I'll certainly have to look up rank insignia for Quebec police for some Real Life precedents: thank you most kindly for your advice and for suggesting this line of enquiry!
For the municipal police departments, the system goes:
Sergent: 1 wide bar
Lieutenant: 1 thin bar over 1 wide bar
Capitaine: 2 wide bars
Commandant: 1 thin bar between 2 wide bars
Inspecteur: 3 wide bars
Inspecteur-Chef: 4 wide bars
Assistant-Directeur: 1 fleur-de-lys
Directeur-Adjoint: 2 fleur-de-lys
Directeur: 3 fleur-de-lys
The SQ (Provincial Police), other Provincial law enforcement agencies (like forestry) and some tribal police forces use a different system:
Sergent: 2 thin bars
Lieutenant: 1 thin bar over a group of 3 thin bars
Capitaine: 2 groups of 3 thin bars
Inspecteur: 3 groups of 3 thin bars
Inspecteur-Chef: 4 groups of 3 thin bars
Directeur-Général-Adjoint: 2 groups of 7 thin bars
Directeur-Général: 1 group of 16 thin bars
Although not really used nowadays, there also used to be a rank of "Caporal" (below sergeant) which use a single thin bar.
Pardonnez moi, Monsieur Pasquin - je suis parle un peu de Francais, mais je ne pas parle le bon Francais!
More to the point, I can speak a little French but my written French is so sub-par it would shot on sight at any golf course across the planet (If only to put the poor, twisted creature out of it's misery!).
Pardonnez moi, Monsieur Pasquin - je me parle un peu de Francais, mais je ne pas parle le bon Francais!
More to the point, I can speak a little French but my written French is so sub-par it would shot on sight at any golf course across the planet (If only to put the poor, twisted creature out of it's misery!).
You don't need to apologize, This was just a "for your information" advice as I assumed you weren't fluent in french and might benefit from a little constructive criticism. If you used google translate or a blingual dictionary, I would advise against it as these often try to translate literally rather than find equivalents in the other language.
Similarly, FYI, you just said you speak to yourself. Not an issue, in my own opinion, as long as you don't answer to comments you make to yourself. Otherwise, you end up arguing with yourself and, from personal experience, that never ends well.
(Soviet backed) East Germany had a Rain Pattern camo which was meant to be a 2-tone generic camo pattern. It was used in East Germany but also in a number of African countries.
(from Wikipedia)
Maybe changing it to a 4 tone pattern could work (Black-Dark Grey-Pale Grey-White).
The rank insignia for the armed forces of the Kingdom of Kymria. A monarchy geographically, culturally and historically inspired by Austria-Hungary and Wales, from my fictional setting, the Aeroverse. The Kymrian military consists of the Royal Army of Kymria (Byddin Frenhinolo Kymra), the Royal Navy of Kymria (Llynges Brenhinolo Kymra), which includes the Royal Naval Aviation of Kymria, and the Royal Flying Host of Kymria (Llu Hedfan Brenhinol o Kymra). Like other countries in the Aeroverse, the Kymrian military is at a roughly 1910 to 1920 level of technology.
a.) Languages used in the Kymrian military
Kymrese (the Kymrian language) is the main communication language of the royal Kymrian armed forces. There is also a fictional equivalent to the real world "Army Slavic", something of an impromptu constructed language, used as a sort of soldier creole or soldier jargon for basic communication.
b.) Specifying full ranks in the Kymrian military (only for bureaucratic use, not everyday use or field use)
The Kymrian approach to specifying ranks is to hyphenate them in the individual languages. The lowest rank, soldier, as an example:
- Kymrese:Milwr-Troedfilwr ("Soldier-Infantryman"), Milwr-Coediwr ("Soldier-Woodsman", older version Milwr-Ysgarmeswr, "Soldier-Skirmisher"), Milwr-Dragŵn, Milwr-Dragwner ("Soldier-Dragoon"), Milwr-Gwaywr ("Soldier-Lancer"), Milwr-Hwsâr ("Soldier-Hussar"), Milwr-Magnelwr ("Soldier-Artilleryman"), Milwr-Cloddiwr ("Soldier-Engineer"/"Soldier-Sapper"), Milwr-Gyrrwr ("Soldier-Driver"), Milwr-Trehnmann ("Soldier-Supply-trainist"), Milwr-Medygg ("Soldier-Medic")
- Minority language 1:Soldat-Infanterist ("Soldier-Infantryman"), Soldat-Jäger ("Soldier-Hunter", skirmisher), Soldat-Dragoner ("Soldier-Dragoon"), Soldat-Ulan ("Soldier-Lancer"), Soldat-Husar ("Soldier-Hussar"), Soldat-Kanonier ("Soldier-Artilleryman"), Soldat-Pionir ("Soldier-Engineer"/"Soldier-Pioneer/Sapper"), Soldat-Fahrer ("Soldier-Driver"), Soldat-Trehnmann ("Soldier-Supply-trainist"), Soldat-Sanitäter ("Soldier-Medic")
