This is fascinating! Real world military ranks fascinate me (as a lifelong civilian), and I’ve always been intrigued by the German forces’ apparent over-abundance of ranks (which I believe is largely due to position titles rather than actual ranks?).
Sea Tyger did something similar for the US Navy (surprisingly different from the UK’s Royal Navy despite the similar origins) a few years back on TrekRPG.net. That was where I first came across “up or out” - which definitely does not exist in Starfleet (or we’d never have seen Lt jg Picard).
I am not. I also did not see any off-topic section on the forums. So it seems that I am out of the discussion. But it seems that there are plenty of germans around that have some kind of military experience, anyway.
But, anyway, some further German Armed Forces ranks discussion
It’s part due to the tradition that navy ranks are different from army and air force ranks (but that’s just additional names), part due to the tradition that NCOs have a very strong position and part due to the apparent urge to see other people’s paygrades on their uniforms combined with a growing number of paygrades. Also, the NCOs are actually divided into three groups, enlisted personnel without any command authority (privates, rank indicates experience, more or less) and two groups of NCOs (seargeants). They are actually planning to introduce two more ranks with the enlisted personnel group, for whatever reason…
So, my personal opinion on the reason for the overabundance of ranks in the german military is that the military not necessarily always has the best ideas, mildly put.
For something completely different: Do you see any use in using the reputation system within social conflict? I just think of Voyager: Tom Paris being demoted, Seven of Nine freshly being saved from the collective – I think you could say there reputation was quite bad in these times, respectively. When interacting with NPC of the crew (player characters are not bound by reputation as stated in the rules, I think this also applies to supporting characters but I’m not sure) this could be a drawback in social situations.
I run a game where the crew is not Starfleet. And I use the reputation system as an indicator of how well the crew’s standing is with other factions, such as the Federation, Klingons and Ferengi. And depending on the adventure, I will use low reputation as a Complication which makes dealing with the affected faction more difficult.
On a Starfleet ship I could totally see crew members being treated badly (i.e. Complication) because of their reputation (like Paris, Ro Laren, Michael Burnham).
The rules say that a very bad reputation can lead to a court martial. So why not use a not-quite-as-bad reputation as Complication in social situations?
I personally think its very interesting, and could almost do with it’s own thread for the opposite reason- easy reference, especially for those who aren’t overly interested in rep, and might not look at the thread?
That’s the case in most militaries: the UK has both naval and army ranks (both with long histories) and a separate system for the RAF (officers loosely based on the naval tradition, enlisted on the army…). The marines use army ranks, the naval Fleet Air Arm uses naval ranks and army pilots use army ranks!
The US is another one, air force, marine and army aircrew use army ranks, naval aircrew use naval ranks.
To add to the fun, the UK military seems to have fewer enlisted/nco ranks than say, the Americans, without the 1st, 2nd class type options. Warrant officers (another fun digression) are then a senior category of nco, rather than being a group on their own.
The NATO rank comparison chart in Wikipedia is quite an exciting read!
Or as a friend of mine put it, “let’s call a ■■■■■ a portable entrenching tool”. (Derived from the English saying “let’s call a ■■■■■ a ■■■■■”.)
Edit: just noticed the content blocking here. In the UK, this term is not a racial slur, it’s an alternate word for a shovel!
Well then a few things about the German Military Ranks.
The German Military lacks the Warrent Officers of the US Military but has also Limited Duty Officers called “Fachoffiziere” in General former NCOs who became Mustangs. Regularly they can not be Promoted to Staffofficers (Majors ord Korvettenkapitän or Higher) their Highest Rank is the Staff Hauptmann or Staff Kapitänleutnant, yeah Ironic. That two Ranks are exclusivly for Limited Duty Officers.
The Lowest Officer Rank is the Leutnant. The Ensign called Fähnrich in Germany is a Officer Aspirant like the higer Oberfähnrich and the lower Fahnenjunker.
Regarding the NCOs I think there is a simmilar Numer of Ranks as in the US Military.
