Ranks and units
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Modern armies are characterized by a system of ranks and units. The ranks qualify their holders to assume positions within units.
Contents |
[edit] Outline of army positions
In each unit within the Army, there is the commanding (or line) officer and his executive officer. In large units, the commanding officer is called the commander-in-chief and the executive officer is called the chief-of-staff. This is because the executive officer is the chief member of the commanding officer’s staff.
The staff functions are denoted through letters and numbers. “G” is used for the national army’s general staff; “S” is used for unit staff while “N” is used for the Navy and “J” for the Department of Defense. The series of numbers derive from those used in the French Army. For example, “2” is the number for intelligence for the same reason that the French intelligence service is the Deuxieme (Second) Bureau.
- The G-1 is the chief of staff for personnel.
- The G-2 is the intelligence staff officer.
- The G-3 is the chief of staff for plans, operations, and training; sometimes called the Operations Officer.
- The G-4 is the logistics officer.
- The G-5 is the civil affairs or public affairs officer.
- The G-6 is the command, control, communications, and computer systems staff officer, and is frequently the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the component.
- The G-7 is the joint operations staff officer. Very few organizations have a G-7 office; most of the offices are J-7, at the Department of Defense level.
- The G-8 is the resource management officer.
Before the 1700s the staff functions were informal in most units. Instead the staff officers belonged to camps and armies: each camp had an adjutant and a quartermaster while each national army had an adjutant general and a quartermaster general. On the other hand, each modern army unit is divided into task forces based on staff functions. These task forces contain subunits that are themselves divided into smaller task forces.
[edit] High command in medieval armies
The king’s army was placed under the command of the High Constable as commander-in-chief. The High Constable had authority over the local constables, commanders of the garrisons of major castles. The High Constable had the help of the Field Marshal, an officer that set up the army’s camp. (Marshals acted chiefs of logistics and were also employed by royal and noble courts.) The High Constable derived his authority over the army from his role of head of the cavalry. Over time he was eclipsed by the Captain General.
[edit] Companies within medieval times and beyond
As the Middle Ages came to an end, the rank structure of medieval armies became more formalized. The top officers were known as commissioned officers because their rank came from a royal commission. Army commissions were reserved for the elite—the aristocracy of mainland Europe and the aristocracy and gentry of Great Britain.
The basic unit of the medieval army was the company, a band of soldiers assigned (or raised) by a vassal lord on behalf of his lord (in later times the King himself). The vassal lord in command of the company was a commissioned officer with the rank of captain. Captain was derived from the Late Latin word capitaneus (meaning chief).
The commissioned officer assisting the captain with command of the company was the lieutenant. Lieutenant was derived from from the French language; the lieu meaning “place” as in a position; and tenant meaning “holding” as in “holding a position”; thus a “lieutenant” is somebody who holds a position in the absence of his superior. When he was not assisting the captain, the lieutenant commanded an unit called a platoon, particularly a more specialized platoon. This rank was later called First Lieutenant.
A platoon is formed by at least two sections or squads (usually 3 or 4) and is smaller than a company. Typically, there are three or four platoons per company. Most platoons are infantry platoons; some carry other designations such as mortar or heavy weapons platoons.
A platoon is the smallest military unit led by a commissioned officer.
The word is derived from the 17th-century French peloton, meaning a small ball or small detachment of men, which came from pelote, a ball.
The commissioned officer carrying the (infantry) company’s flag was the ensign. The word ensign was in fact derived from the Latin word insignia. In cavalry companies the equivalent rank was coronet. These ranks were merged into the single rank of Second Lieutenant in the 19th Century.
Officers need not receive a commission from the King. They could also receive a warrant, certifying their expertise as craftsmen. These warrant officers assisted the commissioned officers but ranked above the noncommissioned officers.
A noncommissioned officer (NCO) received their authority from superior officers rather than the King. The highest rank of NCO was sergeant. The first sergeants were the armed servants (men-at-arms) of the aristocracy, assigned to command, organize and train the militia units raised for battle. After years of commanding a squad, a NCO could be promoted to sergeant. While a sergeant might have commanded a squad upon promotion, he usually became a staff officer. While commissioned staff officers assisted their commander with personnel, intelligence, operations and logistics, the sergeant was a jack of all trades, concerning himself with all aspects of administration to maintain the enlisted men serving under his commander. Over time, sergeant became many ranks as various levels of sergeants were used by the commanders of various levels of units.
A corporal commanded a squad. Squad derived from the Italian word for a “square” or “block” of soldiers. In fact, corporal was derived from the Italian caporal de squadra (head of the squad). Corporals were assisted by lancepesades. Lancepesades were veteran soldiers—lancepesade was derived from the Italian lanzia spezzata meaning broken spear—the broken spear being a metaphor for combat experience, where such an occurrence was likely. The first lancepesades were simply experienced privates—these privates either assisted their corporal or performed the duties of a corporal themselves. It was this second function that made armies increasingly regard their lancepesades as a grade of corporal rather than a grade of private. As a result, the rank of Lance Corporal was derived from combining lancepesade and corporal—the title came from the fact that his position was a grade in the rank of corporal.
