1834 NAS: Wrong number format on fuselage

[Nealius]

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the Fleet Air Arm numbering method as it seems to have changed frequently during the war, but for 1834 NAS as depicted in the livery we have the format should be thus:

Starboard side
x ( ) yy

Port side
yy ( ) x

Where, from what I can see, "yy" is the aicraft number and "x" is some larger organizational structure number; perhaps ship or squadron. ( ) is the roundel. However the in-game system only works for the starboard side of the aircraft, and the port side format is corrupted to xy ( ) y. In this example the number should be 1-20 but is corrupted to 12-0:

If I try to get the port side to work by inputting 021 I get the correct format on both sides, but the number is wrong, and the starboard side has an errant "2" that appeared out of nowhere.

 

 

 

Edited Sunday at 10:00 AM by Nealius

[-Rudel-]

This isn't wrong.  I explained the Mk.IV numbers in another post.

"1" signifies the aircraft is single seat.  The next two are the aircraft number.  This number is always in front of the aircraft number.

That particular livery is based on a photo.  I'll post it, once I get home.

Edited Sunday at 06:50 PM by -Rudel-

[Nealius]

Quote

This isn't wrong.

The port side is wrong. It should be showing 1-20 not 12-0 when "120" is put into the mission editor. Did you look at the first two images? Only the starboard side shows "single seat" then aircraft number properly, while the port side splits the aircraft number with the roundel instead of keeping the same format as the starboard side. 

 

Quote

"1" signifies the aircraft is single seat.

What would the numbers be in this case? I've seen "2" "5" and "7" on Seafires despite being single-seat, as well.

Edited Monday at 01:51 AM by Nealius

[-Rudel-]

Don't put three numbers, just enter two numbers.  There are only two slots to change.

137 is the full number in that color plate.   And the photo below, 120.

 

This Seafire would be 132

 

And this one: 115

[Nealius]

So in the example of the last Seafire, 115, the aircraft number is 15? I wonder which bureaucrat in the Royal Navy made this system because splitting the aircraft number with the roundel (and only on one side of the fuselage) makes zero sense whatsoever. Zero logic. Zero consistency.

 

 

[-Rudel-]

Correct, 15.

The system gets even crazier trying to figure out the letters and numbers together.    (not the Letters on the tail fin)

[Nealius]

I saw those as well, 7A, 7B, 7C for example. I couldn't find any resources for any of them, even the tail letters, except for suggestions to buy a book called "The Squadrons and Units of the Fleet Air Arm" by Theo Ballance. Which of course is out of print and $200 for a copy if you can find one 

[-Rudel-]

The tail letters are the carrier codes.  This is what I managed to find out for WW2 era.  Some of them changed post war and beyond though.

[Saxman]

5 hours ago, -Rudel- said:

Correct, 15.

The system gets even crazier trying to figure out the letters and numbers together.    (not the Letters on the tail fin)

I'll stick to my USN/USMC MoDex numbers.

[Nealius]

8 hours ago, Saxman said:

I'll stick to my USN/USMC MoDex numbers.

But only Korea and after. WW2 USN/USMC nunbers are all over the place too. 

[Saxman]

1 hour ago, Nealius said:

But only Korea and after. WW2 USN/USMC nunbers are all over the place too. 

Not really.

Before and at the beginning of the War, they were formatted as Squadron - Mission - Plane Number. IE, Plane #2 of VF-3 would be marked 3-F-2. A plane of Scouting 6 would be marked 6-S-#, etc.

By mid-1942 the squadron number was occasionally omitted. So you'd see F-2, S-6, T-15, or B-4, etc.

Marine squadrons used the same system, just adding an M in front of the mission. So, 212-MF-5 for aircraft #5 of Marine Fighting 212 (Marine Air Groups were nominally designated as the first two digits being the Air Group number, the third digit being the squadron number. So VMF-212 was squadron #2 of MAG-21. In practice this wasn't adhered to due to the necessity of squadrons being moved where they were needed, not necessarily to keep their air groups together). The squadron number sometimes got omitted from the Marines' machines as well. IE Bob Galer's Wildcat on Guadalcanal was marked MF1.

By the time of Guadalcanal this was starting to get phased out, and the squadron and mission were being omitted, leaving only the plane number. The squadron and mission would no longer be indicated in the MoDex number. I believe this was at least partially to help with operational security (the same reason the Navy stopped matching squadron numbers to the carriers' hull numbers: It made it harder for Japanese intelligence to determine what carriers were where based on what squadrons were operating).

The full number carried on a little into 1943 (VF-17's Corsairs were clearly marked 17-F-# during their carrier trials in April). However by mid-1943 the system was gone entirely. At this point you only had the plane number.

For Marines, this was usually derived from the last 3 digits of the serial number, as in #883 and #740 of VMF-214 (17883 and 17740, respectively). The Navy simply assigned a number to the air frame.

The only time you started to see carrier-specific markings come into play again was late in the War when you had large-scale operations involving multiple carriers and flight controllers needed to organize the chaos (IE Bunker Hill's white arrow).