This article lists the ratings, and a few notes, for WW2-era British military aircraft-including the strategic bombers, USN aircraft, and other aircraft not shown in Second Front. (A previous column covered American aircraft; subsequent columns will cover German and Italian aircraft.) Civil aircraft, and military aircraft of types not shown in Europa (mostly recon types) are ignored.

A Note on Designations:

The model designations for the air units correspond as closely as possible, given space limitations on the counters, to the actual aircraft designations, based on the originating nation's designation, even for aircraft in service of another nation. Thus, USN Spitfires are "Spitfire," and not "FS-1," which was the official USN designation. (Doing the designations this way lets you easily see which nations are flying the same aircraft, although at the loss of some "color"-seeing what foreign nations actually designated the aircraft. I've always had mixed feelings on this the desert war is more colorful with Marylands, Baltimores, and Kittyhawks flying about rather than A-22s, A-30s, and P-40s-but, since neither scheme is intrinsically superior, I've stuck with the way Europa has always handled this.) Some, but not all, of the foreign designations are noted below.

Not every single model is shown. When two models are virtually identical, rate out the same, and have no game reason for being differentiated, all are factored into the most significant model designation. For example, the British on occasion had many flavors of Hurricanes and Spitfires, such as Spitfire IIA and IIB, which rate out the same.

British Aircraft Designations:

Britain used a unitary designation system, regardless of service-unlike the U.S., where the Army and Navy had separate systems. The Royal Air Force was the predominate air service, with the Fleet Air Arm (FAA, naval aviation) becoming independent of the RAF in 1937.

A British designation consisted of:

Name Mark Series (such as Halifax II Series IA)

Name.

Unlike most other countries, which designated aircraft by type and/or manufacturer, Britain designated aircraft by name. All sorts of names were used: animals (including mammals, fish, and insects), martial words, place names, historical personages, classical references, etc. Fighter aircraft typically received the most forceful names-Hurricane, Spitfire, Typhoon, Meteor-while naval aircraft received marine or avian names-Swordfish, Seagull, Seafire. Bombers typically were named after cities and flying boats after ports. Military aircraft not intended for first-line combat duties sometimes received innocuous names. (My favorite is the Chipmunk trainer, although it appeared in 1946, outside the WW2 period.) Some manufacturers named their aircraft based on the first letter of the firm's name (Bristol's Blenheim, Beaufort, Beaufighter); others followed themes (Hawker's Hurricane, Typhoon, Tempest).

When Britain supplemented its aircraft production by acquiring aircraft made in the U.S., these aircraft were given name designations. At first, if the aircraft had a popular American name, the British might or might not use it-early makes of Wildcat fighters in British service were designated "Martlet." By mid-war, the British and Americans deliberately coordinated aircraft designations to ensure that the American popular name and the British official name for each aircraft was the same.

In Europa, aircraft names are often abbreviated, so that they can fit on the counters.

Mark.

Following the name was the aircraft's mark number, which was used to track important variations to an aircraft. Mark numbers used roman numerals and were assigned consecutively starting from I. By late war, the proliferation of marks led to a thicket of roman numerals, and I suspect the British had as much trouble keeping straight marks such as XII, XIII, XIV, XVI, XVII, etc., as it seems in retrospect. Whatever the reason, when an aircraft's mark number reached 20 or 30 or so, the British switched to arabic numerals. (Some time after the war, the British abandoned roman numerals entirely.) For clarity and to save space, Europa always uses arabic numerals. Variations within a mark were noted by appending letters to numeral, alphabetically starting with A. A Spitfire II, for example, could be configured as IIA (wings mounting eight machine guns), IIB (wings mounting four cannon), and 11C ("universal" wing mounting eight machine guns, four cannon, or a combination thereof). Europa shows these lettered variations only when they make a difference to the ratings; otherwise, they are factored together. Letter suffixes were sometimes used as abbreviations to indicate the purpose or assignment of an aircraft.

Early on, "F" was used to indicate that an aircraft designed as a twin-engine bomber was equipped to operate as a twin-engine fighter, as in the Blenheim IF. Later, "F" and "C" were used to indicate that a particular aircraft was equipped for and assigned to Fighter Command or Coastal Command, respectively, as in the Beaufighter VIF and VIC. From about mid-war for aircraft capable of multiple purposes, the British would add an abbreviation before the mark number to show the aircraft's purpose. Europa does not usually show these abbreviations, since the air unit type code on the counter already shows the aircraft's purpose. Important mark prefixes included:

B.: Bomber. Example: Mosquito B.XVI
C.: Cargo. Example: Halifax C.VIII.
F.: Fighter.
G.R.: General Reconnaissance.
N.F.: Night Fighter.
P.R.: Photographic Reconnaissance.
T.: Training. Example: Wellington T.XVII.



The FAA used multi-purpose aircraft and accordingly had complicated designators, such as F.D.B. (Fighter/Dive Bomber) and T.S.R. (Torpedo/Spotter/ Reconnaissance).

Series.

When a particular mark of aircraft had distinct variants, series numbers were used. The series number was separated from the mark designation by the word "Series" (Europa substitutes a hyphen to save space), followed by a roman numeral for the series. As with the mark number, letters in alphabetic order could be appended to the series number to indicate further distinctions. (Also, on at least one occasion, the designation "(Special)" was appended to a series number, for the Halifax II Series I (Special).) As above, Europa uses arabic numerals in place of roman. Europa only shows series when there is a difference in the rating of the aircraft; otherwise only the mark number is shown.

British-Produced Aircraft: Unit Ratings