- Minority language 2:Közkatona-Gyalogos ("Soldier-Infantryman"), Közkatona-Vadász ("Soldier-Hunter", skirmisher), Közkatona-Dragonyos ("Soldier-Dragoon"), Közkatona-Ulánus ("Soldier-Lancer"), Közkatona-Huszár ("Soldier-Hussar"), Közkatona-Tüzér ("Soldier-Artilleryman"), Közkatona-Árkász ("Soldier-Engineer"/"Soldier-Sapper"), Közkatona-Vezető ("Soldier-Driver"), Közkatona-Trénos ("Soldier-Supply-trainist"), Közkatona-Medikus ("Soldier-Medic")
- Minority language 3: Vojak-Pešiak ("Soldier-Infantryman"), Vojak-Zálesák ("Soldier-Woodsman", skirmisher), Vojak-Dragún ("Soldier-Dragoon"), Vojak-Ulán ("Soldier-Lancer"), Vojak-Husár ("Soldier-Hussar"), Vojak-Delostrelec ("Soldier-Artilleryman"), Vojak-Ženista ("Soldier-Engineer"/"Soldier-Sapper"), Vojak-Vodič ("Soldier-Driver"), Vojak-Trénnik ("Soldier-Supply-trainist"), Vojak-Zdravotník ("Soldier-Medic")
- Minority language 4:Vojín-Pěšák ("Soldier-Infantryman"), Vojín-Zálesák ("Soldier-Woodsman", skirmisher), Vojín-Dragoun ("Soldier-Dragoon"), Vojín-Hulán ("Soldier-Lancer"), Vojín-Husar ("Soldier-Hussar"), Vojín-Dělostrelec ("Soldier-Artilleryman"), Vojín-Ženista ("Soldier-Engineer"/"Soldier-Sapper"), Vojín-Vodič ("Soldier-Driver"), Vojín-Trénník ("Soldier-Supply-trainist"), Vojín-Zdravotník ("Soldier-Medic")
This makes it easier to denote which soldier is in which branch of the armed forces, without having to remember a unique rank name for every branch of the forces. The three cavalry soldier branches are also called collectivelly Marchogwr ("cavalryman", "horseman") and can sometimes be given with that variation in the first half of the hyphenated term (e.g. Marchogwr-Dragŵn, Marchogwr-Gwaywr, Marchogwr-Hwsâr). The minority languages can substitute this with their own terms Reiter, Lovas and Jazdec. The only cavalry variation on the rank of Captain in a minority language occurs with Rittmeister.
Historical examples of occassional Kymrian use of rank hyphenation
In the past of the Kymrian royal army (ca a century and more earlier), what became the Milwr-Troedfilwr was originally two different ranks, depending on whether the footman was a Musketeer or a Rifleman, he was likely to get called a Milwr-Mysgedwr or a Milwr-Reifflwr, respectivelly. Some of the royal riflemen, trained as sharpshooters (including with the innovative repeating "wind-rifle" of the Kymrians, updated versions still popular among sky pirates) were called Milwr-Coediwr ("Soldier-Woodsman"), later changed to Milwr-Ysgarmeswr ("Soldier-Skirmisher"), but then reverted back to Milwr-Coediwr ("Soldier-Woodsman").
c.) Other rank terminology naming conventions in the Kymrian military and related notes
The equivalent to a real world Marshal rank in the Kymrian military is the Royal General, the head general of the entire Royal Army. The only official usage of the term "marshal" in the Kymrian military are the "sky marshals" of the Royal Flying Host. The Royal Navy has the most divergent terminology for its individual ranks (most soldier and NCO ranks, most of the highest ranks), whereas the individual ranks in the Royal Army and the Royal Flying Host are fairly similar to each other (the biggest difference being the lowest soldier rank and the highest ranks, the latter replacing "general" ranks with "sky marshal" ranks).
Do note that Kymria itself does not actually use real world English terminology, whether UK, US, Canadian, Australian or any other anglophone country designations for the individual ranks. Kymria does not speak English at all, save for people who know foreign languages. Their most used names for the individual ranks are in what appears to us as real world Welsh.
d.) Heraldic weapons, heraldic animals or mythical creatures and colour-coding in Kingdom of Kymria rank insignia
The rank insignia of the Royal Armed Forces of Kymria uses a simple, but fairly deep system of "heraldic-coding" and colour-coding that's designed to be as intuitive and easy to remember as possible, and make it impossible to unintentionally confuse ranks, even by a layperson. Famously, the insignia is designed to work completely without any letters or numbers as indicators, and work according to a logic similar to that used in the "keep it simple" logic of designing coats of arms and other heraldry.
As in the real world, the lowest-ranking soldiers, i.e. privates/seamen/aviators/pilots, do not have their own rank insignia. From the second soldier level onward, regardless of service, they get a set of rank insignia that gradually increases in importance, varying its overall level based on alternating "trios" of symbols.
