Originally Posted by
A_Van
Arrogant Pentagon strategists who give names to Russian planes while picking their noses sitting in armchairs
That's a swing and a miss.
Not srategists, just a bunch of Intel folks and
not in the Pentagon. Wrong side of the pond.
The most likely venue was a back room somewhere in Mons, or in Paris before that.
Fishbed? Yeah, it's a Fighter. (IIRC, MiG 21)
1. The nicknames were derived for NATO Standardization across 16 nations.
2. Official NATO languages: (UK) English and French.
3. The names had to include phonetic keys, such as F for Fighters and B for Bombers, C for Cargo. (Hence Frogfoot, Backfire, Cub, etc) and so on (with of course a few exceptions) and all helicopters had to start with an H: Helix, Hind, Havoc, Hormone, etc.
4. The NATO phonetic alphabet likewise changed from the original phonetic alphabet that the US Army used in WW II:
The US original version began Able Baker Charlie Dog, Easy, Fox,
the NATO version began Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta, Echo, Foxtrot. (There was a STANAG on that as I recall ... that's in the dusty attic of my memory)