Not that anyone would notice (*grin*) but the Canadian Forces (the Army Part)
uses:
Private Corporal Master Corporal Sergeant Warrant Officer Master Warrant
Officer Chief Warrant Officer
In the ossifer ranks, we use
(Officer Cadet - pre commision)
Second Lieutenant First Lieutenant (and we still now how to pronounce it)
Captain Major
Lieutenant-Colonel
Colonel Brigadier General Major General Lieutenant General General
Of course, I find it interesting that you get Lieutenant Generals in some
armies, Colonel General's, and a few other flavours and some use Stars and
others just have Brigadier without referring to Brigadier General. Brass hats
are all the same pretty much though AFAICS. And of course some nations address
Warrant holders as "Sir" and D.I.s as "Sir" whereas I was explicitly told I'd
get my ass kicked if I did so. (and that's a cleaned up version of the actual
instruction).
FYI, the following are Canadian Appointments (as opposed to ranks): Canadian
Forces Chief Warrant Officer Command Chief Warrant Officer Chief Warrant
Officer of a higher formation Base Chief Warrant Officer Trumpet Major or
Bugle Major Drum Major Pipe Major
Most of this and other interesting stuff about the minute and underfunded CF
can be found at
http://www.dnd.ca
Now, a question for John, who pointed out that
Mike's O-3E indicated he'd once done real work
(and I know the rest of that one too John
*grin*) - Is the E appended if the officer goes
CFR (direct commision from ranks) or only if he
goes to some sort of OCS/Academy? Just
curious.
> On Wed, 15 Jan 2003, Thomas Barclay wrote:
> Not that anyone would notice (*grin*) but the
And just for that extra bit of colour, the Army has different names for some
ranks based on branch of service.
i.e. A Private in the Armoured Corps is a Trooper while a Private in the
Artillery is a Gunner. Corporals in the Artillery are Bombadiers.
An additional note, Bombadiers and Master Bombadiers don't like to be referred
to as corporals by people incapable of seeing the Artillery badge on their
berets. Makes life interesting on a basic training course when individuals of
both types are around.
> Of course, I find it interesting that you get
CF Master Warrant Officers and Chief Warrant Officers can be referred to as
"Sir" or by their appointment (Sargeant Major, RSM, etc.) Some prefer one form
of address over the other and usually let you know in no uncertain terms if
you get it wrong.
> FYI, the following are Canadian Appointments
<snip>
> Tomb Raider
The E means I had at least 4 years as an enlisted soldier. I got out as a
sergeant (MOS 19D20)
Michael Brown
[quoted original message omitted]
Now there is another canister of nematodes - In the USAF I was a 902x0
than a 911x2 (I think) - Medic and Orthopedic Clinic Specialist. When I
went into the Army reserve (long story) I was 1 90Romeo (ROTC cadet) than
after the ROTC thing stopped (long story) I was a 11Bravo for all of one
weekend (I convinced them I was better at admin) than a 76 Yankee
(Supply - and acting armorer (never got one so I did both).)
The point of all this is that the same job doesn't even go by the same name or
number (identification) in all the services of the USA.
Corpsman/Medic/Med Tech for example. How does it work in the other
military force? Is a German Air Force Medic called the same title as a German
Army Medic? As a German Navy Medic? How about the UK? Canada? Australia?
Anyone else?
Gracias, Glenn
On Wed, 15 Jan 2003 15:01:51 -0800 Michael Brown <mwbrown@sonic.net>
writes:
> The E means I had at least 4 years as an enlisted soldier. I got out
http://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/PopTopics/colonel.htm
goes into extensive detail on the various ranks and insignia associated
On Wed, 15 Jan 2003 14:26:31 -0500 Thomas Barclay <kaladorn@magma.ca>
wrote:
> Not that anyone would notice (*grin*) but the Canadian Forces (the
[Snip enlisted and field officer ranks]
> Brigadier General
Are you sure that Lt Gen and General are in the right order? I ask because,
IIRC, the Pom army (and, supposedly, those who follow their practise) has it
the other way around, i.e., above Colonel, the order goes:
Brigadier Major General General Lieutenant General Field Marshal
Of course, Canada could well do its own thing, as they have, for
instance, in introducing Master Corporal/Bombadiers and using the Yank
"Brigadier General"... but I was curious.
What ranks do the Canadian Air Force use these days?
Phil
----
> On 16 Jan 2003 at 8:28, Phillip Atcliffe wrote:
> Are you sure that Lt Gen and General are in the right order? I ask
Sorry, you're wrong. It's Lieutenant General then General in the British Army.