Heraldic weapons (soldier-officer rank scale) - located in the upper part of the rank insignia, a heraldic depiction of a historical weapon. The lowest three ranks have polearms as their insignia (glaives for Royal Army and Royal Flying Host personnel, halberds for Royal Bodyguards, boardingpikes for Royal Navy personnel), the three continued NCO ranks after that have archery weapons (a bow and arrow for Royal Army and Royal Flying Host personnel, a crossbow for Royal Navy personnel), the Ensign equivalent has an axe weapon or propeller and an animal or dragon body part other than a paw or foot (one-handed battleaxe and either dragon wing or dragon tail for army Cadets, boarding axe and sea dragon tail for naval Cadets, propeller and sea dragon wing for naval aviation Cadets, propeller and hawk wing for Airman Cadets), a single-edged sword for three ranks of lower-ranked commissioned officers (falchion for Royal Army and Royal Flying Host personnel, cutlass for Royal Navy personnel), a longsword or a ship's wheel for three higher-ranked commissioned officers (longsword for Royal Army and Royal Flying Host personnel, ship's wheel for Royal Navy personnel), a mace or an anchor for generals, commodores, admirals and sky marshals (mace for Royal Army and Royal Flying Host personnel, anchor for Royal Navy personnel). Only the highest ranks of the army, navy and air force - the Royal General, Admiral of the Royal Fleet and the Royal Sky Marshal - will have a stylised, heraldic Kymrian Royal Crown instead of a heraldic depiction of a historical weapon.
Heraldic animal or heraldic mythical beast body part (rank standing) - these indicate the numerical standing of an indvidual rank in the military, in the same way pips usually do in rank insignia. Instead of pips, the insignia chosen are either dragon paws or hawk feet, depicting a varying number of fingers with claws or fingers with talons. One finger is lower than two fingers, and those are lower than three fingers. For example, the Soldier First Class, Lance Corporal and Corporal all share the aforementioned glaive symbol in the upper part of their insignia, but the dragon paw has a differing number of fingers depending on the exact soldier's rank. Thus, a Soldier FC has a dragon paw showing a single finger, a Lance Corporal has a dragon paw with two fingers, and a Corporal has a dragon paw with two fingers. (Pilots FC, Flight Corporals and Corporal of the Royal Flying Host have a one-fingered, two-fingered or three-fingered hawk foot instead.) The two highest rank officers of the Kymrian army, navy and air force, the two highest general, admiral and sky marshal ranks, have a dragon head or a hawk head instead of a dragon paw or a hawk foot. The Kingdom of Kymria is often nicknamed "The Kingdom of the Hawk and Dragon", the hawk reflecting the long-ruling royal house of Kymria and the dragon the land itself, with both of the creatures considered the national heraldic beasts of the country. It is therefore unsurprising hawk and dragon elements appear as iconic parts of the Kymrian military's rank insignia.
Colour-coding trimming (service branches of the Kymrian military) - each service of the Royal Armed Forces has their own colour-coded trimming on the standardised rank insignia of the armed forces. The Royal Army has 10 colour codes (for Infantry, Special Forces, Cavalry/Mounted, Artillery, Logistics, Engineering, Signals, Observers, Medical and Royal Bodyguards), the Royal Navy (and Royal Naval Aviation within it) has 4 colour codes (Surface navy, Submarine navy, Naval Aviation, Naval Airship Patrol), and the Royal Flying Host has only 2 colour codes (Aeroplane pilots/Glider flyers, Airshipmen). Colour-coding isn't as important a part of the rank insignia as the more key elements, hence why it's relegated to the trimming of the overall individual insignia. However, it adds depth and a great deal of information about the particular rank with very minimal use of colour differentiation.
In the case of my fictional Kymria, I've taken most of the terminological inspiration from British, Austro-Hungarian and some other central European terminological traditions, and I've tried to make it as consistent as possible. The rank names themselves are conventional, and differ very little from the sort of ranks you'd find in the OTL world during the last ca 200 years. Nota bene, I've done this attention to consistency in multiple languages. The Welsh-sounding one is the main one, but there are also minority languages heard in the forces, and as I've mentioned above, there's even a Kymrian equivalent to "Army Slavic".
On the visual side of things, I've largelly gone for an original approach. No stars or pips, and only the three topmost ranks of the main branches have a royal crown. The insignia is instead rooted in subtle but logical colour-coding and in a system of symbolic insignia largelly unique to Kymria and its national vexilology/heraldry.
There's not a mess of unique names for nearly every service branch's ranks, unlike in both real British tradition or Austro-Hungarian tradition. As you can see, they do have a system to specify which soldier comes from which branch, but unless there's a good reason to mention it, it's not added to the rank name as standard. Thus, everyone just goes by the standard army, navy and air force rank they have (see below, the overviews for each of the three services).
For example, you can have three sergeants of the army, navy and air force meeting, and neither of them will have a convoluted long name for their rank. They'll just be sergeants. Yes, even the navy has sergeants, because the Kymrian navy has a different tradition than a real world British or other anglophone one, and not quite an A-H one either. It's an industrial fantasy country, so I'm being creative, within reasonable limits, and not keeping things to some strict OTL template.
