Need help with military rank titles

[Teflon Billy]

I'm designing a campaign world, one of the features is a massive empire known as the Imperium (no, this isn't a WH40k.) This empire has the equivalent of a million Earths worth of territory and a military of equal magnitude in size.

 

Do to the size of this military, I've added a few more links to the chain of command.

 

My problem is that I'm having trouble coming up with some superlatives for their titles. This is what I've got so far, the rank and the formation/role they play:

 

Commisioned Officers:

 

Second Lieutenant (Platoon Leader)

First Lieutenant (Platoon Leader)

Captain (Company CDR)

Major (Staff Officer)

Lieutenant Colonel (Battalion CDR)

Colonel (Regimental CDR)

Brigadier (Brigade CDR/Divisional Staff)

 

General Officers:

(General Officers are the highest echelon of tactical command)

 

Brigadier General (Division CDR)

Major General (Corps CDR)

Lieutenant General (Staff Officer)

General (Field Army CDR)

General of the Armies (Army Group CDR)

High General (Geographic Region CDR/Military Governor)

Grand General (Theater CDR/Commander in Chief over occupied Geographic Area)

 

Marshal Officers:

(Marshal Officers command at the strategic/administrative level, they do not command manuever units)

 

Field Marshal

Marshal

(need name) Marshal

(need name) Marshal

(need name) Marshal

High Marshal

Grand Marshal

Lord Marshal (Rank only held by the Emperor, Supreme Chancellor, and Lord Chamberlain)

 

I'd like these ranks to not be the same as the similar General ranks (I don't want to have Major Marshal or Lieutenant Marshal, etc...)

 

So, any ideas?

 

TB

[pinecone]

Re: Need help with military rank titles

 

How about "Marshal of"? so Marshal of a dozen worlds, Marshal of a hundred worlds, Marshal of a thousand worlds (h*ll, I'd be intimidated...) etc...?

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Need help with military rank titles

 

How about "Marshal of"? so Marshal of a dozen worlds' date=' Marshal of a hundred worlds, Marshal of a thousand worlds (h*ll, I'd be intimidated...) etc...?[/quote']I like what you are thinking, unfortunately it doesn't work in the context of the campaign world I'm designing.

 

I probably should add more info: The campaign is meant to be Modern Military Epic High Fantasy w/Super Powers (yes, the entire plumbing store )

 

The World is a massive hollow sphere that has a surface area of well over 2 billion Earths. So, there are no "worlds" just one REALLY BIG world.

 

Also, the Marshals do not directly control any territory (during a time of peace); rulership rests with the Emperor and the Aristocracy (Dukes, Earls, Counts, etc...)

 

TB

[Mantis]

Re: Need help with military rank titles

 

You could borrow from the Royal Air Force and Navy "equivalents", which are:

 

RAF: Air Vice Marshal, Air Marshal, Air Chief Marshal, Marshal of the Royal Air Force.

RN: Rear Admiral, Vice Admiral, Admiral, Admiral of the Fleet.

 

[Note in Real Life, only the last rank of each service is equivalent to Field Marshal, the others are all General-rank equivalents.]

 

So you could have:

 

Rear Marshal

Vice Marshal

Field Marshal

Chief Marshal

High Marshal

Grand Marshal

Marshal of the Armed Forces

Lord Marshal

 

There's your eight Marshal ranks.

[Starlord]

Re: Need help with military rank titles

 

Define their marshalry into specific areas such as Sky Marshal, Air Marshal, Sea Marshal, Star Marshal. Or go the British route with Rear Marshal, Vice Marshal, etc.

[laxrulz777]

Re: Need help with military rank titles

 

Are the armed forces unified (i.e. airforce, navy, army, etc. all together or seperate)...

 

Perhaps a structure like this

Field Marshal

Marshal

Theatre Marshal

Marshal of the (North, South, East, West, *name for upper*, *name for lower*)

Marshal of the (Navy, Army, Air Force, etc.)

High Marshal

Grand Marshal

Lord Marshal

 

other adjectives that you might try: Regional, Sectional, High, Lower, National, Continental...

