Rank Insignia and Uniforms Thread

[Marc Pasquin]

Good to know. So, with that out of the way, here's my complete revamp of the Imperial Military Rank Structure (Parts 1 and 2):

Part 1 here being what I started out with first, working on (columns from left to right) the Imperial Navy, Imperial Army, Imperial Intelligence, Regional Administration, and the Imperial Security Bureau, the Stormtrooper Corps and Starfighter Corps not included here as I had yet to come up with a satisfactory color scheme at the time.

I sorted the color scheme here according to branch, then sorted the ranks according to ascending number of color squares; additionally, the background colors of each section also represent branch uniforms: Blue squares represent Navy, Gold squares represent Army, Red squares represent Intelligence, Dark Grey/Onyx squares represent Regional Administration, and Medium Grey+Light Grey squares represent ISB.

The rank plaques containing color squares of different branches represent the ability of those ranks to call upon the resources of their counterpart branches: Grand Admirals, Grand Generals, and the Director of Imperial Intelligence can all request or requisition any units, task forces, or other materiel they may require should the need arise; likewise, Regional Administrators can also call upon Navy or Army assets for assistance if necessary, however the forces available to them is limited to the scope of their authority (Planetary Governors can only request Navy/Army assets within their home system/planet, the same with Sector Moffs with assets within their Sectors, while Grand Moffs have the widest purview in that they can request assets from every Sector within their Oversector). Grand Admirals/Generals and the Director of Intelligence have no such limitations regarding jurisdiction, and thus can command any fleets, armies, or other military assets across multiple Oversectors. The ISB, on the other hand, has carte blanche in regards to investigation powers over the other branches; there is however the unconventional ranks of the ISB Special Agents, meant to carry out specific tasks or missions that require specialized skillsets.

The Ranks for the Regional Administration positions - Grand Moff, Sector Moff, and Planetary Governor - are simple enough to understand: Grand Moffs govern Oversectors, which are subdivided into Sectors governed by Sector Moffs, and the individual planets within those Sectors are governed by Planetary Governors. The the pure-onyx square ranks below the Reg-Admin box are more nebulous, as I hadn't quite fleshed them out yet, but they're generally meant to be corresponding adjutant positions for the aforementioned Admin ranks, and do not have the authority to call upon military services or assets; the two-square ranks with onyx+blue/gold/red squares are basically supposed to be liaison attaches meant to serve as direct/indirect links between the Reg-Admin authorities and the corresponding military branches.

As for the ranks of the Navy, Army, and Intelligence (divided between Navy and Army branches), they are as follows, from highest to lowest:

Grand Admiral	Grand General	Director of Imperial Intelligence	Director of Imperial Intelligence
Admiral	General	Director of Navy Intelligence	Director of Army Intelligence
Vice Admiral	Lieutenant General	Regional Branch Director (Navy)	Regional Branch Director (Army)
Rear Admiral	Major General	Admiral	General
Commodore	Brigadier General	Commander	Commander
Captain	Colonel	Captain	Captain
Commander	Major	Lieutenant	Lieutenant
Lieutenant Commander	Captain	Specialist	Specialist
Senior Lieutenant	Senior Lieutenant
Junior Lieutenant	Junior Lieutenant
Ensign	N/A [Name Pending]

The Imperial Security Bureau has their own separate set of ranks, which are as follows, again from highest to lowest:

Director of Imperial Security Bureau	Director of Imperial Security Bureau
ISB Deputy Director	Chief Inspector/Inspector-General
ISB Branch Director	Captain-Inspector
ISB Colonel	Lieutenant-Inspector
ISB Commander
ISB Lieutenant

Senior Special Agent (Navy Attache)	Senior Special Agent (Army Attache)	Senior Special Agent (Intelligence Attache)
Special Agent (Navy Attache)	Special Agent (Army Attache)	Special Agent (Intelligence Attache)

The ISB ranks are a bit of a special case in that the promotion path splits upon reaching the rank ISB Colonel: there are two options for advancement available - there's the standard route through the ISB's usual 'secret police' duties, and there's the Inspectorate, which deals in more actual investigative policing and protocol inspection. The ISB Special Agent ranks have already been explained earlier in the post, so I don't need to repeat it.

Part 2 is the Stormtrooper Corps and the Starfighter Corps (otherwise known as the Pilots), which I made at a later point in time to the previous layout above after some extensive brainstorming and experimentation with different colors and plaque designs:



The looong column on the left is for the Stormtrooper Corps, and the short column on the right is for Pilots, split into Navy Pilots and Army Pilots.

