I chose the 740th–still active, could thoroughly ruin your day if necessary–from a list of USAF missile squadrons.
It can’t be there were 739 squadrons before that one.
What’s the rhyme or reason of naming subdivisions of the Armed Forces?
I’ve been curious about this myself.
Hopefully this isn’t too tangential a side question, but I notice that the suffixes for numbers on that missile squadron list ending in 2 or 3 are both -d, instead of -nd or -rd respectively. Googling the squadrons gives mixed results, but I see at least a few patches with just the -d suffix. Is that a military thing, or have I just been oblivious to this ordinal suffix form?
One thing to keep in mind is that a squadron of airplanes is typically between 12 and 24 airplanes, so they’re not large units- on par with a battalion in the Army or Marines, based on the NATO map symbols.
With that in mind, it’s entirely possible that over the history of the USAAC/USAAF/USAF, there have been upwards of 740 squadrons created. The AF hasn’t been as concerned with keeping unit continuity as the Army and Marines are; they renumbered them all at some point, and keep recycling squadron numbers repeatedly for different sorts of units.
I am not familiar with all the naming situations, but it’s not sequential. My battalion on Active Duty was the 191st Ordnance Battalion. When they reorganized a few years ago, they changed the number, but kept the last two digits, and became the 391st Combat Service Support Battalion.
I do remember hearing that single digit companies and battalions were rarely dissolved because of the history, though they may ‘move’ by dissolving somewhere and being reactivated halfway across the world with completely different people.
When I left active duty and did a stint in the National Guard, the battalion I was in was a Brigade Support Battalion, and our number was 100 lower than the BSB that served the next brigade combat team in the state, and the BSB on the other Brigade combat team was another 100 digits higher…so they somehow just picked the two last digits then made the BSBs have the same end, and sequentially increased the hundreds digit.
Not all squadrons are attack aircraft. This Wiki site lists the types of squadrons, which are numbered from 1 to 999. This one lists all the active aircraft squadrons.
I’ve never seen “2d,” but I’ve seen (and use) “3d.” I always thought it was a Brit thing…
I’ve seen 2d and 3d and I think it’s a military thing. At least on USMC bases. My guess (only a guess) is that many building signs and unit signs were spray painted onto metal using cut out stencils, and it was just a way to save on paint or space or trouble. This, from my time on USMC bases in the 80s and 90s.
Everybody does this, just to give a few examples in WW2 the Germans raised a number of lower quality infantry divisions for garrisoning less vital sectors and started the numbering at 700 or 701 when the highest regular infantry division number was somewhere in the 300s. Most independent tank and tank destroyer battalions in the US Army were numbered in the 600s or 700s with gaps in the sequence, and the US Army raised 16 tank divisions in WW2, they were numbered 1-14, 16 and 20. There was no 15 or 17-19. German Tiger tanks were assigned to independent schwere (heavy) battalions with numbers starting at 501, the SS raised 3 battalions numbered 101-103 and just to confuse things later in the war renumbered them 501-503.
From a cursory reading, I am getting the idea that, at least in a Numbered Air Force Numbered Air Force - Wikipedia
the 7 would be the 7th unit which is subordinate to the 40th somethingorother.
Could be way off, however.
Nice user name for posting in this thread. Whatever spurred your interest in missile squadrons. 
Then there is the issue of MASH units. There were seven of them in Korea. All 4 digit and starting with “8.” The TV show references the 8063d, but why did they use those numbers as opposed to something else?
We cannot allow a squadron number gap!
I got the impression that when a service calls something the “102nd window cleaning battalion”, what is it saying is: “We gave this battalion the number 102. It does window cleaning” rather than “This is the 102nd battalion to do window cleaning”. That is, the name includes a tracking number and a summary of its function. This does not mean that the tracking number tells you how many such units have been assigned to that function.
I haven’t made a comprehensive cross check of all the units listed in the OP’s link but look at the first two:
1st Guided Missiles Squadron and then 1st Tactical Missile Squadron. But they never existed at the same time.
The 1st GMS existed from 1946 to 1950 at Patrick AFB and Eglin AFB and the 1st TMS existed from 1951 to 1958 at Patrick AFB and Bitburg AB. It looks like the 1st GMS was in large part a repurposed 1st GMS.
Damn you, 5 minute limit!
“It looks like the 1st GMS was in large part a repurposed 1st GMS.”= It looks like the 1st TMS was in large part a repurposed 1st GMS.
My guess is this. Furthermore, my WAG is that there’s no repetition even in units of different scale - for instance, there’s no 102nd Brigade or 102nd Division. The number 102 is assigned to that unit and that unit only.
And if you think about it, it makes sense. You don’t want a general ordering the 102nd division to battle and have the 102nd battalion go instead. Clarity is everything during war.
Yes, there are three elements now that I think about it; tracking number which is used for any unit of significant size to avoid confusion, approximate unit size and unit funciton.
Not sharing numbers accross units of significant size would help reduce the possibility of misunderstandings as you say. One thing I’ve often wondered about is how American units prevent confusion among personnel when there are so many types of sergeants around.
You don’t want to number units in neat arithmetical progression as it makes enemy intelligence analysts’ jobs easier.
For the same reason ‘ghost’ blocks of aircraft serial numbers were left unused.
I’m confused by your confusion. Why would having different types of sergeants be confusing? Team, squad, platoon, company, battalion, etc.; Sergeant, Staff Sergeant, Sergeant First Class, First Sergeant, Sergeant Major. A one-to-one correlation. Couldn’t be simpler.
Pretty easy: more stripes= higher rank.
Remember that while there are lots of Sergeants E-5 and Staff Sergeants, there’s usually only 3 or 4 Sergeants First Class and one First Sergeant per company, and one Sergeant Major per battalion. On battalion or brigade staff, there may be a smattering of Master Sergeants and Sergeants Major, but not too many.
Typically, one wishes to use terms which don’t sound alike when designating things that could be confused with each other, especially when talking on the radio/yelling over distance/when there’s a lot of ambient noise which can make it difficult to hear what the other person says.
It’s why the alphabet gets said “Alpha, Bravo, Charlie” etc; you don’t want to end up at grid coordinate N when the other guy said “M”.
It’s why the military will often say “Niner” instead of “nine” because it could be confused with the German “nein” to avoid a situation where one person asks an observer:
“Do you see any tanks coming down the hill?”
“Nein/Nine”
Don’t forget that the ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade was largely based on sloppy communication.
Are not the different types of sergeant often referred to by the simple “sergeant”?
Also, I get that a sergeant and staff sergeant will be like team supervisors in the civilian world. A sergeant first class will be like a foreman on a construction crew. At least that was my experience for the equivalent ranks in the Canadian military. What will a first sergeant and sergeant major do, though? I once asked a Master Warrant Officer (he was a senior NCO assigned to a Lt-Colonel) and it seemed to mainly involve paperwork and “crisis management” which is a bit broad.