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Need help with military rank titles

 

You could borrow from the Royal Air Force and Navy "equivalents", which are:

 

RAF: Air Vice Marshal, Air Marshal, Air Chief Marshal, Marshal of the Royal Air Force.

RN: Rear Admiral, Vice Admiral, Admiral, Admiral of the Fleet.

 

[Note in Real Life, only the last rank of each service is equivalent to Field Marshal, the others are all General-rank equivalents.]

 

So you could have:

 

Rear Marshal

Vice Marshal

Field Marshal

Chief Marshal

High Marshal

Grand Marshal

Marshal of the Armed Forces

Lord Marshal

 

There's your eight Marshal ranks.

I think I'll take Chief Marshal, but the others won't work, because I also have a Navy:

 

Commissioned Officer:

 

Ensign

Lieutenant, Junior Grade

Lieutenant

Lieutenant Commander

Commander

Captain

Commodore

 

Admiral Ranks:

 

Rear Admiral, Lower Half (still not liking this rank title)

Rear Admiral

Vice Admiral

Admiral

Fleet Admiral

Flag Admiral

Grand Admiral of the Navies

 

Define their marshalry into specific areas such as Sky Marshal' date=' Air Marshal, Sea Marshal, Star Marshal. Or go the British route with Rear Marshal, Vice Marshal, etc.[/quote']

 

The Marshal ranks are joint service, so Generals and Admirals can become Marshals. The functional/directional areas would be handled at the Combatant Command level.

 

Combatant Commands (Each commanded by a Grand Marshal (M7)):

Northern Command

Southern Command

Western Command

Eastern Command

Central Command (National Defense and Military Reserves)

 

Plus 13 other Commands that are lead by a Grand Marshal, these commanders also serve as equivalent J-Directorate representative that making up the Joint Staff (All Directorate Heads, Chairman, and Vice Chairman are Grand Marshals (M7)):

 

Chairman Joint Staff

Vice Chairman

J-1 = Personnel Command

J-2 = Intelligence & Security Command

J-3 = Operations (Forces Command)

J-4 = Logistics (Transportation Command)

J-10 = Arcane Command (anything dealing with Magic/Supernatural)

J-13 = Covert Operations Command (does not exist on paper)

 

J-5 thru J-9 and J-11 thru J-12 are currently unassigned (I'm still making the campaign World)

 

TB

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Need help with military rank titles

 

Are the armed forces unified (i.e. airforce, navy, army, etc. all together or seperate)...

 

Perhaps a structure like this

Field Marshal

Marshal

Theatre Marshal

Marshal of the (North, South, East, West, *name for upper*, *name for lower*)

Marshal of the (Navy, Army, Air Force, etc.)

High Marshal

Grand Marshal

Lord Marshal

 

other adjectives that you might try: Regional, Sectional, High, Lower, National, Continental...

The Armed Forces are completely Joint at Marshal level.

 

There is no distinct Air Force, Tactical Air Support is handled by Army Pilots (aircraft that are organic to the manuever units), Strategic Air Support is handled by the Navy (strategic bombing, most air transport, etc...).

 

The Marines a specific form of Army Infantry (they get a special skill tab, like Ranger, Sapper, etc...) that travel on naval ships.

 

Marshalries are not tide to geographic area by rank, so that wouldn't work.

 

TB

[Mantis]

Re: Need help with military rank titles

 

Looking at the way the WWII Admiralty (Royal Navy) was structured, they had "Sea Lords" going from "Fifth Sea Lord" up to "First Sea Lord." It may not be fancy, but you could use "Fifth Marshal" to "First Marshal" plus a couple of other names (Chief, Lord, etc). Or maybe just use "First Marshal" and/or maybe "Prime Marshal" near the top of the totem pole?

