Starfighter Ranks

A few hours ago I was reading part of a tech. encyclopedia here, and I found this

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/order.html#nomenclature

I think it's wrong. The navy looks OK and I'm not sure about the army part, but the starfighters are way off.

1. The Starfighter Corps work with the navy but they aren't the same thing. They are categorized differently.
2. I've never seen any "Marshalls" in Star Wars
3. X-wing series. Pilots hold ranks that aren't listed.

I thought that they went Flight-Officer, Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Commander, Colonel, General. There's plenty of evidence in the X-wing series to support this if you just look at the ranks and keep track of who has senior ranking.

Is this right or am I completely off? Any input is helpful.

 

Starfighter Command Ranks are as follows:

Flight Cadet
Flight-Officer
Lieutenant
Captain
Commander
Major
Colonel
General

Starfighter Grouping:

Flight Group
Squadron
Wing
Fleet Wing
Sector Group

Starfighter Command is seperate, but still takes orders, from Fleet.

 

The New Repuplic Armed Forces is split into Starfighter Command and Fleet Command, as Adm_voss_Parck said. But I always thought that the rank of Major was under that of Commander. Hmm

Horn out

 

Adm_voss_parck has the correct list. Also, take anything seen on Tech Commentaries with a grain of salt. Or a great big salt lick.

 

Hard to say. At one time the ranks in the Starfighter Corps were pretty straight forward. Now, kinda questionable. Major and Colonel at one time were not a part of the ranks of the Starfighter Corps. A new pilot started out as a Flight Cadet, then as they were promoted they became a Flight Officer, Lieutenant, Captain, Commander, and finally a General. Then Major and Colonel appeared. So it would seem that the ranks are derived from both the Navy and the Army.

 

For those who wanted to know:

Starfighter Grouping:

Flight Group (4 fighters)
Squadron (12 fighters)
Wing (36-72 fighters or 3-6 Squadrons)
Fleet Wing (108-216 fighters or 3-6 Wings, depending on Fleet size and station)
Sector Group (Varying, depending on strategic value of the Sector)

Fleet wings are generally thought tobe assigned to high value stations e.g. Coruscant, Bilbringi, Sluis Van, etc.

Sector Groups, like SpecFor Battalions and Divisions are generally for book keeping purposes. Although the closest operational example of a Sector Group probably would have been at the fall of Coruscant in SbS.

 

Adm_voss_parck, left out one fighter grouping - The smallest:

Wingpair: 2 Fighters

As for the order, it is (With breaks separating Cadet, Junior, Senior & Space (Equivalent of General or Air) Rank - I'm using Air Force Equivalent as being the terrestrial equivalent to Starfighter Forces (I'm using British & US-style equivalents):

Flight Cadet (Equivalent of a Officer Cadet in Armed Forces)

Flight Officer (Equivalent of Pilot Officer in British-style Ranks, or Second Lieutenant in US-style ranks)
Lieutenant (Equivalent of Flying Officer in British-style Ranks, or Lieutenant in US-style ranks)
Captain (Equivalent of Flight Lieutenant in British-style Ranks, or Captain in US-style ranks)

Major (Equivalent of Squadron Leader in British-syle Ranks, or Major in US-sytle Ranks)
Commander (Equivalent of Wing Commander in British-syle Ranks, or Lieutenant Colonel in US-sytle Ranks)
Colonel (Equivalent of Group Captain in British-syle Ranks, or Colonel in US-sytle Ranks)

General (I'm assuming that they would have four 'General' Ranks, which would be the equivalent of, from junior to senior rank: Air Commodore, Air Vice Marshal, Air Marshal, Air Chief Marshal in British-syle Ranks, or Brigadier General, Major General, Lieutenant General, General in US-sytle Ranks)

With the last one I could be wrong on the amount of General Ranks, as only 2 are suggested in the Hand of Thrawn Duology. But since Wedge is a General, albeit junior to Bel Iblis, it is safe to assume that there is a higher General Rank than Bel Iblis' exists, since the Head of Starfighter Command would have to be a General.

Also, I think that Commander is not a rank, per sé... Since Jaina Solo went straight from Major to Colonel (And thus subsequently skipping the Lieutenant Colonel or Wing Commander Equivalent Rank), It is possible to assume by the time of the NJO, that rank had been abolished. It could also be possible that Commander was a shortened version of Wing Commander

I think that the Starfighter ranks are the worst, IMO in the EU, with the rest being quite accurate (In terms of terrestrial military terminology).

And for the question why the EU Starfighter ranks aren't listed, Curtis Saxton is using those ranks (Which are, BTW Australian - Mostly) as a guide to equivalent rankings, as really no clear structure has ever been made or listed in SW Literature. As noted in his sources he's only used the TIE Fighter Game, X-wing: Rebel Opposition Comic, Imperial & SW Sourcebooks, SW CCG, AOTC (Movie, Incredible Cross Sections & Visual Dictionary), Death Star Technical Companion & ANH & ROTJ

Well that is all for now.

 

Something to note: In the first four Stackpole X-wing books, a "wing" of starfighters was three squads. In later X-wing books, a wing suddenly became double that.

