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Was thinking fluff the other day, and had a thought.
Given the nature of Chapters, and how the most elite units are located in the 1st company, are Men contained in that company held in a higher regard than men in the 4th?
Would men in the second company merit more respect than the men of the 3rd?
Are Sergeants in any company technically of equal standing, or are they viewed on different levels?

Just curious, hope it made sense

I suppose that all marines are supposed to be roughly equal, however I would say that the following order of seniority would apply (from low to high): scout, reserve company marine, battle company marine, sergeant, company veteran, veteran sergeant, 1st company marine, first company sergeant, captain, 1st company captain, various senior roles, chapter master.

The senior roles are the master if the fleet and forge, etc. Librarians, techmarines, medics and chaplains would be slightly to one side of this and probably placed in companies depending on their own seniority.

In relative standing compared to who?

Within the Chapter? Probably, yes, the veterans are held in higher regard than the regular Battle-Brothers, and the Sergeants of the Veterans are a bit more prestigious than the Sergeants of the regular scrubs.

To everyone else in the Imperium of Man? These people gak themselves if they see a Space Marine, they have no concept of how Chapters are organized or operate. Any Space Marine is the grandson of the God-Emperor, Himself. They're not going to notice, at all, what the unit markings mean.

I think there isn't much of a difference between 1st Company Veterans and Battle Company Marines, with the exception of the Sergeants. Since the First recruits from the other companies, we can assume the seniority isn't a whole lot different, if any. But it does make sense to hold the vets at a higher regard as experienced fighters.

Scouts- Battlebrother. Battlebrothers are held in equal regard OFFICIALLY as a rank, but differebt awards can raise their standing, such as the Iron Skull or Imperial Laurel. Then Veterans and Sergeants. Many sergeants are 1st company anyway. Then Veteran squad Sgts. Then Terminators, TDA Sgts., Command squads and other NCOs (Librarians, Chaplains, Techmarines), Captains, Honour Guard, as well as Chief Librarians, Mastet of the Forge, Reclusiarch and Master of Sanctity, Chief Apothecary, then the First Captain, Chapter Banner Bearer and Chapter Champion as equals. Then Chapter Master, Primarch, Emperor.

 BattleCapIronblood wrote:
I think there isn't much of a difference between 1st Company Veterans and Battle Company Marines, with the exception of the Sergeants. Since the First recruits from the other companies, we can assume the seniority isn't a whole lot different, if any. But it does make sense to hold the vets at a higher regard as experienced fighters.

There's DEFINITELY a big difference between 1st Company Marines and normal Company Marines. You usually have to be in active service in a normal Company for decades if not centuries, covering all aspects of war between Tactical, Devastator AND Assault Squads before you'll even be considered for the 1st Company. That's why they're given the highly-vaunted privilege of wearing Terminator armour.
Wolf Guard have had a few notable exceptions like Ragnar Blackmane but by and large they're still made up of more experienced members and are definitely more respected. For a Space Wolf to join the Wolf Guard he really has to earn it, early or not.

The Dark Angels are perhaps the most extreme example of how highly measured the 1st Company is. You can be a Dark Angel for centuries, be conversant in all forms of war and have proven yourself countless times over and over and STILL be passed over for the Deathwing simply because you're not considered trustworthy enough to be privy to their secrets.

From a gaming point of view - members of the side organisations such as Chaplains and Librarians must have seniority over normal Battle-Brothers and perhaps even the 1st Company in some cases, because they can lead forces where a Captain is not required. For Blood Angels, this should also be the case for Sanguinary Priests as we know they're on roughly equal footing with Chaplains, and Sanguinary High Priests could lead armies when they were an option.

I've given this quite a bit of thought. GW fluff on the matter is a bit vague, which is understandable, considering that there are so many chapters and their practices may differ. I however wanted to nail down how this works in my chapter. Here is rank structure of my Crimson Templars. It is missing the scouts (which would be obviously the lowest rank), as it depicts only PA marines. Terminators are of the same rank as the other veterans, and indeed the First Company may use either armour.

The biggest deviation is the addition of Lieutenant rank. Marines used to have lieutenants in RT (or during HH, going with the current fluff), and Crimson Templars have retained that rank. I feel that it is needed. Marines often deploy in battlegroups smaller than a company but still composed of several different squads. It makes a sense to have an officer that could be in charge of such a force.

 Crimson wrote:
The biggest deviation is the addition of Lieutenant rank. Marines used to have lieutenants in RT (or during HH, going with the current fluff), and Crimson Templars have retained that rank. I feel that it is needed. Marines often deploy in battlegroups smaller than a company but still composed of several different squads. It makes a sense to have an officer that could be in charge of such a force.

This also fits well with Marines being able to take heroes as Champions, Heroes or Mighty Heroes way back in previous editions - as well as the Wolf Guard Battle Leader.

The good old "Force Commander" role. I would imagine this could be any of the most senior veteran/sergeant types in a force being breveted up for the engagement/campaign to create a clear chain of command. I guess it could also be a less senior marine if he had specialist skills or knowledge.

Once you start factoring in the degrees of Librarians, Chaplains, Tech Marines...actual Marine ranks sort of become muddled I've found.

I've read veteran sergeants leading groups of marines and I've read about Chaplains leading. Guess it depends on the Chapter.

Chaplains, Librarians and Captains form the officer corps of an Astartes chapter, but I've always found their lack of ranks puzzling in an organisation completely devoted to combat.

In the British Army you have eleven different ranks of NCO and twelve different ranks of Officer, but this is the historical relic of centuries of service (most army organisation is based upon the British/French model.)