 

Also, an historic RN rank was Lord High Admiral, representing the overall naval commander (today held by Queen Elizabeth II). You could use "High Marshal" and "Lord Marshal" separately then have the "Lord High Marshal" as the pinnacle. Or, seeing as you have three positions with the "Lord Marshal" rank, split these up, to make it clear who the biggest cheese is:

 

Emperor: Lord High Marshal

Supreme Chancellor: High Marshal

Lord Chamberlain: Lord Marshal

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Need help with military rank titles

 

Looking at the way the WWII Admiralty (Royal Navy) was structured, they had "Sea Lords" going from "Fifth Sea Lord" up to "First Sea Lord." It may not be fancy, but you could use "Fifth Marshal" to "First Marshal" plus a couple of other names (Chief, Lord, etc). Or maybe just use "First Marshal" and/or maybe "Prime Marshal" near the top of the totem pole?

 

Also, an historic RN rank was Lord High Admiral, representing the overall naval commander (today held by Queen Elizabeth II). You could use "High Marshal" and "Lord Marshal" separately then have the "Lord High Marshal" as the pinnacle. Or, seeing as you have three positions with the "Lord Marshal" rank, split these up, to make it clear who the biggest cheese is:

 

Emperor: Lord High Marshal

Supreme Chancellor: High Marshal

Lord Chamberlain: Lord Marshal

 

I think I'm going to go with:

 

Field Marshal

Staff Marshal

Vice Marshal

Marshal

Chief Marshal

High Marshal

Grand Marshal

Lord Marshal

 

I was tempted to use Branch Marshal as one of the ranks, but I didn't think it would be right, Branches are not all equal. The Branch Marshal will instead be a position, the senior Marshal of a military Department, such as Inspector General, Surgeon General, etc.. However some of these positions will be held by people of different rank, the Inspector General may be a Vice Marshal, but the Chief of Chaplins could be a Chief Marshal; both would be Branch Marshals.

 

Lord Marshal is an actual rank. The Emperor, Supreme Chancellor, and Lord Chamberlain all at different times secretly joined the military and worked their way up until they legitmately achieved the rank of Grand Marshal in their own right. The Emperor then created the rank for himself and his second and third in command after they also had achieved the rank of Grand Marshal. This was to cement their place as legitmate military commanders.

 

Also, I'm reserving the appellation "Lord" for titles/ranks directly related to Imperial Orders. Within the Imperium I also have the Great Offices of State (Lord High Ambassador (Sec of State equivalent), Lord High Constable (Attorney General equivalent), etc...).

 

I think I'm going to change the Lord Chamberlain's title to Lord High Chamberlain for consistency.

 

What do you guys think? Any suggestions? Alterations?

 

TB

[Chromatic]

Re: Need help with military rank titles

 

It seems that a lot of this is just for background gameworld flavor, your players aren't going to be in competition to achieve the rank of Grand Marshall or Field Marshall are they? In that case, I wouldn't obsess about.

 

Most players in a game sent in the Imperium would be most concerned with just two things:

 

Does this guy have to salute me? and

Do I have to salute this guy?

 

So just white wash the whole thing: Such and such npc has a chest full of ribbons and medals, his rank is so much higher than you that even if this was the Mirror, Mirror universe, you'd need an entire arsenal to get his position. So shut up, salute him, and pay close attention to the orders he's going to give you.

 

 

 

trying to be helpful. really!

[Badger]

Re: Need help with military rank titles

 

So forgive me for asking but, exactly how many people would be on this planet?

 

And is the technology relatively equal everywhere or are there a range from ultra-modern level to large pockets (entire continents?) still live at or near the Stone Age?

 

Sorry, I always kind of get curious on such matters.

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Need help with military rank titles

 

It seems that a lot of this is just for background gameworld flavor' date=' your players aren't going to be in competition to achieve the rank of Grand Marshall or Field Marshall are they? [/quote']Actually, yes, I do hope that my players might eventually get to this level. This is going to be a space opera (initially without Space) style setting so things are not going to be exactly "realistic", in a similar way that Han, Lando, and Obi-Wan went from mid-range/obscure members of large impersonal organizations to full Generals that were prime movers and shakers in the Galaxy.