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Royal Army of Kymria (Byddin Frenhinolo Kymra)
Private - No insignia Private First Class - Glaive, one dragon claw Lance Corporal - Glaive, two dragon claws Corporal - Glaive, three dragon claws Sergeant - Bow and arrow, one dragon claw Master-Sergeant - Bow and arrow, two dragon claws Cadet - Bow and arrow, three dragon claws Ensign - Axe, dragon wing (most ensign posts) / Axe, dragon tail (certain ensign posts) Lieutenant - Falchion, one dragon claw First Lieutenant - Falchion, two dragon claws Captain - Falchion, three dragon claws Major - Sword, one dragon claw Lieutenant Colonel - Sword, two dragon claws Colonel - Sword, three dragon claws Brigadier general - Mace, one dragon claw Major General - Mace, two dragon claws Lieutenant General - Mace, three dragon claws General - Mace, dragon head Royal General - Crown, dragon head
The rank insignia of Royal Army personnel has light green trimming (infantry), light green trimmingwith camo light brown dots (skirmishers, special forces), dark green trimming (cavalry, mounted soldiers and early motorised-armoured vehicles), red trimming (artillery), light brown trimming (logistics), dark brown trimming (engineers and sappers), golden trimming with orange line (signals corps), salmon pink trimming (observers), white trimming (medical corps), alternating golden-light green-golden-dark green trimming (Royal Bodyguard units).
The higher ranks of the cavalry use sabres instead of swords as their rank insignia (for Major, Lieutenant Colonel and Colonel). The lower ranks of the Royal Bodyguard units use halberds instead of glaives as their rank insignia (for Private First Class, Lance Corporal and Corporal).
Note that, besides the above mentioned rank insignia variations that are uniquely associated with certain army units, all of the rank insignia depicted in the overview show a default, undecorated trimming, without one of the ten specific army services. This is deliberate on my part, as any of the ten colour codes could appear on any of the ranks. This underlines that the rank names and insignia are largelly independent of the colour-coded information on which soldier or personnel member belongs to which army service.
The only permanent aerial units of the Royal Army of Kymria are observation balloon spotters and crews, all formally under the observers corps. All of the airship, aeroplane and glider military units of the army had been moved to more recently established Royal Flying Host. The naval aviation of Kymria is part of the Royal Navy of Kymria.
Kymria is one of the more industrially developed, but generally still rather rural countries of the known world. Like many places in the inhabited world, it is quite mountainous and rugged in terrain, but also very beautiful. A kingdom with a constitutional monarchy, the people of Kymria consist of many different nationalities, some endemic to local regions within the kingdom. The official language is Kymrese, but there are many minority languages and local dialects. There's plenty of traditional culture, including folk songs. The country is an interesting contrast between fairly rural regions and increasingly industrialised cities. While Kymrians aren't the largest industrialists or innovators in the world, their scientists and academicians have many influential figures. Many Kymrian industrial and military goods get a fair bit of praise for their thoroughness. Notable industrial companies include the Arfau Draig ("Dragon Arms") firearms company and the Mynydd Eryr ("Eagle Mountain") industrial corporation, a vehicle and machinery manufacturer.
Kymria is sort of a whimsical combination of early 1900s Austria-Hungary and Wales. (This is something of an amusing leftover of the dream that inspired me to create the Aeroverse and the story series set in it in the first place.) As you'd expect, it is a more parochial country, for lack of a better term, but has a surprising amount of very talented and hardworking people of all ages who can really surprise other countries with their innovative efforts, if they really put themselves into it.
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Royal Navy of Kymria (Llynges Brenhinolo Kymra) and Royal Naval Aviation of Kymria (Hedfan Llyngesol Brenhinol o Kymra)
Seaman / Aviator - No insignia Seaman First Class / Aviator First Class - Boarding pike, one sea dragon claw Pike Seaman / Spindrift Aviator - Boarding pike, two sea dragon claws Leading Seaman / Leading Aviator - Boarding pike, three sea dragon claws Sergeant - Crossbow, one sea dragon claw Master-Sergeant - Crossbow, two sea dragon claws Cadet - Crossbow, three sea dragon claws Ensign - Boarding axe, sea dragon tail (navy) / Propeller, sea dragon wing (naval aviation) Lieutenant - Cutlass, one sea dragon claw First Lieutenant - Cutlass, two sea dragon claws Captain - Cutlass, three sea dragon claws Major - Ship's wheel, one sea dragon claw Lieutenant Colonel - Ship's wheel, two sea dragon claws Colonel - Ship's wheel, three sea dragon claws Commodore - Anchor, one sea dragon claw Rear Admiral - Anchor, two sea dragon claws Vice Admiral - Anchor, three sea dragon claws Admiral - Anchor, sea dragon head Admiral of the Royal Fleet - Crown, sea dragon head
The rank insignia of Royal Navy personnel has dark blue trimming (surface navy personnel) or dark blue trimming with a slightly lighter-blue wave-like pattern (submarine personnel). The rank insignia of Royal Naval Aviation personnel has dark blue trimming with light blue line (naval aviators) or dark blue trimming with light blue line and stylised light blue airship shapes (naval airshipmen).