The Shitload of Strips with the Enlisted: Well, that is a complicated Matter about “Time served” and Qualification, Paygrade etc. The Strips were called Pommes (Fries) and there are some Mockings about Soldiers wo got Many stripes as they don’t get qualification to become NCO, so they may be called Pommes-General or Nato-Zebra.
Little Annecdote from a Friend who served with the Air Force:
Guardhouse called the Staffoffice: “Ey, Dude, here is a golden Major at the gate and demand entrence.”
Major and Brigadier General have the same Insignia, one in Silver, one in Gold.
Sounds similar to the US officer ranks - several higher pairs of ranks have the same insignia, but in bronze (lower rank) and silver (higher) - an example being Lt Colonel and Colonel. The problem from an outsider’s point of view is that the bronze looks gold, so the natural assumption is the silver is the lower rank…
In the UK, every rank emblem builds on the one below, so at least you can tell a Colonel outranks a Lt Colonel from the number of pips on their shoulder!
Never apologise for your command of English, it’s a lot better than my German! (I am English - languages were never a priority for us - we believe most of the world understands us if we speak loudly and slowly )
But different military’s handle rank and promotion differently. On poster very kindly explained to me my ignorance of the German Navy and its rank structure. One thing he said really struck me, I can’t quote it, but he said that German naval officers do not progress in rank as quickly as American naval officers. In short, officers remain in grade for longer periods of time before they have to face up or out. Who is to say that in Starfleet, an organization covering vast interstellar distances, rank “stagnation” as you put it is the norm. My son was in the United States Coast Guard. He flew in rescue helicopters into the face of hurricanes. One of the pilots he flew with was a Lt.Commander who was actually retired, but such an amazing pilot that he was contracted by the Coast Guard to remain flying for them, but he would not rise in rank, but his years towards retirement kept going up. Whose to say Starfleet is not more like that? Some people are just naturally good at their job. Why couldn’t they remain in it for as on as they wanted?
Especially in an age of advanced medicine where people can remain vital and active much longer - Picard is 59 at the start of TNG (and had already been commanding starships for 32 years), but given that the human average lifespan is well over a century by that point, a human in his 60s is ‘middle aged’ by Federation standards. Fifteen years and one Enterprise later, Jean-luc’s still in the Captain’s chair at the age of 74, driving dune buggies and confronting threats to the Federation. We’re about to get a show with him as the main character set twenty years after that, so he’s clearly still active in some capacity in his 90s.
So, yeah,it seems reasonable to assume that Starfleet doesn’t necessarily mind letting people stay where they’re most effective, even before considering longer-lived species like Vulcans and Denobulans.
The German System mirrors the pre-Civil War US…
(Exemplar ranges changed once in that period)
Captain First Rate (32+ Guns) (Addressed as Captain)
Captain Second Rate (20-31 guns) (Addressed as Captain)
Master Commandant (10-19 Guns) (Addressed as Master or Commandant, depening upon speaker’s rank)
Lieutenant Commandant (≤9 guns) (Addressed as Leitenant or Commandant, again, depending upon speaker’s rank.
On board ships with Captains… other officers
First Lieutenant (same insignia as a Lieutenant Commandant)
Lietenants
Masters
Passed Midshipsmen
Other Warranted Officers (do not confuse these with modern Warrant Officers of either the UK/European nor US models, but they’re more similar to Praposkiki in the Russian system pre 1960 - which is as late as my Bacchalaureat thesis research went.)
On board ships without Captains…
Masters
Passed Midshipsmen
(note the lack of warranted officers - only captains could warrant someone; the admiralty could, too, but usually only did so for Captained ships)
Until the 1860’s, the US had NO flag rank as a substantiative rank. All the flag officers were breveted to Commodore; while the CNO was a Brevet Commodore, he ranked all other commodores. In the 1860’s, the navy added admirals, and left commodore as a brevet only.