I haven't quite nailed down the exact naming scheme for the Stormtrooper Corps ranks yet, but what I have in mind for the highest two ranks are Allegiant General and General, with the lowest rank being Private. This time I actually accounted for enlisted and NCO ranks, something that was lacking in my previous attempt earlier in this post. Stormtroopers get their own separate rank structure from the Imperial Army due to being elite forces directly under the authority of the Emperor himself, so they get special treatment.

For the Pilot ranks, the naming scheme here is also a work in progress, but the basic structure is: Pilot --> Flight Lieutenant --> Squadron Captain --> Group Major --> Wing Commander. Wing Commanders are equivalent to Navy Commanders/Army Majors, and so are subordinate to Navy Captains/Army Colonels and up. Seeing as how starfighters are dependent on their motherships in space combat, and ground combat involves combined-arms warfare on a planetary scale, I saw no reason to develop a fully-independent "Air Force" rank structure, instead opting to make starfighters an integrated component to both the Navy and Army of the Imperial Military. Starfighter pilots and officers in both branches share the same rank structure, however, and can be transferred between each other easily, with merely a swap of the corresponding rank plaque being the only visible change.

The original posts for both of these rank structure redesigns can be found here and here over on Spacebattles (the content you see above having been copy+pasted from there).

Considering it only seems to be officers in duty uniforms that wear the rank plates, it feels like stormtroopers' rank should be something different, like the fact that in a number of countries NCOs wear chevron on their arms while officers wear badge on their shoulder straps.

Maybe for example a system of differently coloured / patterned pauldrons like the stormtrooper wore on Tatooine:

 

[WhiteDragon25]

Considering it only seems to be officers in duty uniforms that wear the rank plates, it feels like stormtroopers' rank should be something different, like the fact that in a number of countries NCOs wear chevron on their arms while officers wear badge on their shoulder straps.

Maybe for example a system of differently coloured / patterned pauldrons like the stormtrooper wore on Tatooine:

Well, Imperial Army officer armor does have the rank plates on them, like you see here, so I imagine it wouldn't be out-of-place for it to be the same for Stormtrooper armor... that said, the rank plates here would be for Stormtroopers while out-of-armor/in-duty-uniform. No idea on how to translate the ranks here into something usable for combat-ready Stormtrooper armor.

And remember, I did this all on MS Paint, pauldrons and stuff would be a bit more difficult to figure out than the rank plates (which still took a long-ass time to finish).

 

[Marc Pasquin]

Well, Imperial Army officer armor does have the rank plates on them, like you see here, so I imagine it wouldn't be out-of-place for it to be the same for Stormtrooper armor... that said, the rank plates here would be for Stormtroopers while out-of-armor/in-duty-uniform. No idea on how to translate the ranks here into something usable for combat-ready Stormtrooper armor.

And remember, I did this all on MS Paint, pauldrons and stuff would be a bit more difficult to figure out than the rank plates (which still took a long-ass time to finish).

Maybe just concentrate on the bit of the pauldron that's coloured instead of the whole thing. Even with just plain colours and some simple geometrical shapes, you could get a lot of variety. If you want to try, the second image is not anti-aliased so you can use it in MS Paint.

 

[Petike]

"28th Age contemporary regimental Aphalian infantry units"

Not my own work, but I found this at the worldbuilding reddit group. Nice work by a chap (user)named Centinuus, from his fictional setting.

Concerning the guns these soldiers carry, the author had this to say:

These would be muzzle loaded, but a bit more sophisticated flintlock rifles, think early 1800s as perhaps the closest approximation.

It's been a while since we had soldier uniform and kit comparisons posted in this thread.

I'll be contributing some of my own designs to this thread in the coming weeks or months. I'm cooking up a few new ones...

 

[e350tb]

A couple of soldier concepts I made for a vaguely defined steampunk universe. Both from the Kingdom of Great Britain.

The Royal Marine Light Infantry. This one's mostly historical, aside from the rifle which honestly looks like a Snider-Enfield fused with a Martini-Henry if I'm brutally honest.

This is a member of the Royal Naval Brigade, which has something of an inter-service rivalry with the RMLI due to the overlap in their duties. They wear goggles that allow them to see in the dark, have spring-heeled boots for landings on opposing battleships and dirigibles, and parachutes - generally they drop from smaller flying craft onto enemy vessels, as opposed to the RMLI who generally board in more conventional ways.

Also note that I have forgotten to turn off the sketch layer on the RNB soldier. Oops.

 

[Brady Kj]

As for the ranks of the Navy, Army, and Intelligence (divided between Navy and Army branches), they are as follows, from highest to lowest:

The first thing that jumps out at me is that Major is directly below Colonel, with no Lieutenant Colonel in between. I enjoy that simplication, but a military that had that in its system would also have Major General directly below General, with no Lieutenant General in between, so I'd recommend changing that. Perhaps you can choose a rank of admiral to get rid of, to keep the army and navy parallel.