Straight from the horse's mouth:
http://www.army.mod.uk/presscentre/badges/index.htm
Anyone have Arabic language ranks (army and navy)--especially Egyptian
or Sa'udi?
G'day,
> Anyone have Arabic language ranks (army and navy)--especially
Don't know about egyptian but is the pdf at
memory.loc.gov/frd/cs/saudi_arabia/sa05_04i.pdf
any help with the Saudi ranks?
Cheers
> Don't know about egyptian but is the pdf at
Perfect--that covers enlisted and there's another page which covers
ossifers
Hi folks,
> The point of all this is that the same job doesn't even go by the same
Well, here's to throwing monkey wrenches into a nice "simple" system...
In the CF, there are certain trades that are specific to one branch of the
service, but used in all three. Firefighters, for example. Anything to do with
aviation, is another. The Canadian military went through (is still
going through) a gut-wrenching process way back in the late '60's and
early '70's of trying to rationalize itself and organize itself as a single
service, without the infighting and redundancy that goes on in armed forces
that have distinct services (ie the US, Britain, etc). In effect, they got rid
of the Canadian Army, the RCN (navy), and the RCAF (airforce), and all became
the "Canadian Forces". Originally, the idea was supposed to be
something akin to the US Marine Corps - where everyone is first a
Marine, but all are supposed to be trained to work together relatively
harmoniously
- certainly more so than, for example, the airforce was trained to work
with the army. One effect of this was the elimination of service uniforms
- so everyone wore the same bottle green....
It failed utterly in most cases, and led to many other countries looking at us
oddly. We still don't actually have a *separate* army or navy or
airforce - they're the Land Force Component, or something like that...
The airforce gained control of all things flying. So, all pilots,
technicians, and other flight-related personnel stationed on Navy ships
are *all* members of the airforce. All figherfighters are from a single
service branch (and I think it is army, but I'm not sure), so on a ship you
have naval members (running the ship) though you might have army medics
assigned, you will have airforce members operating the helicopters, you'll
have army figherfighters as part of the air detachment, etc...
I've seen news footage of army combat units deployed in the former
Yugoslavia where the media-affairs person condicting an interview is a
navy officer wearing combat fagitues.
I suppose it sort of makes sense... if you have one school training all the
"x" and those "x" people are used for all service branches, it reduces
redundancy.
Didn't in any way stop the inter-service rivalries or competitiveness,
however...
***************************************
On Thu, 16 Jan 2003 18:07:11 -0500 Adrian Johnson
> <adrian.johnson@sympatico.ca> writes:
<snip a 'simple' system that fails despite the apparent logic...>
> I suppose it sort of makes sense... if you have one school training
Well, the uSAF used to train Navy (Planes anyway) and Marine (land IIRC)
navigators (and EWOs and... others) at Mather AFB (Now closed...) during the
early to mid 1970's.
> Didn't in any way stop the inter-service rivalries or competitiveness,
Land Component - they thought that would fool anyone into thinking other
than "Army"? Shudder...
Gracias,
> On Thu, 16 Jan 2003, Adrian Johnson wrote:
> Hi folks,
Canada?
> >Australia? Anyone else?
system...
> In the CF, there are certain trades that are specific to one branch of
> [quoted text omitted]
Army - "Mobile Command" or "Land Forces Command"
Navy - "Maritime Command"
Air Force - "Air Command"
> The airforce gained control of all things flying. So, all pilots,
Not entirely true. Yes, the Air Force now does all the flying, from
helicopters on Navy ships to CF-18s.
General trades get fuzzier. The trades are the same across all service
branches. Army, navy and Air Force medics for example all go the same training
courses and have the same designation. When you join up as a medic in the
Reserves, i believe that thye are all Army units. Regular Force medics can be
from any branch. The CF decides which branch you will belong to (and hence
what uniform you will wear) based on service needs.
Stuff like public affairs is done by all officer trades. The Paffo section at
the CF headquarters in Edmonton was headed by an infantry major when I was
working there. For a time, an officer from my (Reserve) Armoured Squadron took
a tasking there. This was probably because the Edmonton garrison is almost
entirely Army. I would assume that in Halifax, which has a large naval
presence, would have more naval officers working in Public affairs. Overseas
stuff can be done by any branch. The public affairs officer with the PPCLI
battalion that went to Afghanistan was Navy, I believe.
I think it was done to reduce administration. After all, why have three
different pay systems that do the same thing? However, the execution left alot
to be desired and gave morale a huge kick to to family jewels.
> Didn't in any way stop the inter-service rivalries or competitiveness,
What fun would that be?