In TNG in particular you can see people like in their 50s being junior officers. This is highly unusual for the contemporary navies, but in Starfleet it is not a problem. Humans have supposedly evolved beyond the obsession of rank and I guess some people really like what they are doing. Also I think a part of rank is of course payment. The higher the rank, the higher the payment. That is also a non-issue in Starfleet (although you get bigger quarters).
And apparently people like Riker get asked if they would like a promotion. I don’t think it works like that in the Military.
In the episode Tapestry, Picard is a Lieutenant JG and in his 60s. Although it is an alternate reality (or fiction?) created by Q, nobody (including Picard) seems to find the situation unorthodox. Alternate Picard was good at his job (not too good) and he lacked ambition. Thus there is no reason to promote, especially in a division which focuses less on physical fitness and combat readiness and more on science.
Hmm, very interesting and very different from the same-era RN! I suspect the American system must derive from one of the European navies (the French, given their support in the revolution?). The exclusion of admirals may be an anti-nobility thing?
Simplified Napoleonic-era RN ranks are (from the top):
Admiral (9 in total, with precedence determined by which part of which fleet they commanded)
Commodore (squadron command)
Post Captain (command of a 3rd-rate ship or better)
Commander (also Master & Commander - command of a lesser ship, brig or sloop)
Lieutenant (junior officer)
Warrant Officers (surgeon, purser, master etc - appointed by the appropriate Board)
Assorted petty officers, including mates and various skilled sailors (appointed by the captain)
Able & Ordinary Seamen, Landsmen and Boys (basic crew positions)
Nearly all of the non-commissioned ranks hold specific positions and are referred to by that - Sailmaker, Gunner’s mate, etc. Wikipedia lists dozens of them.
The UK military doesn’t seem to have standardised its rank systems until the mid-19th century, which I suspect has a lot to do with the very proud traditions held by the individual services, most of which predated and organised civilian government.
At least the RN was one service, the army consisted of multiple individual regiments, each of which held equivalent status, and defined their own uniforms, organisation and so on. As an aside, if you’ve ever wondered why we don’t have a Royal Army, it’s for 2 reasons: the current version descends from Cromwell’s republican New Model Army (and answers only to the government) and the royals got into the habit of bestowing ‘royal’ status on individual regiments.
That is actually not branch-specific. I knew a Lieutenant Colonel (NATO OF-4, “Oberstleutnant” in german) of the German Army who claimed to have been a “Hauptmann” (NATO-OF2, Army Captain, would be a Lieutenant senior grade in U.S. Navy / Star Trek) for ten years before he got promoted to Major. This is actually a very, very long time, but, at least to me, not entirely unheard of.
Also, when you become a staff officer (NATO OF3–OF5) in Germany, you will most likely be promoted up to Lieutenant Colonel (“Oberstleutnant”). “Oberst” or Colonel (Captain, for the navy) is another “jump”, so to say.
Thus, you can have Second Lieutenants or Ensigns (“Leutnant”, NATO OF-1) in their early-twenties and in their late-thierties/early-forties. The former will just have graduated from officers’ school, the latter will have about fifteen-to-twenty years of experience as a NCO under their belt. They are virtually equal in authority and privilege and, as far as I know can be transferred to the same posts. If they want to be promoted to Major and above, they actually have to change carreer, again, since, as LucasCunningham already stated (and rightly so) they can be promoted to “Stabshauptmann / Stabskaleu” (which officers who started as officers cannot, they will be promoted from Hauptmann to Major or Kapitänleutnant/KaLeu to Korvettenkapitän) but not to actual staff officers’ ranks.
As an idea for adapting this scenario to Star Trek Adventures, I would totally let a character ranked ensign-lieutenant the ‘Veteran Officer’ talent, representing a long carreer as NCO prior to be promoted to an officer’s rank. But I would restrict a promotion to LtCmdr and above. I have no idea how (getting rid of the talent, like with the ‘Untapped Potential’ talent, makes only limited sense, to me), but before that, the character would have to undergo substantial change with something.
