MARK nomenclature

Guy Alcala wrote:


The Mark system was used by BuOrd (the USN's Bureau of Ordnance) to designate
weapons and related systems that they designed (or were designed at their behest),
which included Walleye. The Mk. 80 series bombs are another BuOrd weapon (M-series
bombs like the M117 are Army or Air Force derived). Things get more complicated
because not all navy weapons were designed by BuOrd, and other Bureaus (e.g.
BuAer) used other designation systems.


Today, NAVSEA (Naval Sea Systems Command) designates "its" items by
MARK/MOD nomenclature, while NAVAIR (Naval Air Systems Command) uses
ASETDS (Aeronautical and Support Equipment Type Designation System).
ASETDS includes, but is not limited to, the xxU-style designations for
bombs etc. (e.g. BLU, GBU).

Theoretically the Mark series should have
gone away when the tri-service designations took over in 1962, but remnants of it
remain in use.


It remains in use for _a lot_ of U.S. Naval equipment - e.g.
torpedoes, mines, projectiles, etc.

The "tri-service designations of 1962" which you refer applied only to
aircraft and (from 1963) missiles. The "new" designations for
air-dropped ordnance (BLU, GBU, etc) were formally introduced in late
1966. This is also the reason why the Walleye was designated with
MARK/MOD and not as GBU-xxx - there was no GBU designator at that time.

Andreas