[Milsurplus] making sense of nonsense

[William Donzelli]

> I don't know who or what committee came up with the JAN system, but I
> think they did a good job, regardless of some ambiguities that are
> possible (like AN/BRC vs. AN/WRC vs. AN/SRC). 

I have a wildly differing opinion.

The JAN system (officially JETDS) is a mess Here are some thoughts:

JETDS came up with a complex set of nomenclature rules, then immediately
managed to soil itself with countless exceptions and special cases. One of
the most recognizable to those on this list is the DY-2/ARR-2 being
officially a part of the AN/ARC-5. Yes, the DY-2/ was assigned first and
when it was the AN/ARC-5s turn to get named (probably in the same week,
maybe the same day), the rule states that you shouldn't reassign numbers.
Why did they not call the thing DY-2/AR? How many guys got confused when
they saw some weirdly tagged "ARR-2" thing in their AN/ARC-5? Nope,
"special case" There are some far more extreme examples, especially when
one looks at some of the 1950s equipments.

To dig deeper, what about all of the installations that broke the
rules? Clearly, in 1942 (when JETDS was initiated), the military was quite
aware that no radio had a specific installation. Most surface combat
vessels towards the end of World War 2 had aircraft radios, truck radios,
and of course, ship radios - all in everyday service. So much for that
first letter.

And while were at it with the installation - why "C"? Me thinks that the
Air Corps insisted they get their own category, and they did. Nearly every
AN/C** is an Air Corps item, yet most really don't need to be.

Also, why all of the categories, and why were some allowed to be reused
Signal Corps types? Look at the lists, and while some things are very
vague (the common R- for receiver can apply to radio, radar, sound, 
light, and probably anything else - but why not radiation), there are some
really spcific categories (CB- means capacitor bank. Yes, the sonar folks
have used this twice up to 1960). Frankly, I see this as needlessly
complex and unbalanced.

Finally, and probably something most folks don't realize, is that the
JETDS system really played hell with the accounting folks. During the war,
the old IBM unit record punch card systems were really not up to the job.
They could be programmed to do proper sorts on the newly AN/'d stuff, but
every step meant extra time - and JETDS introduced lots of extra steps. In
those punch card days, these extra steps took time - the cards had to be
physically handled for every part of the process.

So frankly, I think JETDS sucks. It has grown into a monster (new rules
are added ever few years, even recently). I like the old Signal Corps
system - KISS*. 

> The JAN system has
> never been overtaxed in more than 60 years of use by the US and many
> foreign governments.

The nomenclature folks are currently in crisis, because JETDS *is*
overtaxed. Many series of numbers have been blocked out for other
countries, and now the US numbers are starting to bump up against those
blocks.

* WHile the clean lines of the SC system is great, the preson that came up
with their Stock Number system clearly was working for the enemy. Don't
get me started.

William Donzelli
aw288 at osfn.org