I also see that army's and navy's two ranks of lieutenant are equivalent to each other, unlike in the real world, where the two ranks of navy lieutenants are distinctly higher than the army ones. I like that.

I also notice that your Intelligence branches have Commander above Captain (like in some European navies) while the navy has Captain above Commander. I'm of the opinion that this is a needless complication that only serves to confuse people. I'd prefer if you pick one arrangement or the other.

 

[WhiteDragon25]

The first thing that jumps out at me is that Major is directly below Colonel, with no Lieutenant Colonel in between. I enjoy that simplification, but a military that had that in its system would also have Major General directly below General, with no Lieutenant General in between, so I'd recommend changing that. Perhaps you can choose a rank of admiral to get rid of, to keep the army and navy parallel.

I also see that army's and navy's two ranks of lieutenant are equivalent to each other, unlike in the real world, where the two ranks of navy lieutenants are distinctly higher than the army ones. I like that.

I also notice that your Intelligence branches have Commander above Captain (like in some European navies) while the navy has Captain above Commander. I'm of the opinion that this is a needless complication that only serves to confuse people. I'd prefer if you pick one arrangement or the other.

Huh, funny you bring this old thing up again, as I've since then made an updated and unified version of that ranking system:

Sadly, I never got around to actually writing up an in-depth description and explanation of all the changes made (mainly because I was tired as fuck when I finally finished the image above).

 

[SgtRL-3]

The Type 2015 Rank insignia of Royal Arendian Defence Force/Kongelig Forsvaret.

 

[Brady Kj]

Huh, funny you bring this old thing up again

Oh, I didn't notice it was an old post. I just saw it was a few posts up from the newest one. So what have you changed in the names of your ranks?

 

[WhiteDragon25]

Oh, I didn't notice it was an old post. I just saw it was a few posts up from the newest one. So what have you changed in the names of your ranks?

I... honestly forgot what I had in mind, actually. That was months ago.

 

[Marc Pasquin]

The Type 2015 Rank insignia of Royal Arendian Defence Force/Kongelig Forsvaret.

Making the distinction between more than 4+ repeating items can often be hard unless they are arranged in different patterns. This is why in the british army for example, the 4 chevrons used by some warrant officers were inverted and placed near the cuff or had the 4 chevrons partly covered by a large COA. So because the bottom part of the triangle of your top NCO ranks is exactly the same size as the chevron, it look as if the top-most one has 5 chevrons and might be hard to tell apart at a quick glance from the previous rank.

2 possible way to reduce the problem could be to make the triangle solid or to have the branch emblem on the top rank insignia be within a wreath for the top most rank.

 

[Color-Copycat]

Parachutists' field kit and uniforms of the 2e Compagnie, 5e BEP, Vrylegion of the Vierkleur Konfederasie. Distinctive features include cuiraisse body armor and kepi-casque ballistic helmet.

 

[S. Marlowski]

A Soldier belonging to an organization in the Verlassenland wasteland.

 

[Napoleon53]

Not perfect yet but here he is (needs just a little touch up and smudge correct, but I'm going to bed). A "What Madness Is This?" Torchboy of the 13th ORRA Mechanized "Bad Luck Brigade" prepares to charbroil some Neutie positions. He's backed up by other 13th bois that have not been bestowed color by their god Napo53. Lmao

 

[Tiro]

I posted this illustration - which depicts John Fleming, who makes a brief appearance in Mr Harry Turtledove's THE UNITED STATES OF ATLANTIS, as an officer serving with a Royalist unit of Rangers during the War of Atlantean Independence - in the 'Alternate History Books & Media' forum, but it struck me that this thread might be a more natural home for it (and that, at the very least, it might not be without some interest).

For the record, Mr Turtledove describes Loyalist Rangers of the Freedom War wearing brown coats - the United States of Atlantis shamelessly monopolising forest green - so I had to think for a while and hunt about a bit for some period inspiration before realising that Gage's 80th Regiment (of Light-Armed Foot) from the French & Indian War would make a very suitable reference; the 1st American Regiment (Queen's Rangers) of the American War of Independence were another primary reference (to help update the original look from F&IW to AWI in a convincing fashion).

I also specifically requested that Major Fleming look as much like Bond, James Bond as humanly possible (which hopefully comes across here).


The artist's gallery can be found at the other end of this link; I heartily recommend that you take a look at his works because they're Rather Good! (All credit for this illustration should go to the original artist, all complaints concerning it should come to me - as the one who commissioned it).