Hi folks,
> Of course, Canada could well do its own thing, as they have, for
Somone correct me if I'm wrong here, but I thought "Brigadier General" *was*
an old British army rank. As I understood it, "back in the day" (late '50's,
early '60's maybe) there were public complaints that the
British military was too top-heavy with "Flag" ranks. So, Brigadier
General was reduced to Brigadier, and *presto*, all those people were no
longer "Generals". Is that right?
Here's another one for you: "Rear Admiral (Upper Half)" and "Rear Admiral
(Lower Half)" in US parlance. These designate the two lowest level of Admiral,
correspoding to to Major General and Brigadier General. I've read that during
WWII the US Navy Rear Admirals (Lower Half) wore two stars, which caused
confusion when they could be outranked (in terms of
time-in-rank) by an army one star Brigadier General - who would get
mightely annoyed at saluting someone actually junior to them.... The term
"Commodore" was used to refer to the commander of a naval force composed of
ships where the senior ranking officer was a Captain (the rank, not the
position). It has been used in other circumstances too, but IIRC in British
and US parlance, was an "appointment", the same way "Regimental Sergeant
Major" is an appointment for someone whose actual rank is Chief Warrent
Officer (in both the Brit and Canadian armies) but who is serving in the
position of RSM. The Canadian military decided to get rid of all the confusion
between admirals of various halves, and now "Commodore" is
the official *rank* of 1-star (actually 1-maple-leaf - our Flag rank
officers have maple leaf symbols where US flag rank officers wear a star)
admirals. So, the Canadian naval flag officer ranks are:
Commodore Rear Admiral Vice Admiral Admiral
and all confusion is removed. Except, of course, when we deal with navies who
still use "Commodore" as a title for an appointment...
In answer to Phil's question, the Canadian airforce uses identical ranks to
the Canadian army (well, the "usual" army ranks... "Corporal", "Master
Corporal", "Sergeant" and so on... no "Troopers" or "Bombadiers" in the
airforce....).
Here's another unusual (read: kinda trivial, but sorta interesting) situation.
I think I read about this in "Peacekeeper: The Road to Sarajevo" by Major
General Lewis MacKenzie. One of the NATO armies (I believe it is the Dutch or
the Danes, but I'm not sure) doesn't usually
have 1-star flag rank officers. They start them off at "Major General"
or "Vice Admiral" and don't have the "Brigadier General" rank. The situation
arose where this nation was sending one of its' officers (a full Colonel) for
a posting with the UN force in (Bosnia?), and the position was one listed
normally for a Brigadier General. The country didn't want to lose the position
(having their nation represented), so by a special act of their parliament
they temporarily created the rank of Brigadier General and promoted the
Colonel, for the duration of his appointment to the UN
position - at the end of which he would have either been promoted to
Major General or reduced to Colonel...
***************************************
On Fri, 17 Jan 2003 03:42:07 -0500, Adrian Johnson
> <adrian.johnson@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> The country didn't want to lose
Sounds sort of like the old brevet system in the US army. I can't remember
when it began (probably War of 1812, if not before; it was certainly used in
the Mexican War), but it fell out of use after the Civil War. What happened
was that instead of giving someone a medal, as there were few medals, you gave
an officer a brevet promotion for heroism. The officer still maintained his
old rank for the purposes of pension (maybe even pay, but I'm not positive)
but he was allowed to wear the insignia of the new rank, and be treated as
having that rank. The rank was removed when the conflict was over. It was a
really clumsy way of doing things, especially after the war when all those
brevet Brigadier and Major Generals dropped back to Colonel status.
To make things even more confusing, there were regular army ranks and
volunteer ranks. A Captain in the regular army may have been given the command
of a volunteer regiment during the war. He would then get the rank of Colonel
of Volunteers, but his old regular army rank stuck around with him for when
the conflict was over and he went back to being in the regular army. A
promotion in the volunteers often, but not always, resulted in a promotion in
the regular army.
You probably saw this coming... you could be breveted for a regular army rank
_and_ a volunteer army rank. So, theoretically, you could have at the
end of the war Brevet Major General of Volunteers with a real rank of
Brigadier General of Volunteers, who was also breveted a full Colonel in the
Regular Army, but who's actual rank in the Regular Army was Captain.
They ended up doing away with brevets and just handing out medals for
meritorious conduct. By WWII they had done away with the differentiation
between volunteers and regular army, but I'm not sure when that was actually
done.
--- Adrian Johnson <adrian.johnson@sympatico.ca>
wrote:
> I suppose it sort of makes sense... if you have one
You can do this without pissing in everyone's cheerios, though.
Fort Leonard Wood trains Army Engineer, Marine Engineers, Navy Seebees, and
Air Force airfield building guys all on the same facility. Where there is
overlap in heavy equipment, they train in the same class, IIRC.