Equivalent rank listing (English term listed on the left, Kymrese term on the right):
Seaman (eq. of Soldier) - Morwr ("Seaman")
Aviator (eq. of Soldier) - Awyrennwr ("Aviator")
Seaman First Class (eq. of Soldier First Class) - Morwr Dosbarth Cyntaf ("Seaman First Class")
Aviator First Class (eq. of Soldier First Class) - Awyrennwr Dosbarth Cyntaf ("Aviator First Class")
Pike Seaman (eq. of Lance Corporal) - Morwr Penhwyaid ("Pike Seaman")
Spindrift Aviator (eq. of Lance Corporal) - Awyrennwr Troellwr ("Spindrift Aviator")
Leading Seaman (eq. of Corporal) - Morwr Blaenllaw ("Leading Seaman")
Leading Aviator (eq. of Corporal) - Awyrennwr Blaenllaw ("Leading Aviator") (ranks same as in the Royal Army of Kymria)
Commodore (eq. of Brigadier general) - Comodor ("Commodore")
Rear Admiral (eq. of Major General) - Cefn Llyngesydd ("Rear Admiral")
Vice Admiral (eq. of Lieutenant General) - Is-lyngesydd ("Vice Admiral")
Admiral (eq. of General) - Llyngesydd ("Admiral")
Admiral of the Royal Fleet (eq. of Royal General) - Llyngesydd y Llynges Frenhinol ("Admiral of the Royal Fleet")
The Kymrian navy does not use Petty Officer in its naval rank terminology (that tradition occurs in the navy of Victinya instead). The fictional rank of "Pike Seaman" is the direct equivalent to the real world Lance Corporal rank, which also exists in Kymria's Royal Army, and as Flight Corporal in the Royal Flying Host. Just like the Lance Coporal symbolically "broke a lance in combat", so too is the "Pike Seaman" symbolically denoted as a seaman who "broke a boarding pike in naval combat". The ranks of naval aviators who fly naval aviation aeroplanes (flying boats, floatplanes) do not go above the rank of Colonel, because it's expected naval aviation commodores serve on naval aviation airships or command seaplane tenders.
The reason the Kymrian navy doesn't have a fully British-style or fully Austro-Hungarian style rank terminology tradition is because Kymria is a fictional country, and because the country of Victinya in the same setting already has British-style and American-style ranks terminology, including in the Victinyan navy. To keep things more unique and avoid confusing people, I wanted the rank terminology of the Kymrian Royal Armed Forces, including the Royal Navy, as well as the Royal Army and Royal Flying Host, to sound distinct from the rank terminology used in Victinya for their armed forces.
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Royal Flying Host of Kymria (Llu Hedfan Brenhinol o Kymra)
Pilot / Flyer - No insignia Pilot First Class / Flyer First Class - Glaive, one hawk talon Flight Corporal - Glaive, two hawk talons Corporal - Glaive, three hawk talons Sergeant - Bow and arrow, one hawk talon Master-Sergeant - Bow and arrow, two hawk talons Airman Cadet - Bow and arrow, three hawk talons Ensign - Propeller, hawk wing (most ensign posts) / Axe, hawk wing (certain ensign posts) Lieutenant - Falchion, one hawk talon First Lieutenant - Falchion, two hawk talons Captain - Falchion, three hawk talons Major - Sword, one hawk talon Wing Commander - Sword, two hawk talons Air Commander - Sword, three hawk talons Sky Commodore - Mace, one hawk talon Sky Vice-Marshal - Mace, two hawk talons Sky Marshal - Mace, three hawk talons Chief Sky Marshal - Mace, hawk head Royal Sky Marshal - Crown, hawk head
The rank insignia of Royal Flying Host personnel has light blue trimming (aeroplane and glider airmen and personnel) or light blue trimming with stylised white airship shapes (airshipmen and airship personnel).
Equivalent rank listing (English term listed on the left, Kymrese term on the right):
Pilot (eq. of Soldier) - Peilot ("Pilot")
Flyer (eq. Soldier) - Hedfanwr ("Flyer")
Pilot First Class (eq. of Soldier First Class) - Peilot Dosbarth Cyntaf ("Pilot First Class")
Flyer First Class (eq. of Soldier First Class) - Hedfanwr Dosbarth Cyntaf ("Flyer First Class")
Flight Corporal (eq. of Lance Corporal) - Corporal Hedfan ("Flight Corporal" / "Flying Corporal") (ranks same as in the Royal Army of Kymria)
Airman Cadet (eq. of Cadet) - Cadet Awyrwr ("Airman Cadet") (ranks same as in the Royal Army of Kymria)
Wing Commander (eq. of Lieutenant Colonel) - Cadlywydd Asgell ("Wing Commander")
Air Commander (eq. of Colonel) - Cadlywydd Awyr ("Air Commander")
Sky Commodore (eq. of Brigadier General) - Comodor Awyr ("Sky Commodore")
Sky Vice-Marshal (eq. of Major General) - Is-farsial Awyr ("Sky Vice-Marshal")
Sky Marshal (eq. of Lieutenant General) - Marsial Awyr ("Sky Marshal")
Chief Sky Marshal (eq. of General) - Prif Farsial Awyr ("Chief Sky Marshal")
Royal Sky Marshal (eq. of Royal General) - Marsial Awyr Brenhinol ("Royal Sky Marshal")
The "Pilot" and "Flyer" ranks are not only equal in standing, they are also largelly just semantic and symbolic, per the aviation traditions of not only Kymria, but the countries of the Aeroverse in general. "Pilot" refers to an airman flying an aeroplane (always a powered aircraft, one with a proper fuselage and cockpit where the pilot can be seated), while "flyer" refers to an airman flying a glider (aside from the earliest sailplanes, essentially always solo, rarely seated at all, more in the manner of a hang glider).
