From: Adrian Johnson <ajohnson@i...>
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 03:06:24 -0500
Subject: WAS: RE: [OT] Sevice, now RANKS, which isn't really OT if you use your imagination...
Hi folks, > How about the ranking and titles in other nations Yeah. It can be difficult to compare ranks of the same name directly across different nations' militaries - they have different responsibilities, etc. In the British Army, for example, a Corporal is a real NCO rank - they have command responsibility (over, for example, a fire team or equiv.). In the Canadian Army, Corporal is a "holding" or "qualification" rank - everyone gets there eventually if you have sufficient time in and the right training. So in the infantry, you might have a section (squad) with two or three Corporals who don't actually have any command responsibility per se (well, maybe they're the senior of a pair of "fire team buddies" or whatever they call it). John A. was telling us a while back that the US army sometimes makes people "Corporals" as a means of putting them in a position of greater responsibility without actually promoting them to a "real" NCO rank (Sergeant) if they don't yet have the sergeant's course. In the CF, a section commander would be a Master Corporal or Sergeant, and the platoon's senior NCO would normally be a Warrant Officer. I don't know why we have Master Corporals... I think that's descended from the "Caporal Chef" tradition in the French military or something... I know they wanted to eliminate the old "Lance Corporal" rank we used to have, in an effort to try to remove some of the overt British influence and develop "Canadianness" or some such silliness. FWIW, the Canadian Army non-comissioned ranks are: Private - Recruit (Pte(R)) Private (Pte) Corporal (Cpl) Master Corporal (MCpl) Sergeant (Sgt) Warrant Officer (WO) Master Warrant Officer (MWO) Chief Warrant Officer (CWO) The comissioned ranks are basically the same as the US, though the responsibilities at each rank level are somewhat different. For example, in the US army, Lieutenants command platoons (normally) and Captains command companies (normally) - though that's generalizing and there are lots of exceptions. In the Canadian army, Lieutenants command platoons also (normally), but Majors command companies. An infantry company would have a Major commanding, a couple of Captains (one as 2ic and the other as the "Battle Captain") and Lieutenants as platoon leaders. Anyway, don't want to put everyone to sleep here...;)