing designs were given descriptive terms, such as “Whiskey Long Bin”. From the 1980s, new designs were given names derived from Russian words, such as “Akula”, or “shark”. These names did not correspond to the Soviet names. Coincidentally, “Akula”, which was assigned to an attack submarine by NATO, was the actual Soviet name for the ballistic missile submarine NATO named “Typhoon-class”. The NATO names for submarines of the People’s Republic of China are taken from Chinese dynasties.

[scudsucker]

Thank you everyone for that information, much more than I expected.

[LSLGuy]

Folks upthread have done a great job of explaining the rationale behind NATO reporting names, and also explaining the pattern of NATO aircraft names. Which pattern is still being used today unchanged some 70 years after NATO got started.

The rationale behind reporting names for subs is the same, but the history of sub naming conventions is a bit messier and the naming convention used has changed significantly over time. This NATO Reporting Names for Submarines (globalmilitary.net) is a decent explanation.

From this cite we see NATO calls those subs the “Borei” class now that we are in an era when the Russian terminology is available early enough in the development cycle.

I believe the article the OP cites has bad info in it. Which wiki repeats, or the article got it from wiki.

Ref

Russian submarine Yury Dolgorukiy (K-535)

So Yury Dolgorukiy is the Russian’s name for the lead ship of what the Russians call the Borei class. In general Russia names their ship and sub classes something other than the name of the lead ship.

In typical Western practice a class of ships is named for the first ship. So the Nimitz-class carriers’ first ship was the USS Nimitz.

I suspect some author someplace made the jump that the NATO name was the name of the ship, or that the class name derived from the first ship’s name which was therefore the NATO name.

I believe that author is wrong. See also

Citogenesis

[Dissonance]

@Schnitte

In addition to what has been said before, there’s also a system in the NATO reporting name that is absent in the Russian original. For instance, fighter jets always start with an F (hence Fulcrum, the MiG-29), and bombers always start with a B. So the NATO reporting name conveys additional information about the type of craft you’re talking about.

The numbering system of Soviet/Russian aircraft conveys the same thing… usually. Even numbers are bombers, odd numbers are fighters, which is why for example all MiGs are odd numbers. There are exceptions, the Su-25 is a tactical bomber but with an odd number. Its NATO reporting name of Frogfoot doesn’t help matters. Then there’s the Su-17/20/22 series which are tactical bombers, though the initial number is odd, and again the NATO reporting name of Fitter doesn’t help matters. The NATO reporting name system itself tends to give F names to tactical bombers, the Su-24 is the Fencer, and the MiG-27 is the Flogger, which is the same reporting name as the MiG-23 which the MiG-27 was developed from. And you may have noticed that 27 is an odd number, even though it’s a tactical bomber. Both systems are full of exceptions.

As to NATO not knowing what the Soviets themselves called equipment, the Tu-20 Badger was known as the Tu-20 in the west for a long time; NATO was unaware that the number had been changed to Tu-95 for operational aircraft, Tu-20 was only used for development aircraft and again it’s an odd number this time on a strategic bomber. The Tu-26 Backfire was known by that number for a long time in the west, which was unaware that its actual designation was the Tu-22M.

[Chronos]

@Dissonance

There are exceptions, the Su-25 is a tactical bomber but with an odd number. Its NATO reporting name of Frogfoot doesn’t help matters. Then there’s the Su-17/20/22 series which are tactical bombers, though the initial number is odd, and again the NATO reporting name of Fitter doesn’t help matters.

And NATO forces themselves include bombers that get called fighters, such as the F-117, apparently because pilots consider fighters to be sexier.

[TokyoBayer]

@LSLGuy

Folks upthread have done a great job of explaining the rationale behind NATO reporting names, and also explaining the pattern of NATO aircraft names. Which pattern is still being used today unchanged some 70 years after NATO got started.

It seems likely that the system of NATO code names grew out from the WWII Allied code naming for Japanese aircraft, something that was developed because of the confusing nature of the Japanese conventions.

