Good morning, friends and fans! Quite a lot of my stories have featured aspects of military life in a distant sci-fi future. In writing, personal experience had proved an invaluable resource, and since I was in the military for a large portion of my youth (for better or worse), I’ve built up quite a treasure trove of knowledge, experience, insight – and anecdotes to draw on while writing! In this article I’ll share some of this resource with you as fellow writers!
A lot of writers get stuck with military terms and panic when faced with the literary challenge of making their story seem believable, so I thought I’d put together a short-list of information on the subject.
Army, Navy, Air Force & Departments of the Military:
Most national armies consist of land forces (Army), sea forces (Navy or Coast Guard), air forces (Air Force). Some countries, being landlocked, have no need for a Navy. In general, the combined military forces of a nation fall under the umbrella of a military force i.e. “a national defense force” or the term “Army” or “Armed Forces”, which is then divided into departments according to specialization – such as “the Department of the Navy/Air Force/Army” etc. Further, each of these departments also maintain some form of specialized elite military strike force (i.e. Delta Force, Army Rangers, Navy Seals, etc.) to augment the standard form of armed forces to handle crucial strategic missions that require an extra level of force, lethality or skill. The idea of departmentalization according to specific responsibility is that the Army would handle all land-based warfare, the Navy would deal with seaborne warfare, and the Air Force would handle war in the air. In practice it hasn’t always worked out that way.
Some countries however, such as the USA, blur the lines when it comes to who specifically deals with what. The Army for example has paratroopers who enter the field of battle by air. Depending on what time period in history you’re writing in, you might need to consider that they were sometimes flown to their destinations in aircraft of the “US Army Air Corps” or later by the “United States Army Air Forces” or the current “US Air Force”. The US Navy too has a Naval Air Force, which encompasses mainly carrier-borne aircraft, fighters and helicopters etc. The US Marine Corps is a land-based fighting force which forms part of the US Dept. of the Navy, whose exploits and fame need no further elaboration. The UK’s Royal Marines too fall under the British Royal Navy.
Rank & File:
Most countries armies today, that is, countries which are based on the Western system, have a fairly recognizable standard system of rank and progression. There are differences in terminology from one nation’s military to another, but broadly speaking, they’re quite similar. Soldiers all have rank, but they tend to occur in two main groups: enlisted and commissioned. Enlisted soldiers are referred to as non-commissioned officers (NCOs or “non-coms”) and form the bulk of the body of the military, from the lowest rank of “Private” all the way up to Warrant Officers. Commissioned officers are – as the name suggests, the officers of the military.
Uniforms:
Uniforms started out being a means for one army to tell the difference between their own soldiers, and the enemy. In short, if they were dressed differently (or wore a uniform of a different color) then they were probably the enemy. For example, the British army’s main uniform color was red for several centuries, earning their troops the unflattering nickname of ‘redcoats’. In the American Revolutionary War, the Continental Army wore blue uniforms, making it easy for each to distinguish the other on the battlefield.
Another feature of uniforms is… well, uniformity. It made all the soldiers look the same, and equipped the same. It was effectively a part of the larger process of standardization underway at the time, which was in part driven by the Industrial Revolution. Thousands of soldiers were clothed and equipped with the same sort and specification of equipment, and armed with almost identical weapons that fired the same size ammunition.
Camouflage and blending into the surroundings was not a feature of uniforms for a long time. You see, for European armies, the focus was on promoting the prestige and glory of the country (or monarch) for whom the armies were fighting. The redcoats for example, stood out like the proverbial sore thumbs on the battlefield, and the old tale that the color was so that the enemy couldn’t see them bleeding when wounded, was quite true. Set-piece battles were the order of the day, a conventional form of warfare that originated in Medieval times and had no place in modern mechanized warfare – a fact that armies were to learn to their great cost in the closing decades of the 19th century, and in the trenches of the First World War.
The British Army for example, began using khaki uniforms mid-way through the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) in South Africa, so by the time the Tommies arrived in France in 1914, they were already better off than if they were still redcoats! The Germans of course had been using field grey (actually a shade of green) for their army uniforms for a long time already, and so this basically has never changed much. After WW1, a great deal of experimentation with camouflage uniforms was conducted by various armies. Camouflage uniforms only really began to be used, by both sides, during WW2, and because it was so difficult and expensive to produce at the time, mainly by elite special forces. In the era post WW2 though, camouflage uniforms became easier to produce and more commonplace.
Military Ranks:
In the military, there are different ranks which distinguish soldiers who lead from those who follow. There are also different categories of rank groups, beginning with the ordinary soldier, followed by NCO’s or non-commissioned officers, Warrant Officers and then Officers. Progression within these groups is the norm, but occasionally it is possible for an NCO or WO to become an Officer.