 

TB

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Need help with military rank titles

 

So forgive me for asking but' date=' exactly how many people would be on this planet?.[/quote']Over the entire dimension (the hollow sphere is actually an extremely large pocket dimension) there are quintillions of sentient beings once the campaign advances to what could be considered a modern tech level.

 

And is the technology relatively equal everywhere or are there a range from ultra-modern level to large pockets (entire continents?) still live at or near the Stone Age? .

It will vary, but because this is a High Magic campaign (think Forgetten Realms) the relative level of prosperity may not be directly level to the ambient tech level in an area. Nor would it be logical, the metaphysics of the realm heavily influences things, you could very well have a Conan style sword and sorcery tech level on on continent, but have high middle ages dwarven empire on a neighboring continent. Distances are so vast in this realm that I enivision logistics and speed of comunications stifling the general spread of empires and technology. The Imperium is the first to really achive it.

 

Also, the campaign is titled "The March of Time" the characters are going to start in a time period when the Imperium was confined to one (north american) sized continent that is at about Greyhawk level in tech and magic, but they are going to end up being cursed/blessed in one of their adventures to constantly time jump (quantum leap style, jumping to important or critical periods in the Imperium). This will rapidly advance them through the expansion of the Imperium and its advancememnt.

 

Sorry' date=' I always kind of get curious on such matters.[/quote']Not a problem, questions like these help me fill in the gaps in my campaign world.

 

TB

[tkdguy]

Re: Need help with military rank titles

 

Here are a couple of links that may prove useful. They deal with admirals and the ensigns (flags) of the Royal Navy. Perhaps high ranking officers in the campaign would have titles and banners similar to the ones presented.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admiral

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_ensigns

[tancred]

Re: Need help with military rank titles

 

As far as Rear Admiral, Lower Half, I believe the British used divisions in the Admiral ranks based on seniority, listed as Admiral of the Red, Admiral of the White, Admiral of the Blue (no, I don't know which was higher).

Of course, I may have this wrong; this is how I remember it from the Hornblower novels.

 

David Weber uses this in the Honor Harrington novels with two divisions: Admiral of the Red (lower), and Admiral of the Green (higher).

 

All Admiral ranks (Rear Admiral, Vice Admiral, Admiral) would have these divisions, as far as I know.

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Need help with military rank titles

 

As far as Rear Admiral, Lower Half, I believe the British used divisions in the Admiral ranks based on seniority, listed as Admiral of the Red, Admiral of the White, Admiral of the Blue (no, I don't know which was higher).

Of course, I may have this wrong; this is how I remember it from the Hornblower novels.

 

David Weber uses this in the Honor Harrington novels with two divisions: Admiral of the Red (lower), and Admiral of the Green (higher).

 

All Admiral ranks (Rear Admiral, Vice Admiral, Admiral) would have these divisions, as far as I know.

Rear Admiral, Lower Half is an American invention. It is due to the Americans using Commodore as a Flag rank instead of it's normal role as a senior Captain of a flotilla which is not a Flag ranked officer, which the rest of the navies of the world tended to use.

 

When it became apparent that American Commodores were not recieving the respect that they were due (as Flag Officers in the American Navy) from other naval powers in the world the Navy decided to promote them all Commodores to Rear Admiral, but they didn't have the money to pay the salaries for that many Rear Admirals, so they decided to split the list of newly promoties by seniority and the Upper Half became Rear Admiral, Upper Half and the less senior half became Rear Admiral, Lower Half.

 

EDIT: I think I misread your response, I thought you were saying that the concept of Rear Admiral, Lower Half came from a British tradition. I see that you werer giving me another idea for splitting up the ranks.

 

Hmm, I might go with that. But I prefer the (Blah) Rank format as apposed to the Rank of the (Blah) format. So that is biasing my preference for what I want.

 

I appreciate the ideas though, thanks

 

TB

[tancred]

Re: Need help with military rank titles

 

Yep, your edit is dead on.

 

I didn't know there actually was such a rank as Rear Admiral, Lower Half.