During the first year of the Pacific War beginning on 7 December 1941, Allied personnel often struggled to quickly, succinctly, and accurately identify Japanese aircraft encountered in combat. They found the Japanese designation system bewildering and awkward, as it allocated two names to each aircraft. One was the manufacturer’s alphanumeric project code, and the other was the official military designation, which consisted of a description of the aircraft plus the year it entered service. For example, the military designation of the Mitsubishi A5M fighter was the “Navy Type 96 Carrier Fighter”. Type 96 meant that the aircraft had entered service in Imperial year 2596, equivalent to Gregorian calendar year 1936. Other aircraft, however, which had entered service the same year carried the same type number; aircraft such as the Type 96 Carrier Bomber and the Type 96 Land Attack Bomber.[1] Adding to the confusion, the US Army and US Navy each had their own different systems for identifying Japanese aircraft.[2]

In mid-1942, Captain Frank T. McCoy, a United States Army Air Forces military intelligence officer from the 38th Bombardment Group assigned to the Allied Technical Air Intelligence Unit in Australia, set out to devise a simpler method for identifying Japanese aircraft. Together with Technical Sergeant Francis M. Williams and Corporal Joseph Grattan, McCoy divided the Japanese aircraft into two categories; fighters and everything else. He gave boys’ names to the fighters, and girls’ names to the others. Later, training aircraft were named after trees,[3][4] single engine reconnaissance aircraft were given men’s names and multi-engine aircraft of the same type were given women’s names. Transports were given girls’ names that all began with the letter “T”. Gliders were given the names of birds.[2]

In an effort to make the names sound somewhat comical, McCoy gave many of the aircraft ‘hillbilly’ names, such as “Zeke” and “Rufe,” that he had encountered while growing up in Tennessee.[6] Others were given names of people the creators of the system knew personally; the Mitsubishi G4M bomber, with its large gun blisters was named “Betty” in homage to a busty female friend of Williams. The Aichi D3A “Val” got its name from an Australian Army sergeant.

[Schnitte]

To be honest, I have a feeling that the historical genesis of the naming system lies in nicknames informally given by soldiers to enemy vessels, which were then picked up by some bureaucrat in the DoD or NATO hierarchy who found no better use for his time than to develop it into a very elaborate system.

[Alex_Osaki]

One assumes “informal memory aid (or joke) taken too far” might also be why, for all the verbiage spent online about the internal and meaningful logic of NATO reporting names, there are some for Western-built WW2 aircraft but none exist for the various postwar Dassault fighters/fighter-bombers used by potential NATO opponents (i.e., Gulf War Iraq or Falklands Argentina), the American aircraft and their indigenous derivatives that equip the Iranian Air Force, or the ones used by Vietnam and North Korea during the Cold War. Nor the the CRJs and 737s used by the PLAAF.

…Although I suppose at this point if AWACS reports “2 Tomcats inbound” you know it’s not going to be Maverick and Iceman.

(The Harbin Z-9, a license-built Dauphin, is identified on Wikipedia as “Haitun,” although I have no idea if that name is ever actually used or why the Changhe Z-8 has no reporting name even by Wikipedia standards. Possibly because “haitun” means “dolphin” and there is no such clever equivalent for “Super Frelon.”)

[Machine_Elf]

@LSLGuy

I believe that author is wrong. See also

xkcd: Citogenesis

The XKCD comic is worth a laugh, but if you want to see citogenesis happen in real time, check out my thread on the Vigor space probe from eight years ago:

The Great Kersten Blunder: was it real?

A Google search for “the great Kersten Blunder” turns up many results, such as this one. The claim is that a programmer named Kersten screwed up a measurement conversion factor, causing the $2B “Vigor space probe” to miss Venus and become lost in space. The problem is that I can’t find any mention of a “Vigor space probe” that identifies who launched it or what its mission was. So what’s the deal? Was there actually a “space probe” named Vigor, targeted at the planet Venus, that was lost due…

Within six months, that thread was being cited as evidence that the very thing I was asking about was in fact an urban legend.

And now that I actually finished reviewing that thread, I see you posted the same XKCD comic in there at the time.

[Dissonance]

@Alex_Osaki

(The Harbin Z-9, a license-built Dauphin, is identified on Wikipedia as “Haitun,” although I have no idea if that name is ever actually used or why the Changhe Z-8 has no reporting name even by Wikipedia standards. Possibly because “haitun” means “dolphin” and there is no such clever equivalent for “Super Frelon.”)

Come to think of it, the IAR-330, a Romanian license production model of the French Puma in service since 1975 never got a NATO name for it, nor did the indigenous joint Romanian-Yugoslavian IAR-93 fighter-bomber.