Rank question

Hey guys.

Just wondering about something. I posted several months ago that I was starting up a game involving an elite security team onboard a Defiant-class vessel (Elite Force computer game, anyone?) and was wondering about something.
If I gave the option for players to create characters that were say, ex Starfleet Marines of Dominion War experience, how would their military rank translate to Starfleet? I was thinking something along the lines of the NCO ranks since they technically wouldn't have Starfleet comissions (They'd all be pretty inexperienced, low ranking military types anyway) and need to fit into the Starfleet command structure on a ship.
Thoughts?

I'm not sure of the enlisted ranks in starfleet, but they'd probably follow the U.S. Naval route of a group of specialists lead by an NCO and maybe one officer.
When not doing Spec ops, they be doubling as security monkies or whatever thier speciality happens to be (science, medical, enginnering, etc).
Essentially, The Landing party (Away team sounds silly to me) are officers pulling double duty.

Ground forces were only shown in DS9 twice, and they bore the same naval-style ranks as the rest of Starfleet. Of course, in canon Trek, modern Starfleet ground forces are not Marines - if you want to have them actually be Marines in your particular alternate universe, just use standard military ranks rather than naval ones.

Well, the purpose would be to integrate these "marines" into the Starfleet command structure. So, yeah. Thanks for the replies thus far =)

Are you asking what the equivalent Starfleet ranks would be for your Marines?

Privates and corporals would be evenly ranked with crewmen.
Sergeants would be evenly ranked with petty officers.
Marine officers and warrant officers would be evenly ranked with Starfleet officers and warrant officers.

You may find this page helpful. It shows the E and O ranks for each service, and how they match up. For example, a full colonel is the equivalent of a captain.

Beyond that, seniority in rank applies.

In addition, an officer senior to two equivalent officers can order one of them to report to the other one, if he wishes. Usually, the responsibilities of two different services are such that members of one do not deal much with members of the other -- because each has distinct responsibilities. Marines on a starship, for example, would not necessarily serve as security forces, although they could. Instead, they would be there because the ship expected to face ground combat -- a sphere for which the naval officers are not trained, and in which they probably would not participate.

All this can change rapidly in the fog of war, of course. And you could decide that things are different in your campaign, or that some ranks have different names (for example, Rear Admiral (lower half) was at one time called Commodore).

Hey Fesarius, I checked out that website you linked to. Awesome stuff! Does the job I need it to. Many thanks, especially if anyone else interested checks out Don Mappin's extrapolative work concerning the enlisted collar rank insignia under Tactical on the main site.
Now I just need to decide whether or not the marines in the campaign would be enlisted or officers. =)

If memory serves, in the United States Military, the Marines have the lowest ratio of officers to enlisted men. The Aif Force has the highest. Not sure where the Navy fits in, but I know there are plenty of enlisted sailors and petty officers, as well as warrant officers and specialists.

Chances are, most of your Marines will be enlisted men and non-commissioned officers. It depends, of course, on how many your ship carries.

I'm not sure about Marine organization, but in the Army, a platoon, which is led by a Lieutenant and a Sergeant, is about 50 men. Next up is the company (typically 4 platoons and commanded by a Captain), then the battalion (2-4 companies, commanded by a Major or a Lieutenant Colonel), the regiment (2-4 battalions, commanded by a Lieutenant Colonel or full Colonel).

After that, it varies a lot, but the next unit names are Brigade, Division, and Corps. They are commanded by the various sorts of general.

This breakdown is for infantry; armor is different, and so are specialist units like engineers. In addition, at each level there are headquarters personnel in increasing amounts. Each unit commander has a sergeant (in the various increasing grades) who assists him.

I may have remembered details wrong. Anyone who sees a mistake I've made, please correct me!

Download (right-click the link) the

STARFLEET, The International Star Trek Fan Association membership handbook PDF .

You'll find a complete rank structure for both Starfleet naval and Starfleet marine ranks inside. They're based on real US Navy and Marine ranks, so they should help you be authentic in whatever structure you choose for your games.

Maybe if you like what you read in the rest of the handbook, you'll sign on with us and find a chapter with other players for your game as well as some new friends from all over fandom.

You can sign up on-line with a credit card at http://www.sfi.org/. You can also download a printable membership form that you can mail in with a check or money order.

Sincerely,
Ezri's Toy
a 16-year STARFLEET member

Thus endeth the testimonial :)

Credit card??? this gives me the creeps!!!!:eek:

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Originally posted by Yuber Okami
Credit card??? this gives me the creeps!!!!:eek:

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OK, a little background:

STARFLEET, The International Star Trek Fan Association is the oldest fan-run Star Trek club in existence. It pre-dates the official ST Fan club by about 15 years. Our organization started in Texas in 1974 originally under the name USS Enterprise. With over 5000 members and 200+ chapters all over the world, STARFLEET has been the leader in fan-organized activity.

Next, STARFLEET, The International Star Trek Fan Association is a registered corporation in the state of North Carolina. Payments are made to STARFLEET's corporate account and not to any one individual. Our national president is bonded to the tune of $20,000US.

As I've said, I've been a member for 16 years and have enjoyed a number of friendships and romances I would never had were it not for STARFLEET. (Yes, there are girls in STARFLEET. :D ) I've met artists, musicians, health-care professionals, business people, police officers, military personnel, students and teachers.

