In reading military history, one becomes generally familiar with the national abbreviations, or ship prefixes, that occur before the names of warships, i.e., USS Enterprise. Most people in the United States, I would wager, could tell you that USS = United States Ship. If you happen to be more widely read, you probably know that HMS (His/Her Majesty's Ship) designates a ship of Britain's Royal Navy. If you're a military history buff, your knowledge may even extend to outdated, outlawed, and invented designations. For example, the Imperial German Navy used SMS (Seiner Majestät Schiff = His Majesty's Ship) until its disbandment after the First World War. Neither the Third Reich's Kriegsmarine nor the Imperial Japanese Navy used ship prefixes, but some military history authors use conventional invented designations such as IJN (Imperial Japanese Navy) and DKM (Deutsche Kriegsmarine) to achieve some sort of consistency.
Pity poor Papua New Guinea, then; forced to paint the awkward designation HMPNGS (His/Her Majesty's Papua New Guinea Ship) on the side of their tiny naval vessels.
No comments:
Post a Comment