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A question to all you military buffs and those who have served:

Assuming a somewhat analogous system in the Imperial Guard and the US army, what would be the appropriate rank for a Tank Commander? For a Company commander? For a Platoon commander?

Thanks guys, I am being silly and want to name my guys.

Tank Commanders seem to be identified as Captains or Lieutenants, especially in charge of an entire Tank Company. Sergeants command each induvidual tank. (Source: Gunheads)

Company Commanders tend to vary, but Captain or Lieutenant seems about right, although you could have Majors or Colonels (but these are a lot less common or likely to be seen on the front lines.)

Platoon Commanders are most likely Lieutenants or some kind of Sergeant, perhaps Gunnery Sergeants or Staff Sergeants.

That said, I have very little military experience, but I do have a copy of the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Actually, there are instances of Captains leading Platoons directly, such as Captain Al'Rahem.

Well 40K ranking isn't exactly equal to real world ranking, but I use this:

Enlisted Soldiers;
Standard Guardsmen- Trooper.
Standard Sergent- Corporal/Lance Corporal optional, but at least one Sergant minimum.
Veteran Guardsmen- Corporal.
Veteran Sergent- Sergent.

Enlisted Officers;
Platoon Commander- 1st Lieutenant.
Company Commander- Captain. (This would be your CCS officer or Tank Commander)
Battalion (several Companies) Commander- Major.
Brigade (several Battalions) Commander- Lieutenant Colonel.
Regiment (several Brigades) Commander- Colonel.

Guad doesn't seem to go higher than Regiments unless there's a crusade, so Colonel is the max.

I don't know if these ranks are exactly accurate and I'm no solider but it's a sci fi army so you can have some leeway in terms of rank.

You would be better off comparing the IG to the British Army, not the US Army.

We have several rank-named characters already existing we can draw on for inspiration.

Major Durra (Elysians) is in charge of D-99.

The Elysian 181st has the following officers;
Colonel Taihon
Captain Gerek (A Company)
Captain Thansdadt (F Company)
Captain Doam
Captain Rylr
Captain Nybur
Captain Xhyst (F Company)
Captain Dexler (H Company)

The 181st consists of Companies A through J (ten companies), and is led by a Colonel and seven Captains.

Interestingly, two of the captains are noted as belonging to F Company. This might be a typo though.

We also have a squad noted as being made up of nine Troopers led by a Sergeant, and a Heavy Weapon squad being a Sergeant and five Troopers.

In the Kriegers, we have a few more individuals;

Lieutenant DKIG//2L//128/12 - C was the second-in-command of his regiment's third company. He was the Tank Commander of a Leman Russ Vanquisher.

Marshal Karis Venner was the commander-in-chief of the 17th Line Korps regiment (Marshal being his rank)

Krieg squads are led by a 'Watchmaster' rather than a 'Sergeant'.

 Psienesis wrote:
You would be better off comparing the IG to the British Army, not the US Army.

That is common sense but it doesn't really ring true as both IG & Space Marines use Squads commanded by a Sergeant both of which are decidedly American: The British equivalent of a Squad is a Section and it's commanded by a Corporal.

Squads in the US can also be lead by a Corporal or a Specialist (E-4), depending on the unit said squad is a part of.

Your unit make-up is going to determine who leads your squad in the Army. Often, it won't be an E-5, it will be an E-4 (Corporal or Specialist), with the whole platoon (4 squads, on average) being lead by a Sergeant of E-5 to E-7 grade, under a 2nd or 1st Lieutenant (O-1 to O-2). The Company (4 Platoons, on average) is lead by a First Sergeant (E-8) under a Captain (O-3).

ETA: With the IG, of course, there's no such thing as a standardized Rank structure, and each Regiment is going to follow whatever structure its homeworld has. It may or may not have multiple-grades of enlisted soldiers and NCOs, it may or may not have multiple types of Lieutenants and Colonels. It might have 9 grades of Captain, 15 various types of Sergeants and 147 classifications of "Private".

There's a decent table on the wikipedia page about military organisation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_organization#Modern_hierarchy.