Because of my association with STARFLEET, I've personally had the opportunity to interact with a number of TREK & SF luminaries away from the convention crowds and autograph lines. The most memorable was when I worked as convention security escort for Chase Masterson.

With my chapter, USS Jeannette Maddox, STARFLEET has established a number of educational scholarships in the names of a number of TREK actors (with their blessings!) With the help of a personal appearance by Marina Sirtis, we once raised approximately $3500 for the local women's crisis center.

In short, STARFLEET is about 30 years+ of organized fandom and not credit card fraud.

So, if you'd like to be a member but prefer not to use a credit card, you can download, print, and mail a membership application along with a check or money order for your membership dues. The credit card option is just for the convenience of our membership.

Click here for STARFLEET.

We now return to the original topic of rank and marines in the Star Trek universe.

I can also attest that Starfleet is the proverbial bomb.

I've been in Fleet since 1994 (although there was a bit of a haitus in there). I've had a blast the whole time. Met a lot of very cool people. Our chapter, the USS Ark Angel, specializes in role-playing. We do a *LOT* of RP. That, and we have more than our share of STARFLEET Marine personnel. With those people, we do color guards and honor guards at local events. People look twice when STARFLEET is presenting the flags!

In Service,

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Originally posted by Fesarius
If memory serves, in the United States Military, the Marines have the lowest ratio of officers to enlisted men. The Aif Force has the highest. Not sure where the Navy fits in, but I know there are plenty of enlisted sailors and petty officers, as well as warrant officers and specialists.

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Right you are! A little quick research at a location further up the directory tree from the page Fesarius provided (the defenselink almanac ), under the "People" heading, and you find all sorts of interesting stats. From these, I find that the Marines have a ratio of about 1 officer to 8 enlisted. The Navy is next with about 1 officer to 6 enlisted, followed by the Army at 1 to 5 and the Air Force at 1 to 4.

Another interesting statistic is what ranks are most common. Among the officers, O3 has the highest population, followed by O4. O1, O2, and O5 are next with approximately equal numbers, followed by O6, and then ever diminishing numbers as you march up the flag/general officer ranks. So when in doubt about the rank of the officer who's walking past your characters in the hallways of the starbase, she's probably a Lieutenant or Lieutenant Commander (or Captain and Lieutenant Colonel respectively if you're using Marines).

On the enlisted side, the most common grades are E4, E5, and E3, so the most common enlisted running about your games should probably be Petty Officer 3rd/Corporal, Petty Officer 2nd/Sergeant, and Seaman, er, Crewman/Lance Corporal.

Just a little bit of extra throw-away detail for you.

Now, if you really want to know about the organizational structure of the military units, you'll probably have to hunt about on the service web pages, like navy.mil and usmc.mil.

Enjoy, everyone!

-Chris Landmark

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Originally posted by Chris Landmark
. . . Another interesting statistic is what ranks are most common. Among the officers, O3 has the highest population, followed by O4. O1, O2, and O5 are next with approximately equal numbers, followed by O6, and then ever diminishing numbers as you march up the flag/general officer ranks. . . .

-Chris Landmark

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Does that split you mentioned account for all officers or only commissioned officers ? In other words, does that split account for Warrant Officers ?

The Air Force no longer has warrant officers. That's kind of a bummer for me; as a flight engineer I'd be a prime candidate for the rank.

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Originally posted by Sarge
The Air Force no longer has warrant officers. That's kind of a bummer for me; as a flight engineer I'd be a prime candidate for the rank.

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Do you have any idea why they did away with them? Just wondering.

According to a June 2003 CADRE (College of Aerospace Doctrine, Research and Education) article by Maj. Paul Niesen, the warrant officer ranks were discontinued in 1959, in favor of the "super enlisted" grades of E-8 and E-9 (the ranks of Chief Master Segeant and Senior Chief Master Sergeant, respectively, IIRC). According to Major Niesen, this is due to a continuing Air Force senior leadership philosophy that the warrant officer corps is at the "top of the enlisted career field."

The Army's warrant officers are a mix of technical specialists promoted from the enlisted ranks and rotary-wing pilots (who start out at W-1). Navy and Marine Corps warrant and chief warrant officers are technical specialists promoted from the enlisted ranks.

The Navy uses only ranks CWO-2 through CWO-4. The Marines also use WO-1. The Army has a CWO-5, in addition to the other four ranks.

Edit: The article appears in the Air & Space Power Chronicles website's Contrails page, under the heading "CADRE Military Defense Analysis Quick-Looks."

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Originally posted by Ezri's Toy
Does that split you mentioned account for all officers or only commissioned officers ? In other words, does that split account for Warrant Officers ?

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Those totals do include warrant officers. Of course, there are VERY few warrant officers in the US military. It's on the order of only slightly more than ten thousand across the entire Department of Defense. Considering there are more than two hundred thousand total officers and 1.4 million total active military, it's barely a drop in the bucket. Heck, there are almost as many one-stars as there are CWO5s!

As Sarge said, there are none in the Air Force, Navy has only CWO2 through CWO4, and both Army and Marines have WO1 through CWO5.

-Chris Landmark