Guess that is why we have something called standard military nomenclature following the letter-number designation; ie M-60 machine gun and opposed to 105mm Gun Tank, M-60. Try P-38, can opener (issued with C rats) or P-38 "Lightning" a twin Boom fighter aircraft. M-39 Armored Carrier or M-39 Bell Aerocobra, or M-39 Lynx Armored car..or German machine pistol...Same as the A, E or B breakdown on vehicles..M-3 Medium tank or M-3A1 Light tank. M-4A3 or A1 Medium tank or M-32A1B3 Vehicle, Tank Retriever or M-36B2 Tank destroyer. [X(] M-1 Cal 30 Garand rifle....M-1 Cal 30 Carbine, M-1 Abrams tank, or hundrends of other designations for M-1 in every concievable catagory, identified by reading the complete ID.

Don't think a Wehrmacht Soldat would confuse his MP-40 for an Italian M-40 Semovente 75/18, or the US 155mm Gun motor carriage M-40. Either of which would put a serious strain on the sling and shoulder. Nomenclature should always be listed complete to include leter-numeric designator and descriptive listing. We still have a pretty simple system. Common sense dictates appropriate use of complete identifying nomenclature when referring to a particular item of issue. [>:] If I ordered an M-1 Garand and received an Abrams, don't think I would be upset...until I had to gas it up.[:@]