A good bet would be to make Platoon Commanders as Lieutenants and Company/Tank Commanders as Captains (if you're talking about the units on the tabletop). Keep in mind though that there really is no fixed structure in the Imperial Guard, due to how big and unwieldy it is as an organisation (which applies to anything related to the Adeptus Administratum as a whole really). There's every reason to make variations as you see fit.

Platoons are led by lieutenants, companies by captains and regiments by colonels. That is the way it seems to be in most novels, all the FW books, the codices and also on the Lexicanum.
Tank Commander seems to be a rank in its own right rather than just a position. I don't recall them ever being called something else except commander.

A tank commander is the officer in charge of a single tank. The 'tank commander' in the IG codex sense would be the colonel or major of a tank regiment.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
A tank commander is the officer in charge of a single tank. The 'tank commander' in the IG codex sense would be the colonel or major of a tank regiment.

No, I think the codex is very clear on this:

A Tank Commander will always be found leading a squadron of Leman Russ battle tanks

In every single instance, the officer in charge of a tank squadron is referred to always as 'Tank Commander', never by another rank. I also don't think they control entire regiments, the codex just talks about squadrons. A Tank Commander is probably equivalent to a Company Commander in an infantry regiment.
In that case he might hold the rank of captain, which seems to be the most common title for Company Commanders. But as the codex says, he could have any possible title, because each regiment uses different titles for the same ranks depending on their culture:

An Imperial army on campaign may contain companies led by majors, captains, hetmen,
demiconsuls, knights militant, chieftains and dozens more. However their soldiers address
them, Company Commanders all bear the same responsibilities.

OK, but the appellation of 'tank commander' is still applied to anyone who is in charge of a single tank - a tank has several crew;

Commander
Driver
Primary Gunner
Primary Loader

Plus secondary weapon controllers and possibly a comms officer.

For example, in the Fall of Orpheus book, one of the named personae is a Krieger lieutenant. He is described as being the 'tank commander' of a Leman Russ Vanquisher.

My memory of ranks from my marine days is a bit foggy and we never were fully staffed with proper ranks, but this is what I remember. Corporals (E4) were in charge of teams of 3 or 4 men including the corporal. Sargents (E5) were supposed to be in charge of squads (2 or 3 teams). Lieutenants (O1,O2) were in charge of platoons (3 squads) assisted by a Staff Sargent (E6). Captains (O2) in charge of companies (multiple platoons) assisted by a First Sergent (E8). Colonels (O6) usually had the Batallion (multiple companies) assisted by a Sargent Major (E9).

I've left out some enlisted and officer ranks deliberately including Gunnery Sargent (E7), Major (O4) and Lieutenant Colonel (O5) that if I remember right tended to have support roles rather than direct command at some specific tier. I'm a little fuzzy though on whether it was Lieutenant Colonel or Major over Batallion and Colonel over Regiment (multiple batallions).

I was basic infantry not tanks and have no idea how there command structure worked.

Compared to the British Army's rank structure and who fills what roles:

Guardsman = Private
Corporal = Lance Corporal - commands half the squad
Sergeant = Corporal - commands the squad
Veteran Sergeant = Sergeant, Staff/Colour, and Warrant Officers - command staff

As for the officer ranks, the Guard only has slight discrepancies: the rank of Captain is company 2nd-in-command in the British Army but company commander in the Guard with no specific rank filling the British equivalent. And what the Guard call a regiment, the British Army would call a battalion, with a regiment being made up of multiple battalions.

Cadian 91st Regiment is lead by a Colonel Valmaer from his command platoon. Below him are his company commanders, usually captains, who command between 100-400 men. Most companies consist of 2-6 platoons. Each playoon is lead by a command squad consisting of a lieutenant and his retuine. Each platoon will consist of 2-5 sqauds of guardsmen. Each squad will number 10 men. These numbers are not fixed and can change during the course of a war, but this just further emphasises the flexibility of the IG regiment.

Paraphasing the imperial munitorum manual I have.

The US would call the Cadian 91st Regiment a Battalion.

In the Cain novels, the Company Commander is a Colonel, although they indicate from the first that Broklaw could have done the job as well, so a Major would be equally acceptable.