Officers:
- General Officers
- Lt Gen: Lieutenant-General
- Maj Gen: Major-General
- Brig: “Brigadier” a senior officer’s rank not a General Officer. In some militaries, this rank is “Brigadier General”.
- Senior Officers
- Col: “Colonel”.
- Lt Col: “Lieutenant Colonel”.
- Maj: “Major”.
- Junior Officers
- Capt: “Captain”.
- Lt: “Lieutenant”, a full lieutenant.
- 2Lt: “Second Lieutenant”, the most junior officer army rank, before a full Lieutenant.
- CO: “Candidate Officer”, an NCO or WO who has been selected for officer training CO’s traditionally wore white bands on their epaulettes instead of their previous ranks.
Warrant Officers: (WO), a rank group intermediate between NCO’s and Officers. Form of address is “Sergeant Major”. SWO’s and MWO’s are generally appointed RSM’s or higher echelon WO’s such as the appointment of Signal Formation WO, Sergeant Major of the Army/Air Force etc. although technicalities will differ between national armies.
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- MWO: Master Warrant Officer
- SWO: Senior Warrant Officer
- WO1: Warrant Officer Class 1
- WO2: Warrant Officer Class 2
Non-Commissioned Officers:
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- Senior NCOs:
- Master Sergeant.
- SSgt: “Staff Sergeant”.
- First Sergeant.
- Sgt: “Sergeant”.
- Junior NCOs:
- Cpl: Corporal.
- LCpl: Lance Corporal/Private First Class/Specialist.
- Pte: Private.
- Rct: “Recruit”, the form of address for a private before completing Basic Training.
- Senior NCOs:
Posts:
Although these are generally tied to the rank of the holder, these positions exist within military units:
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OC: “Officer Commanding”, an officer formally appointed to be the commander of a unit or command.
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OIC: “Officer In Charge”, an officer appointed to be in command of a smaller component of a unit, for example, a squadron or troop.
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2IC: “Second In Command”, an officer appointed to be second in charge of a unit or command. 2IC’s stand in for the Officer Commanding when they are indisposed or away from the unit in an acting capacity, but when the OC is at the unit, 2IC’s also have their own general duties and responsibilities which play a supporting role to the OC.
- RSM: “Regimental Sergeant Major”. This is an appointment within a unit, where traditionally, the regimental responsibilities for discipline and good orderly conduct rest with a senior Warrant Officer.
Formations (organizational):
Bde: “Brigade”, a large body of troops, a tactical and administrative unit composed of a headquarters, one or more units of infantry or armor, and supporting units.
Fmn: “Formation”. Not referring to a parade formation, but in an organizational sense.
Regt: “Regiment”, a military unit consisting of a number of battalions.
Bn: “Battalion”, a military unit composed of a headquarters and two or more companies, batteries, or similar units.
Comd: “Command”. A command in military terminology is an organizational unit for which a military commander is responsible.
Unit: a group having a prescribed size and a specific combat or support role within a larger military organization. A unit may consist of various different companies, squadrons, sections, platoons, troops or squads, but the next highest formation is a battalion, consisting of upwards of 400 members.
Sqn: “Squadron”, a sub-division of a unit. For example, a unit may consist of several squadrons, each focusing on similar or dissimilar tasks. Usually these Sqn’s are located within the unit, but may also be deployed outside the unit closer to their specific client units.
Tp: “Troop”, a support detachment belonging to a unit, consisting of a small number of specialized members, usually to deliver a corps-related service at another unit.
Related To Weapons:
HMG: “Heavy Machine Gun”, usually a large caliber machine gun that needs a stand or mounting. eg 50 cal.
LMG: “Light Machine Gun” a rifle caliber machine gun, portable, generally carried and operated by 1 platoon member, or as a team of 2. eg Bren.
Platoon weapons: the sort of weapons used in a platoon environment, typically sidearms, rifles, machine guns, mortars.
SMG: “Sub-machine Gun”, a pistol caliber machine gun, eg. Thompson sub-machine gun (US) or Schmeisser MP-40 (German) of WW2.
Musketry: training to use firearms, typically rifles.
A Brief List Of General Terms:
COMCEN: “Communications Centrum”, a center of communications, which processes various forms of incoming and outgoing communications simultaneously, both routine and strategic.
HQ: “Head Quarters”, the command post of a unit, base or other form of military entity.
RAF: “Royal Air Force”, the British Air Force.
Wksp: “Workshop”.
Further References:
- Military Phonetic Alphabet & Call Signs for Letters
- Printable Military Time Chart
- Military Time Zones
- Army Ranks
That’s all for now! I’ll update this article as time goes by! Have a great week!
Cheers!
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All material copyright © Christina Engela, 2021.