Uniform Insignia Forum

Rumsfeld made a comment awhile back about how the Air Force would eventually fold back into the Army, like during the WWII era. That caused a brief controversy in the military, USAF especially, but it got me thinking on if ranks would escape assimilation. This is my hypothetical idea for that scenario, other service's ranks included for comparison. I also alligned the AF rank titles to correlate with the other branches.

[img]http://img356.imageshack.us/img356/4203/newusranksiz9.png[/img]

I borrowed the images from this site, I hope you guys don't mind. Special thanks to the original artist (Pavel?)

about your 'Army branch' unified ranks above:
isn't better when there is private e1 one-chevron and private 1st class e2 one-chevron-one-arch, and then sergeant e5 three-chevron and staff sergeant/ sergeant 1st class e6 three-chevron-one-arch, could be there are corporal e3 two-chevron and corporal 1st class e4 two-chevron-one-arch? inserted within the enlisted ranks?

I based the new USAF ranks on existing US Army and Marine ranks. The way the enlisted chevrons evolved, they skipped the "two chevron, one arch" insignia. I suppose if a new rank like Master Corporal or Lance Sergeant was added, that could be the insignia, but as it stands today, that rank does not exist in the US military.

This hypothetical rank stuff is really cool! I have my own ideas about how to 'fix' the US rank system, and part of it would be resurrecting the old USMC tradition that had straight and curved rockers for NCOs (straight 'ties' were for staff or non-combat guys, and the regular curved ones were for combat troops) Here's a pic:

[img]http://mujweb.atlas.cz/kultura/usmc/imaservice/rank06k.gif[/img]

In my own 'hypothetical' world (but I can't draw), I would change the Army to the following:

ENLISTED:

E1 Recruit
E2 Private (1 chevron)
E3 PFC (1 chevron/1 rocker)
E4 Corporal (2 chevrons)
E5 Lance Sergeant (2 chevrons/1 rocker)
E6 Sergeant (3 chevrons)
E7 Senior Sergeant/Staff Sergeant (3 chevrons/1 rocker or 1 tie)
E8 Platoon Sergeant/SFC (3 chevrons/2 rockers or 2 ties)
E9 Master Sergeant/1st Sgt (3 chevrons/3 rockers or ties, diamond for 1SGT)
E10 Sergeant Major/Battalion SM (3 chevrons/3 rockers/ties with star, 2 stars for BSM
E11 Senior SM/Regimental SM
E12 Command SM / Divisional CSM

OFFICERS:

The US needs to change the whole 'silver outranking gold' garbage...no other nation understands it. Here's my hypothetical officers for the Army:

O1 2nd LT (1 silver bar)
O2 1st LT (1 gold bar)
O3 Captain (2 silver bars)
O4 Senior Captain (2 gold bars)
O5 Vice Major (silver oak leaf)
O6 Major (gold oak leaf)
O7 LT Colonel (silver eagle)
O8 Colonel (gold eagle)

Generals would stay the same.

Here's how I would do the Air Force, modeled more on the RAF:

ENLISTED:

E1 Recruit
E2 Airman 2nd Class
E3 Airman
E4 Airman 1st Class
E5 Senior Airman
E6 Sergeant
E7 Flight Sgt/Staff Sgt
E8 Squadron Sgt/Tech. Sgt
E9 Wing Sgt/Master Sgt
E10 Senior Master Sgt/Group SMS
E11 Chief Master Sgt/Division CMS
E12 Command Chief Master Sgt

OFFICERS:

O1 Pilot Officer (1 silver bar)
O2 Flying Officer (1 gold bar)
O3 Flight Lieutenant (2 silver bars)
O4 Flight Captain (2 gold bars)
O5 Squadron Leader (silver oak leaf)
O6 Vice Wing Commander (gold oak leaf)
O7 Wing Commander (silver eagle)
O8 Group Captain (gold eagle)

Fat guy in a little coat,

I doubt the US would change it's insignia in that way just to satisfy hobbyists like us. The military seems to work just fine with six officer ranks as opposed to eight. We don't need silver and gold versions of every officer's insignia (ex. silver eagle and gold eagle) and doing so just to make the insignia more logical and mathematical isn't efficient. Likewise, making gold senior to silver just to satisfy our allies - and anal hobbyists - will only confuse our own personnel. Admittedly, our ranks might not seem to be the most logical, but that's because they have evolved to fit the needs of the services.

I respect your opinions, but I think that when dealing with ranks we can't forget that function comes first. Although titles are interesting, there is such a thing as too many ranks. Likewise rank insignia themselves should be distinct enough to be distinguishable. You're entitled to your opinion and your ideas and my objective is not to attack them, but to discuss them.

In my opinion I would like it this way. Privates no insignia, then lance corporal one chevron,corporal two chevrons,sergeant three chevrons,staff sergeant three chevrons one arc,senior sergeant three chevrons two arcs,master sergeant three chevrons three arcs.
master sgt.would be e-9,senior sgt.would be e-8,staff sgt.would be e-7, sgt.would be e-6,cpl.would be e-5,lance cpl.would be e-4,private (trained) would be e-3,private (in training) would be e-2 and recruit or private basic would be in bootcamp.
Corporal and Lance Corporal would be junior NCO's and all Sergeants would be senior NCO's.