[Milsurplus] Ray's mystery box

[William Donzelli]

> And as in the case of 
> Signal Corps set and component numbers, some letters appear to have been 
> skipped but were in fact assigned but not built.

I have my doubts on that. I think that if a design went so far as to get a
real Navy model number, it was real. This is my experience with the 1930s
(and before) stuff - nearly everything is accounted for, even if only one
or two were built. 

I have come across a few things that are listed as "never built" - I think
the REB is one of them.

There are going to be exceptions, of course (the day we weed out all the
exceptions will be the final act of the final age). RCA was skipped for
obvious reasons. In the contractor codes, CASE was skipped for equally
obvious reasons, but CAN was not (I have seen a CAN-18003 oil can).
 
> With regard to Hue's list of "interesting" letter combinations, I add MAW, 
> which is Southern and Western for "Mother".  But to turn serious again, aircraft 
> radar doesn't appear to have gotten beyond ABx.  Surface direction finders 
> don't appear to have gotten beyond DBx.  And "G" wasn't used as a first letter 
> in the three-letter nomenclatures.  My guess is that had aircraft radar sets 
> gotten as high as ASS, they would have simply skipped it.  However, I would have 
> thought that they would have skipped VD, too.  So maybe not.  :-)

But there is an AN/ASS-1, I think.

G is not the first letter to get discontinued in the old Navy system. H
and K went in the mid 1930s (sonar hoists and sonar transmitters - KA-4s
were produced).

William Donzelli
aw288 at osfn.org