 

[Tiro]

Might I please ask if this thread is the most suitable place to post IDEAS for Alternate History uniforms as well as finished illustrations of them?

 

[Marc Pasquin]

Might I please ask if this thread is the most suitable place to post IDEAS for Alternate History uniforms as well as finished illustrations of them?

I'm pretty sure anything alt-history uniform and insignia-related is welcome here

 

[Tiro]

Thank You for confirming my suspicions - I've been noodling around with a few ideas and am planning to post them here in the hope of getting a second opinion.

 

[Tiro]

Now this being AlternateHistory.com and not Arts&Crafts.com/BleedingEdge, one imagines that rather more than one other enthusiast has read and enjoyed that fascinating curio THE REIGN OF KING GEORGE VI.1900-1925 (A Forecast written in the year 1763), a Future History of the 20th century written all the way back in the 18th - and one that has, therefore, been rendered an Alternate History long, long since (if not an outright fantasy).

The book will not be to everyone's taste, but if you're looking to scratch that Napoleonic itch and willing to make allowances, you can most certainly do worse - especially if you're British or an Anglophile (or have a sense of humour that enjoys those little "SUCH an Optimist" moments one occasionally sees in forecasts).


Now, as a fellow who's been reading a book or two about the Seven Years/French & Indian War era and the American War of Independence to boot (and has a history of fascination with the Napoleonic Wars to boot), it's fair to say that this book caught my eye & caught hold of my imagination - partly because, a little like contemplating the Antikythera Mechanism, it's fascinating to imagine someone dead two hundred years and more doing something so contemporary-feeling as imagining a Speculative History of the distant future as something more like a ripping yarn than sober history, but also because it's equally interesting to wonder what this anonymous author's vision of the 20th Century actually looked like.

'What does the 20th Century look like, as imagined by a native of the 18th?' has to be one of the more intriguing seldom-asked questions and given that the scenario presented by this fictive history is so inherently friendly to war-gamers I've been moved to wonder just what the Armies of George VI.1900-1935 (as well as those of his allies and enemies) might look like for some little time now.

With that in mind I'm hoping to share some ideas and would love to hear the thoughts of any interested parties - more to follow later, but for the moment I think it's safe to start with my idea that the most interesting version of this idea would combine elements from the various armies that actually fought the first Great War of the 20th Century and those that the original author might have been familiar with.

With that in mind I think it's safe to say that, whatever else one can dream up, redcoats and army moustaches will be standard issue for the regiments of THIS George VI!

 

[Marc Pasquin]

Now this being AlternateHistory.com and not Arts&Crafts.com/BleedingEdge, one imagines that rather more than one other enthusiast has read and enjoyed that fascinating curio THE REIGN OF KING GEORGE VI.1900-1925 (A Forecast written in the year 1763), a Future History of the 20th century written all the way back in the 18th - and one that has, therefore, been rendered an Alternate History long, long since (if not an outright fantasy).

The book will not be to everyone's taste, but if you're looking to scratch that Napoleonic itch and willing to make allowances, you can most certainly do worse - especially if you're British or an Anglophile (or have a sense of humour that enjoys those little "SUCH an Optimist" moments one occasionally sees in forecasts).


Now, as a fellow who's been reading a book or two about the Seven Years/French & Indian War era and the American War of Independence to boot (and has a history of fascination with the Napoleonic Wars to boot), it's fair to say that this book caught my eye & caught hold of my imagination - partly because, a little like contemplating the Antikythera Mechanism, it's fascinating to imagine someone dead two hundred years and more doing something so contemporary-feeling as imagining a Speculative History of the distant future as something more like a ripping yarn than sober history, but also because it's equally interesting to wonder what this anonymous author's vision of the 20th Century actually looked like.

'What does the 20th Century look like, as imagined by a native of the 18th?' has to be one of the more intriguing seldom-asked questions and given that the scenario presented by this fictive history is so inherently friendly to war-gamers I've been moved to wonder just what the Armies of George VI.1900-1935 (as well as those of his allies and enemies) might look like for some little time now.

With that in mind I'm hoping to share some ideas and would love to hear the thoughts of any interested parties - more to follow later, but for the moment I think it's safe to start with my idea that the most interesting version of this idea would combine elements from the various armies that actually fought the first Great War of the 20th Century and those that the original author might have been familiar with.

With that in mind I think it's safe to say that, whatever else one can dream up, redcoats and army moustaches will be standard issue for the regiments of THIS George VI!

the french army of early world war 1 OTL wore blue jackets and red pants so for an alt-UK army, you could have ww1 type uniform but with the jacket being red and dark grey pants for light infantry and other non-khaki colours depending on the branch,