Your explanation is fascinating, and SO American. (Trust our government to find a way to pinch pennies on military salaries.)

 

I was trying to suggest a way to create additional ranks without having to actually make up new titles, although Vice Admiral of the Red is kind of clumsy.

[tkdguy]

Re: Need help with military rank titles

 

How about just "Red Admiral," "White Admiral," and "Blue Admiral" along with their respective vice-admirals and rear admirals?

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Need help with military rank titles

 

How about just "Red Admiral' date='" "White Admiral," and "Blue Admiral" along with their respective vice-admirals and rear admirals?[/quote']I don't think I'll use this for the military ranks, but I do think I'll snag it for some of the other heirarchical organizations that the Imperium will have.

 

The Imperium makes the British Empire and all of it's different organizations of social rank look positively anemic by comparison.

 

So far the Imperial Orders, which are the most prestigious of the Knightly orders to be the following (with there general area of focus):

 

The Orders of:

Merlin (magic),

the Owl (sciences),

the Lily (art),

the Lupin (literature),

the Sword (military),

the Seven Stars (church),

the Black Rose (service to the Emperor)

 

These are not even close to all of them, these just happened to be the ones I plan on having my players interact with. Any Patriarch of the Church, Duke, or similar administrative level can have their own Knightly Orders, just these seven are the ones that the Emperor himself created.

 

I'm also going to have several arcane organizations: The Order, The Cabal, and the Circles of Sequestered Magic (yes, I read far too much KoDT).

 

I think I'll use color distinction for the Order, an organization that will be basically the Jedi Knights (with the serial numbers filed off), I'll have it that their rank is their color and thats what color their lightsabers and inner robes will be.

 

I know I'm putting a lot of extra complexity into my campaign world, but it's something I really enjoy about a good fantasy world, detail/complexity. It comes out in SW and Harry Potter (IMO) quite well. The Galactic Republic is HUGE as organizations go, they have layer upon layer of bureacracy and history. The same in HP, with such byzantine organizations as the Ministry of Magic, and the whole wizarding curriculum system (O.W.L.S., N.E.W.T.S., etc...) I also have loads of fun role playing out persnickety bureacrats, my last group of players were rolling on the floor seeing what the Druid in the party had to do to get her mountain lion animal companion into Waterdeep.

 

With the campaign going to have liberal use of time travel, coupled with a large (and extremely long lived) military bureacracy, the players are going to get to deal with being arrested as deserters ("we have you on the rolls as deserting your unit 300 years ago, arrest them!") as well as nice pleasent bureacratic snafus at opportune times ("How are we going to buy the ship?" "Don't worry, we all just got 500 years of back pay!")

 

TB

[Mister E]

Re: Need help with military rank titles

 

I think I'll take Chief Marshal, but the others won't work, because I also have a Navy:

 

Commissioned Officer:

 

Ensign

Lieutenant, Junior Grade

Lieutenant

Lieutenant Commander

Commander

Captain

Commodore

 

Admiral Ranks:

 

Rear Admiral, Lower Half (still not liking this rank title)

Rear Admiral

Vice Admiral

Admiral

Fleet Admiral

Flag Admiral

Grand Admiral of the Navies

The Rank of "Rear Admiral, Lower Half" (which does suck), used to be called Commodore, not long ago. I'm guessing they changed it, because the brass at that level wanted the prestege of being referred to as "Admiral". Little did they realize... "Commodore" is a much richer and more distinguished title, with way more historical grounding, IMO. They never had both Commodores and Rear Admiral Lower Halves in the same navy, at the same time. For instance, there are no Commodores in the American navy, anymore; just lots of Lower Halves of Rear Admirals.

 

Popeye's dad was a Commodore.

[tkdguy]

Re: Need help with military rank titles

 

Here's a link someone posted on the GURPS boards:

 

Comparative Military Rank

[tkdguy]

Re: Need help with military rank titles

 

Or you can use Roman army ranks.

[tkdguy]

Re: Need help with military rank titles

 

One more link:

 

http://www.uniforminsignia.net/index.php