Royal Flying Host personnel doing the flying are referred to with the general terms "airman", "airmen", and sometimes also as "(military) aeronaut", "(military) aeronauts" (the latter without the optional adjective has more civilian connotations). These are general descriptive terms, not ranks.
Real world Welsh might have words for "the heavens", "heaven", "the highs", but doesn't seem to differentiate between "sky" and "air". I was tempted to change the "sky" instances of awyr ("air", "sky") to cwmwl ("cloud"), but ultimately decided against it. However, if you personally prefer the cwmwl variation and find it more interesting, I am fine with that.
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I am also thinking of going back to some of my Sparrow Avengers countries and doing ranks for them as well. Should be fun.
Pronunciation guide in rough English phonetics, particularly for Kymrese, presented as real world Welsh.
"Ch" is always a "kh" sound (like Welsh uses of "ch", or Scottish "loch", German words like "machen", or English transcriptions of names like "Khan").
The Welsh (and Kymrese) "ll" (double "l") is read like a combination of a quieter version of that "kh" sound, with an added soft "l" sound at the end. The sort of soft "l" that often occurs in Slavic languages, including my own, but rarely does in English, aside from examples like "lew-" in "lewd". I will transcribe all instances of "ll" as "khly", in italics, with the "-ly" bit of it sounding like the "lew-" in "lewd". Thus, a Welsh (and Kymrese) word like llong ("ship") would be khlyong.
"C" is always like hard "c" or "k" (as in English "car", etc.), "g" always has a "hard g" pronunciation, "w" is "u" (the version with a caron is a long u, so essentially "oo" as in "door"), "f" is "v" or "w", "ff" is the actual "f", "u" is "i". The "y" in the last syllable is essentially pronounced as "i", so I will render it as "i", so I will render it as such. In all preceding syllables, it defaults to an "e". Double "d" - dd - is by and large pronounced like "v" or "w", but arguably with a hint of a very quiet "d" like sound at the start (roughly the difference between the usual English "f" and the English "th" in thanks). "A" with a caron is a long "a", like a Finnish double "a" or Slavic á. The "si-" combination of letters is read like "sh" and "y" together, so siarad is "shyarad".
Byddin Frenhinolo Kymra (Royal Army of Kymria) - Bevin Vren(h)inol o Kemra
Milwr (Soldier) - Milur (compare with Latin miles or milites) Dosbarth Cyntaf (First Class, soldier rank) - Dosbarth Centav, Dosbarth Kentav Corporal (Corporal) - more or less the same as Corporal Is-Corporal (Lance Corporal) - Is-Corporal Rhingyll (Sergeant) - Rhingikhly
Rhingyll Staff (Master-Sergeant, Staff Sergeant) - Rhingikhly Staf Cadet (Cadet) - Cadet, Kadet Bannerwr (Ensign) - Bannerur (directly analogous to terms like "Bannerman", so an "Ensign", "Flag-bearer", etc.) Lifftenant (Lieutenant) - Liftenant Lifftenant Uchel (First Lieutenant) - Liftenant Ikhel Capten (Captain) - Capten, Kapten Huwch-Gapten (Major) - Hiukh-Gapten Raglaw Gyrnol (Lieutenant Colonel) - Raglau Gernol Cyrnol (Colonel) - Cernol, Kernol Brigadydd Gadfridog (Major General) - Brigadiv Gadvridog Prif Gadfridog (Major General) - Priv Gadvridog Is-gadfridog (Lieutenant General) - Is-gadvridog Cadfridog (General) - Cadvridog, Kadvridog CadfridogBrenhinol (Royal General) - Cadvridog Bren(h)inol, Kadvridog Bren(h)inol
Llynges Brenhinol o Kymra (Royal Navy of Kymria) - Khlyenges Bren(h)inol o Kemra Hedfan Llyngesol Brenhinol o Kymra (Royan Naval Aviation of Kymria) - Hedvan Khlyengesol Bren(h)inol o Kemra
Morwr (Seaman, Sailor, rank) - Morur Awyrennwr (Aviator, rank) - Auerennur Morwr Penhwyaid (Pike Seaman, eq. to Lance Corporal) - Morur Penhuiaid Awyrennwr Troellwr (Spindrift Aviator) - Auerennur Troekhlyur Morwr Blaenllaw (Leading Seaman) - Morur Blaenkhlyau Awyrennwr Blaenllaw (Leading Aviator) - Auerennur Blaenkhlyau Comodor (Commodore) - more or less the same as Commodore Llyngesydd (Admiral) - Khlyengesiv Llyngesydd y Llynges Frenhinol (Admiral of the Royal Fleet) - Khlyengesiv e Khlyenges Bren(h)inol
My set of rank insignia for the Kingdom of Kymria from my Aeroverse setting is now complete.
