ThMick wrote:
My own Cobra T.O. & E. is based on western armies, as are the real world armies of the countries these cats are most likely recruited from. The "Blueshirts" are E-1s through E-9s and O-1s thru 0-8. The only variant to me from U.S. Rank structure is substituting "Trooper" for "Private" (Trooper, Trooper Second Class, Trooper First Class, corporal, Sergeant, Staff Sergeant, Sergeant First Class and so on.) The Vipers are the equivalent to S.O.G. troops such as Green Berets and Rangers or the S.A.S., and as such, have the same rank titles, (except substituting "Viper" for "private") Their MOS's do not affect their rank titles, much the way real world armies do not, IE he may be an Alley Viper, but his title is Sergeant; She may be a mediviper, but her title is Lieutenant. CG's are secret police and political officers equivalent to KGB or Gestapo; they are all officers, the majority being captains and majors. Individual Characters tend to have the grades and ranks that I feel they should have based on my experience of real world militaries, regardless of canon. (That actually applies to my Joes, for that matter. In real life, a SSG is not toting the M240 around, a specialist is.)
It sounds like you and I are in agreement about basic concepts here. I use 'Viper' as the official rank terminology for all the
Army and
Marine MOS's, 'Raptor' for all the
Air Force MOS's, and 'Eel' for all the
Naval MOS's; with 'Trooper' meaning simply a generic term for pretty much everybody as a whole. 'BlueShirt' is slightly derogatory, similar to how noobs in Navy Boot Camp were called 'Smurfs' due to living in sweats for the first few days before being issued actual dungaree uniforms. And my CC doesn't trust a whole lot of people so there is no officer class beyond the CGs and the Names.
