MILITARY UNITS AND RANKS FOR YOUR SPECULATIVE FICTION NOVEL (Part 2)

Happy New Year, awesome authors! As writers of speculative fiction, military forces are a staple in many of our stories. Basing these on a real-world equivalent force can bring greater realism to our writing and help the reader suspend their disbelief of the more fantastical elements. Last month, we delved into unit and officer rank break downs, and looked at the commanding officers in a military force. This month, we’ll dive into the real boots on the ground: the enlisted men who carry out the General’s plans and strategies.

Enlisted Ranks

The highest-ranking enlisted soldier in any military force is the Sergeant-Major. You’ll find these soldiers in the leadership of every Battalion, Brigade, Regiment and Division. These are the people charged with planning the actual operations of the enlisted men in their unit. The role of the Commanding Officer is to decide what needs to be done and communicate that vision to his men. It’s the Sergeant-Major who has to make it happen despite whatever obstacles might stand in the way.

Below the Sergeant-Major are the senior field soldiers. The name assigned to the rank represents its unique specialty. For a cavalry or infantry force, the name of the rank is a Master Sergeant. For your heavy artillery units, the name of the position is the Gunnery Sergeant. If you have a medieval or fantasy setting where archers are a major part of the military force, the senior field officer goes by Bowyer Sergeant. These three ranks are equal in the chain of command hierarchy.

Each of these positions also has a colloquial name. The colloquial term for a Master Sergeant is “Top”. Gunnery Sergeants are “Gunney” and your Bowyer Sergeant is “Strings”. Last month, we discussed the ‘Light Colonel’ alternative name for Lieutenant Colonel. This is only used as a conversational way to refer to the Colonel, but they are never addressed this way. The same applies to the alternative names for Sergeants.

The next rank down is your Senior Sergeant, also referred to as a Staff Sergeant. This is the first rank an enlisted man can achieve where management and coordination are the primary concerns. These men rose through the ranks as Sergeants where they excelled at showing the men how to get things done and kicking them in the rear when needed. The Senior Sergeant must now delegate those tasks. The opportunity here is for the classic trope where an employee or solider is great at their job so we promote them to management. But management is a dissimilar skill set from whatever their job previously was. Being good at the former doesn’t always translate to being good at the latter.

Under the Staff Sergeants are the Sergeants. This is the rank where soldiers prove themselves through years of service accomplishing their assigned missions. Sergeants have the primary responsibility for the training of the soldiers under his command. He acts as a surrogate father figure. Though typically around 24 years old, to the fresh 18- to 19-year-old Privates, the Sergeant is as old as dirt. His word is taken as absolute truth. If the Privates paid him no heed, the wrath of the gods falls on their miserable heads. In peacetime, a Sergeant can expect to remain at this rank for eight to twelve years before receiving a promotion. In wartime, that timeframe is reduced, sometimes drastically.

Below the Sergeants are the Corporals who are essentially Sergeants in training. This is the first enlisted rank with the responsibility to lead other soldiers, the Privates and Lance Corporals. Sergeants and Lieutenants evaluate the Corporal before handing them a squad of 13 other soldiers to keep alive.

Lance Corporals are your most experienced enlisted soldiers who have not yet been given command over other soldiers.  

The Private First Class rank shows the soldier is no longer a fresh faced recruit and might actually be useful for something.

Privates are the lowest rank in the military force. The recruit earns this rank after completing their Boot Camp, or whatever name you give the initial combat training in your story world. The higher ranked soldiers continue to use many unflattering names for the Privates.

Differences between officers and enlisted men

In most militaries, the lowest ranking Officer is in a higher position in the chain of command and “outranks” the highest ranking Enlisted person. Despite that, there’s a certain amount of professional respect and courtesy between the ranks. A Lieutenant learns quickly to listen to an experienced Sergeant Major. If there is any disagreement, the chain of command is strictly observed. Its importance simply cannot be overstated.

In many medieval and fantasy settings, the officers come from the nobility. One requirement of being nobility is raising and leading of units from your population composed of locals, peasants, farmers, and indentured servants from your lands. In those cases, the rank of the officer frequently derived either from their societal rank, or from the size of the force they could muster. You can see different levels of this, as well.

Use this information as a launching point

Don’t look at this series as a strict model you must emulate in your stories. That’s not the intent. Rather think in terms of what roles you need depending on the size and purpose of your military forces. Get creative with the names or titles you use to describe them. I enjoy looking at historical sources, or other resources. For my WiP, Divine Choice, I used the names of the levels in the old Dungeons and Dragons games I played as a kid for the inspiration for my ranks.

This is an opportunity to reinforce your world building. The ranks need to sound like they belong in your world. You don’t want to create a fantasy world based on ancient Greece and then have your ranks named things like Lieutenant Commander.

Let your creativity and world building shine through, and make your military forces a seamless part of your world.

Ted Atchley is a freelance writer and professional computer programmer. Whether it’s words or code, he’s always writing. Ted’s love for speculative fiction started early on with Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, and the Star Wars movies. This led to reading Marvel comics and eventually losing himself in Asimov’s Apprentice Adept and the world of Krynn (Dragonlance Chronicles). 

After blogging on his own for several years, Blizzard Watch (blizzardwatch.com) hired Ted to be a regular columnist in 2016. When the site dropped many of its columns two years later, they retained Ted as a staff writer. 

He lives in beautiful Charleston, SC with his wife and children. When not writing, you’ll find him spending time with his family, and cheering on his beloved Carolina Panthers. He’s currently revising his work-in-progress portal fantasy novel before preparing to query. 

• Twitter: @tedatchley3
• Twitter: @honorshammer (gaming / Blizzard Watch)