I wanted to make it distinct, in a manner that acknowledges real world rank insignia that could work in an early 1900s sort of setting, but would reflect the fact it was designed in a country of a fictional, industrial fantasy setting. Even though it's a mundane setting, with only humans around, I don't have to make things boring.
The fact that the rank insignia includes not only the traditional heraldic beasts of the country, but also more historical and more timeless symbols, is meant to reflect the culture and general mindset of the country. They're a bit more traditionalist and (in terms of keeping traditions around) more conservative, and this is also reflected in their royal armed forces and the ranks. Hence, none of the insignia includes firearms, grenades, or most other post-medieval elements. Even the ranks are meant to state "we're an ancient country, with our oldest history shrouded in myth and folk tales, and our recorded history very rich in events". In this sense I designed the ranks to not only exist, but to include the psychological side of cultural worldbuilding for the setting.
The rank insignia for the armed forces of the Kingdom of Kymria. A monarchy geographically, culturally and historically inspired by Austria-Hungary and Wales, from my fictional setting, the Aeroverse. The Kymrian military consists of the Royal Army of Kymria (Byddin Frenhinolo Kymra), the Royal Navy of Kymria (Llynges Brenhinolo Kymra), which includes the Royal Naval Aviation of Kymria, and the Royal Flying Host of Kymria (Llu Hedfan Brenhinol o Kymra). Like other countries in the Aeroverse, the Kymrian military is at a roughly 1910 to 1920 level of technology.
a.) Languages used in the Kymrian military
Kymrese (the Kymrian language) is the main communication language of the royal Kymrian armed forces. There is also a fictional equivalent to the real world "Army Slavic", something of an impromptu constructed language, used as a sort of soldier creole or soldier jargon for basic communication.
b.) Specifying full ranks in the Kymrian military (only for bureaucratic use, not everyday use or field use)
The Kymrian approach to specifying ranks is to hyphenate them in the individual languages. The lowest rank, soldier, as an example:
- Kymrese:Milwr-Troedfilwyr ("Soldier-Infantryman"), Milwr-Coediwr ("Soldier-Woodsman", older version Milwr-Ysgarmeswr, "Soldier-Skirmisher"), Milwr-Dragŵn, Milwr-Dragwner ("Soldier-Dragoon"), Milwr-Gwaywr ("Soldier-Lancer"), Milwr-Hwsâr ("Soldier-Hussar"), Milwr-Magnelwr ("Soldier-Artilleryman"), Milwr-Cloddiwr ("Soldier-Engineer"/"Soldier-Sapper"), Milwr-Gyrrwr ("Soldier-Driver"), Milwr-Trehnmann ("Soldier-Supply-trainist"), Milwr-Medygg ("Soldier-Medic")
- Minority language 1:Soldat-Infanterist ("Soldier-Infantryman"), Soldat-Jäger ("Soldier-Skirmisher"), Soldat-Dragoner ("Soldier-Dragoon"), Soldat-Ulan ("Soldier-Lancer"), Soldat-Husar ("Soldier-Hussar"), Soldat-Kanonier ("Soldier-Artilleryman"), Soldat-Pionir ("Soldier-Engineer"/"Soldier-Pioneer/Sapper"), Soldat-Fahrer ("Soldier-Driver"), Soldat-Trehnmann ("Soldier-Supply-trainist"), Soldat-Sanitäter ("Soldier-Medic")
- Minority language 2:Közkatona-Gyalogos ("Soldier-Infantryman"), Közkatona-Vadász ("Soldier-Hunter"), Közkatona-Dragonyos ("Soldier-Dragoon"), Közkatona-Ulánus ("Soldier-Lancer"), Közkatona-Huszár ("Soldier-Hussar"), Közkatona-Tüzér ("Soldier-Artilleryman"), Közkatona-Árkász ("Soldier-Engineer"/"Soldier-Sapper"), Közkatona-Vezető ("Soldier-Driver"), Közkatona-Trénos ("Soldier-Supply-trainist"), Közkatona-Medikus ("Soldier-Medic")
- Minority language 3: Vojak-Pešiak ("Soldier-Infantryman"), Vojak-Zálesák ("Soldier-Woodsman"), Vojak-Dragún ("Soldier-Dragoon"), Vojak-Ulán ("Soldier-Lancer"), Vojak-Husár ("Soldier-Hussar"), Vojak-Delostrelec ("Soldier-Artilleryman"), Vojak-Ženista ("Soldier-Engineer"/"Soldier-Sapper"), Vojak-Vodič ("Soldier-Driver"), Vojak-Trénnik ("Soldier-Supply-trainist"), Vojak-Zdravotník ("Soldier-Medic")
- Minority language 4:Vojín-Pěšák ("Soldier-Infantryman"), Vojín-Zálesák ("Soldier-Woodsman"), Vojín-Dragoun ("Soldier-Dragoon"), Vojín-Hulán ("Soldier-Lancer"), Vojín-Husar ("Soldier-Hussar"), Vojín-Dělostrelec ("Soldier-Artilleryman"), Vojín-Ženista ("Soldier-Engineer"/"Soldier-Sapper"), Vojín-Vodič ("Soldier-Driver"), Vojín-Trénník ("Soldier-Supply-trainist"), Vojín-Zdravotník ("Soldier-Medic")