I also completely agree that it is totally reasonable for Starfleet to have ‘old’ persons in ‘low’ ranks. Tuvok, for example, was active under the command of one Captain Sulu during movie-era (when Kirk and McCoy were detained on Praxis) as we saw in some Voyager episode. Then he quit Starfleet and only returned years later, being a Lt when Voyager began. There are also some background actors (they are called ‘extras’ in movies, i suppose?) seen over various episodes/movies that are comparably low in rank, but grey-haired.
Another funny anecdote
Holds completely true for the German Navy. In the Army and the Air Force, like LucasCunningham already stated, the staff officers and generals have the same emblems, but different colors; silver for staff officers and gold for generals.
And here’s my anecdote:
The German Navy is the smallest of the branches in the German military. Since Army and Air Force ranks are the same, a lot of Army and Air Force soldiers do not bother to memorize the Navy ranks. In the Army and the Air Force, all rank insignia are silver, only the generals go for gold. In the navy – EVERY rank-insignia, even those of the enlisted personell, is gold. The ‘real’ “Pommes-General” (Pommes = french fries) is a “Oberstabsgefreiter (Bootsmannanwärter)”. The “Oberstabsgefreiter”, being NATO-coded OR-4, would be a Corporal of the U.S. Army or a Petty Officer Third Class in the U.S. Navy (and, probably, Star Trek). The addendum “Bootsmannsanwärter” means NCO-aspirant. For the “Oberstabsgrefreiter” part, he would get five slanted bars on each of his shoulders. That he will become a “Bootsmann” (German Navy rank for Petty Officer First Class or Staff Seargeant), soon, gets him another two straight bars. So, seven golden bars on his shoulder, in total.
Remember, for most of the Army/Air Force guys, “gold” equals “general”. This has led to some quite funny misconceptions…
It’s important when looking at US 20th C, there was (and is) an “up or out” policy to make certain that younger officers had slots to promote to.
Also, the time in grade requirements have gone down, and the rule is “third board which doesn’t promote is the last one.” Officer boards are annual… but last I checked, one could skip a board twice per rank (but not two in a row).
Ob Trek: The US Navy model isn’t the real basis for TOS. Roddenberry mentioned in an interview that it was more after the NOAA system. (NOAA has a corps of commissioned officers, using Navy titles, operating a number of ships. The ships are mostly staffed by NOAA officers, but with some merchant ratings hired for deck and engineering departments when needed; occasionally, USN or USCG enlisted get loaned to NOAA.) And, yes, a NOAA officer has the same authority over a USN rating as does a USCG officer.
And re early 19th C US Naval enlisted ranks… 3 grades. Apprentice, Able, and Master’s Mate; type of mate determined which sleeve got the anchor & eagle. by the mid 19th, the 7 grades were established. Recruit, Apprentice, Able. Petty Officer 3rd Class, PO 2nd Class, PO 1st Class, Chief PO. The “supergrades” (E8 & E9) only came to exist after WW II. Note that the US system in place in the early 19th C is taken almost directly from late 18th C RN uses - Master Commandant is the same grade and role as Master & Commander. The uniform distinctions of the senior Lieutenant were formalized in the US sooner than the UK, and allowed independent command much sooner, but many elements in the USN are direct inheritances. Including the stripes and stars on the Crackerjacks.
Of course, if you want a Cthuloid experience, you try to make sense of the 1920 US army rank system for enlisted. 7 paygrades, over 100 distinct rank titles, 3 basic patterns of insignia… (Chevrons up with arcs down, sometimes with specialty marks; Chevrons up and straight bars below; bar then rocker then wreath then wreath & Star or Wreath and Eagle, then Wreath + eagle + Star or Wreath + bar + Star.) See LtC Emerson, The Army’s Last Set of Confusing Chevrons, 2004.
Interesting, I’d never heard that, but it makes sense.
I know that the rank markings were designed to be different to the contemporary military usage (hence Kirk wearing what appears to be a Lt Cdr’s rank insignia). Given that, in the pilot episodes, the insignia are even simpler, I wonder if you could rationalise that they had something like the Discovery dots on the badges (which the camera couldn’t see) and the wristbands just indicated the senior officers for convenience.
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