As the Middle Ages came to an end, kings increasingly relied on professional soldiers to fill the bottom ranks of their armies instead of militiamen. Each of these professionals began their careers as a private. The private was a man who signed a private contract with the company commander, offering his services in return for pay. Men were encouraged to become professional soldiers by payments in coins—the search for new sources of gold and silver for the production of more coinage led emerging states into continued expansionism and exploration as the Middle Ages came to an end. The money was raised through taxation--those yeomen (smallholding peasants) who did not fulfill their annual 40-day militia service paid a tax--that funded professional soldiers recruited from the yeomanry. This money was handed to the company commanders from the royal treasury, the company commanders using the money to recruit the troops.
The caliber of men recruited into the armies of Europe changed, however, during the Thirty Years War. The unreliablity of these autonomous mercenaries was deplored and in the aftermath of the war were replaced. Military units were brought under tighter control and soldiers under ferocious disclipine. In these conditions, force was needed to fill the ranks—criminals and paupers were often cleared from the streets by press gangs and pressed into military service. These press gangs were bands of men sent by military officers to forcibly recruit men into the army.
[edit] The rise of the modern army
As archers and gunmen eclipsed knights in importance, command of the army went from the High Constable to the Captain-General. Captain-Generals were captains granted general (overall) authority over the field armies raised by the King. (National armies were the armies of the kings. Field armies were armies raised by the King to enter the battle field in preparation for major battles.) In French history, “lieutenant du roi” was a title borne by the officer sent with military powers to represent the king in certain provinces. A lieutenant du roi were sometimes known as a lieutenant general to distinguish him from lieutenants subordinate to mere captains. It is in the sense of a deputy that the word lieutenant has entered into the modern ranks of more senior officers, Lieutenant General and Lieutenant Colonel. The apex of the command structure of a field army was occupied by the nominal commander, the Captain General. In fact, the Captain General acted as a military adviser to the King while the field army’s nominal chief-of-staff, the Lieutenant General, was the acting commander of the field army as well as the official commander of the cavalry. The acting chief-of-staff was the official commander of the infantry, the field army’s Sergeant Major.
As armies grew bigger, they were split into corps. The lieutenant generals received command of these corps. The corps were split into divisions, each division headed by a major general. The division was originally an organizational structure under the corps to assist in command and control of various regiments and brigades. The corps remained the primary maneuver unit of the army, while heraldry and unit identification remained primarily a matter of the regiment. Brigades headed by brigadier generals were the units that was invented as a tactical unit, by the Swedish king and conqueror Gustavus Adolphus. It was introduced to overcome the normal army structure, consisting of regiments. The so-called “brigada” was a mixed unit, comprising infantry, cavalry and normally artillery too, designated for a special task. The size of such “brigada” was a reinforced company up to two regiments. The “brigada” was the ancient form of the nowadays “task force”.
The commanders of these units were called generals because they had general (overall) authority within the army. The King would grant a captain general authority over his army. The captain would then lead the army with the assistance his lieutenant (now lieutenant general) and his sergeant major. In the 16th century, the sergeant major was a general officer. He commanded an army’s infantry, and ranked about third in the army’s command structure; he also acted as a sort of chief of staff to the army’s commander.
This organization was in place by the eighteenth century though it was based on the precedents of earlier centuries. In this earlier centuries, the basic unit of the national army was not the division but rather the regiment. Regiment means organization and regiments were in fact military organizations—each of which was to provide the King with a column of soldiers. The officers commissioned to lead these regiments were in fact called colonels (column officers). They were first appointed in Spain by King Ferdinand (of Ferdinand and Isabella fame) where they were also known as coronellos (crown officers) since they were appointed by the Crown. Thus the English pronunciation of kernel for the word colonel.
The first colonels were in fact captains granted command of their regiments by commission of the King. The lieutenants of the colonel were the lieutenant colonels. In the 17th century, sergeant majors appeared in individual regiments. These were field officers, third in command of their regiments (after their colonels and lieutenant colonels), with a role similar to the older, army-level sergeant majors (although obviously on a smaller scale). The older position became known as sergeant major general to distinguish it. Over time, the sergeant was dropped from both titles since both ranks were used for commissioned officers. This gave rise to the modern ranks of major and major general.
The full title of sergeant major fell out of use until the latter part of the 18th century, when it began to be applied to the senior non-commissioned officer of an infantry battalion or cavalry regiment.
Regiments split into battalions with a lieutenant colonel as a commanding officer and a major as an executive officer.
[edit] High command in modern armies
To honor their best captain generals, kings promoted them to the honorary rank of colonel general. Meanwhile the jurisdiction the Field Marshal had over where the army was encamped gave his position great prestige. Since Field Marshals still had that power when many nations had multiple field armies under multiple generals, the prestige of the Field Marshal came to outweigh the prestige of the Captain General. Indeed, kings made the position a rank of the army outranking the rank of Captain General. This position with its great honor and prestige was later invested with command over the largest formation of men within the world’s national armies, the army group. These army groups were units formed by combining multiple field armies. However not all armies were big enough to have field marshals or colonel generals. Instead such armies were led by full generals. These were generals invested with the full authority of the army’s general officers and their rank—often referred to simply as general—evolved from the rank of captain general.
Most nations place a ministry or department of defense over these military high commands. The ministry or department of defense leads and supports the national military on behalf of the head of state.