Military theorists have argued that in essence five ranks are the most efficient system, and all other ranks are superfluous: General, Colonel, Captain, Sarge and Trooper-other ranks merely create a top-heavy command structure in which superfluous ranks create confusion.

The lack of ranks in an Astartes chapter may be reflective of this (also they operate at Battalion strength, roughly 1,000 soldiers of Real Life infantry,) but it also means their command structure is extremely fragile and delicate, as the ratio of leaders to men is extremely high. Astartes training mitigates this by enabling them to function effectively after losing a commander, but their overall strategic position probably suffers as a result.

This probably leads to many succession crises as the command structure falls apart if the captain is killed... which sargeant is next in the chain of command, given they all have the same rank theoretically?

Space Marines seem to suffer hugely from conservation of ninjitsu as well, so the fewer marines there are, the more badass they'll be

By and large, the rough translations of a Chapter would be:

Chapter Master, Chief Librarian, Head Chaplain
General
Captains, Lower Ranking Librarians and Chaplains
Colonels, Majors
Veteran Sergeants, Sergeants
Junior Officers or Senior NCOs

Modern armies have so many ranks, because there is an aspiration for all soldiers to ascend the ranks, and without constant war making holes for people to move up into, you need more ranks to allow for this. With marines this problem doen't exist. For one they are all "brothers"and not fighting for reward and secondly their constant casualty rate will allow for reasonable advancement within the chapter.

I always figured, being marines, they should have ranks such as Lieutenant-Commander, Force Commander, and Commander. Basically what Crimson said about having supporting officers filling in between the Captain and the NCOs.

 Flinty wrote:
Modern armies have so many ranks, because there is an aspiration for all soldiers to ascend the ranks, and without constant war making holes for people to move up into, you need more ranks to allow for this. With marines this problem doen't exist. For one they are all "brothers"and not fighting for reward and secondly their constant casualty rate will allow for reasonable advancement within the chapter.

Partially, but its also down to the fact that 95% of human beings can only reliably keep track of 2-5 things at once, even before modern science 'discovered' this fact, trial and error had resulted in armies discovering that giving officers responsibility over only 2-5 sub-units was more efficient than simply giving them moar moar moar.

Chaplains and Librarians fill this role in the fluff and tabletop, but I always thought it weird that there was no intermediary rank between Sergeant and Captain.

In real life military that's like going from bottom to top in one giant rank leap

Yes it was rather stupid that they cut Lieutenants, back in RT they were actually mandatory!

Wow, thats a lot o replies!

Specifically, do you gents know if for example, a Sergeant Leading a Squad in the 2nd Company, would have "Rank" over a Sergeant in the 3rd company?

Would a Trooper in the 2nd company be viewed as a "higher ranking" member of the chapter compared to a 4th company Trooper?

I'm aware of no canon precedent to such effect, if necessary I imagine it would likely boil down to length of service ala Lt's Chard and Bromville in the film Zulu. (precedent of experience: back in 2nd edition the marine who held the position of Squad Leader was known as 'the veteran' because he was automatically the most senior marine in the squad after the sergeant)

In the DoW2 novel, Sergeany of the First Squad took command after Captain Thule was out, even with the Chaplain and Librarian there. After he died the 3rd Sergeant, in absence of 2nd Squad.

There is mention in the Marine codexes - I think it's Tactical squad fluff - of Sergeants getting immediate command if the Captain is taken out of action. There's no more mention of it than that, but it does mean that for a side-faction member like a Chaplain or Librarian to take the lead, they must have been deferred to in prior agreement.

There are always going to be exceptions, of course. Esteemed individuals like Brother Corbulo or Chaplain Cassius who are so well-respected even the Sergeants would defer to them in such a case.

Well yes the sergeants took over, their job is command. The alternative would be like putting a medical colonel in charge of a company in charge of a unit because he had the highest rank available. It's also very unlikely a captain from one company can order around sergeants from another if they aren't ordered to work together. It's not the job of one captain to control another company's resources.

Obviously a multiple companies can be ordered to follow one captain or captain level officer like an epistolary or reclusiarch. Just think of some telion type figure operating for years on his own to track down some individual, and then another company's captain wandering in and asking him to do some other inane.

If there is no field promotion, or previous expression of the deceased Captain that a specific Sergeant should take control of the company upon his death, then it is normally a Sergeant of the 1st company who is given command of the now leaderless company.
Of course, in the Ultramarines at least, the 1st Captain is a higher rank, directly below the the Chapter Master. It would also seem that the 2nd Captain of the Ultramarines seems to hold a rank higher than the other Captains. Captain Invictus was promoted to Captain of the Ultramarines 1st company from Captain of the 3rd. Upon his death however, Captain Agemman of the 2nd was promoted Captain of the 1st, with Sicarius of the 5th being promoted to Captain of the 2nd, and Galenus promoted to Captaincy of the 5th.
It is also worth noting that if a Captain does name a successor, this decision can later be vetoed by the Chapter Master if he disagrees. On the subject of Chapter Masters, any Captain can be named as his successor, but if no one is named then the 1st Captain is automatically promoted to Mastery, unless of course this decision is overruled by enough of the other surviving officers.
All this, just on the rank of individual Captains, 11 men, having an extremely complex ranking and promotion system. In my eyes, the only way to accurately display SM rank is with a flow chart, and even then there will be many anomalies.

I would also imagine that the senior-most Chaplain in a Chapter would have some sort of "superiority" over a run of the mill Sergeant.