As I recall, Shadows of the Empire, when the Rogues were at Gall, a wing was six squads.

 

The wing size doubling does sort of make sense as more ships become available. When you never send out huge fleets (Rebel Alliance) why make names for them? The Roman Empire did the same thing with their legion sizes (3600-6000)

Commander has to be a rank. It's assigned to Wedge Antilles for most of the X-wing series. I think it's reasonable for Jaina to skip a rank, but I don't remember it happening either.

Thanks for clearing this up

 

I think it's reasonable for Jaina to skip a rank, but I don't remember it happening either.

Field Promotion. An officer dies, a Junior officer is promoted in battle to fill the command vacuum. See SpecFor: RoE.

 

But Jaina went from Major in DW beginning to Lt-Colonel by the end. It's the one, just one, silly bit of nonsense I don't like in DW. Otherwise, the book rocked.

 

In the GFFA NR, if Commander is an actual rank, I would assume it is above Colonel. Wedge went straight from Commander to General, and probably so too did Luke.

It's also possible that the ranking system has changed over time and that we were just never informed. The addition of ranks like Major and Colonel recently leads me to believe that maybe the ranking system has changed and that the old Commander is now a Colonel.

 

Wedge being promoted to General from Commander was a special case as he had turned down numerous promotions in the past but needed the clearance for the missions against Prince-Admiral Delak Krennel.

Also, it appears that once a starfighter officer reaches a certain rank (General) he has to transfer to Fleet to further his career (ref: Wedge Antilles).

 

If the rank of Colonel existed and was above Commander, then Wedge could have accepted a promotion to that rank though.

If both exist simultaneously, my opinion would be that Colonel is below Commander.

 

Luke's promo to Commander first was as a reward for his actions at Y4. Wedge's promo to General was not long overdue, he just kept turning them down, two I believe Ackbar mentions.

But to become a Major from Lieutenant, then a few hundred pages later now a Colonel?

 

The list by Senator_Elegos_A-kla is right, except that there is no Commander, it's a Lt. Colonel or a "short colonel." This is the rank Jaina attains at the end of DW. The ranking sceme is exactly the same as the Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps, with a Flight Officer an O1 level, or 2nd Lieutenant, and a Lieutenant an O2, or a 1st Lieutenant.

 

Maybe both Starfighter Command and another command based on army ranks have pilots, thus there are two parallel ranking systems.
Just like the Airforce and Naval Pilots, except that they're mixed together.

Starfighter (as seen in the X-Wing games and Rogue Squadron novels - more Naval-like, but not exactly):

Flight Cadet
Flight-Officer
Lieutenant
Captain
Commander
General

Army-type (as seen in the NJO novels):

Lieutenant
Captain
Major
Lt. Colonel
Colonel
General

The weirdest thing about GFFA ranks is that Captains are typically commanding battle ships, suggesting Naval-type rankings, but the Captain rank in Starfighter Command is apparently lower than Commander.

 

I'm sure Jaina was referred to as Captain in DJ or one of the EL books.

 

Colonels and Commanders are separate ranks, and Colonel is above Commander. In one of the Rogue Squadron books, Tycho comments that most of the people who have been in the Rebellion as long as Wedge were at least Colonels as of 2.5 years after Endor. Wedge was a Commander at the point, proving the existance of both ranks, and their relation to each other.

ADD ON:

Majors and Colonels in starfighter ranks are not exckusive to the NJO. They are used in two X-wing books - Isard's Revenge and Starfighters of Adumar.

 

In Tyrant's Test, admirals and generals are security classed C1. It's not the rank name, but classification, as A'bhat and Carson discussed there.

 

Exactly. An Army Captain is subordinate in rank to a Naval Captain. An Army Captain is equivilant to a Naval Lieutenant IIRC, while a Naval Captain equals an Army Colonel.

 

Another thing, naval pilots DO NOT follow the same rank system as the Army, AF, and Marines. They follow the standard naval ranking of Ensign, Lieutenant Junior Grade, Lieutenant, Lt. Commander, Commander, Captain, Rear Admiral lower half, Rear Admiral upper half, Vice Admiral, Admiral, and Fleet Admiral. I'm actually in school to be a naval pilot, so we had to learn this.

 

Wedge turned it down so he could stay in his X-Wing.

I think also you have to be at least a Captain to lead a squadron. That's why Face was promoted to Brevet-Captain in one of Solo Command. Then of course, it stuck, so he was made a permanent Captain.

(You know, I just noticed that I usually find a way to work the conversation around to Face or Ton. Hmmmmm)

 

In SW, all fighters fall under the authority of Starfighter Command, regardless of their posting to a ship, planet or station. They all follow the same rank system that is close to, but not exactly, like that of Earth militaries.

 

That's not true though that one has to be at least captain in order to command a squadron. In Wraith Squadron Lt. Myn Donos was the C/O of Talon Squadron. The reason why Face was promoted to brevet-captain is because he deserved it, which if I recall correctly, it was a battlefield promotion of sorts, and he had to wait for the paperwork to be processed.