This makes it easier to denote which soldier is in which branch of the armed forces, without having to remember a unique rank name for every branch of the forces. The three cavalry soldier branches are also called collectivelly Marchogwr ("cavalryman", "horseman") and can sometimes be given with that variation in the first half of the hyphenated term (e.g. Marchogwr-Dragŵn, Marchogwr-Gwaywr, Marchogwr-Hwsâr). The minority languages can substitute this with their own terms Reiter, Lovas and Jazdec. The only cavalry variation on the rank of Captain in a minority language occurs with Rittmeister.
Historical examples of occassional Kymrian use of rank hyphenation
In the past of the Kymrian royal army (ca a century and more earlier), what became the Milwr-Troedfilwyr was originally two different ranks, depending on whether the footman was a Musketeer or a Rifleman, he was likely to get called a Milwr-Mysgedwr or a Milwr-Reifflwr, respectivelly. Some of the royal riflemen, trained as sharpshooters (including with the innovative repeating "wind-rifle" of the Kymrians, updated versions still popular among sky pirates) were called Milwr-Coediwr ("Soldier-Woodsman"), later changed to Milwr-Ysgarmeswr ("Soldier-Skirmisher"), but then reverted back to Milwr-Coediwr ("Soldier-Woodsman").
c.) Other rank terminology naming conventions in the Kymrian military and related notes
The equivalent to a real world Marshal rank in the Kymrian military is the Royal General, the head general of the entire Royal Army. The only official usage of the term "marshal" in the Kymrian military are the "sky marshals" of the Royal Flying Host. The Royal Navy has the most divergent terminology for its individual ranks (most soldier and NCO ranks, most of the highest ranks), whereas the individual ranks in the Royal Army and the Royal Flying Host are fairly similar to each other (the biggest difference being the lowest soldier rank and the highest ranks, the latter replacing "general" ranks with "sky marshal" ranks).
Do note that Kymria itself does not actually use real world English terminology, whether UK, US, Canadian, Australian or any other anglophone country designations for the individual ranks. Kymria does not speak English at all, save for people who know foreign languages. Their most used names for the individual ranks are in what appears to us as real world Welsh.
d.) Heraldic weapons, heraldic animals or mythical creatures and colour-coding in Kingdom of Kymria rank insignia
The rank insignia of the Royal Armed Forces of Kymria uses a simple, but fairly deep system of "heraldic-coding" and colour-coding that's designed to be as intuitive and easy to remember as possible, and make it impossible to unintentionally confuse ranks, even by a layperson. Famously, the insignia is designed to work completely without any letters or numbers as indicators, and work according to a logic similar to that used in the "keep it simple" logic of designing coats of arms and other heraldry.
As in the real world, the lowest-ranking soldiers, i.e. privates/seamen/aviators/pilots, do not have their own rank insignia. From the second soldier level onward, regardless of service, they get a set of rank insignia that gradually increases in importance, varying its overall level based on alternating "trios" of symbols.
Heraldic weapons (soldier-officer rank scale) - located in the upper part of the rank insignia, a heraldic depiction of a historical weapon. The lowest three ranks have polearms as their insignia (glaives for Royal Army and Royal Flying Host personnel, halberds for Royal Bodyguards, boarding pikes for Royal Navy personnel), the three continued NCO ranks after that have archery weapons (a bow and arrow for Royal Army and Flying Host personnel, a crossbow for Royal Navy personnel), the Ensign equivalent has an impact weapon or propeller and an animal or dragon body part other than a paw or foot (one-handed battleaxe for army Cadets, boarding axe and sea dragon tail for naval Cadets, propeller and sea dragon wing for naval aviation Cadets, propeller and hawk wing for Airman Cadets), a single-edged sword for three ranks of lower-ranked commissioned officers (falchion for Royal Army and Royal Flying Host personnel, cutlass for Royal Navy personnel), a longsword or a ship's wheel for three higher-ranked commissioned officers (longsword for Royal Army and Royal Flying Host personnel, ship's wheel for Royal navy personnel), a mace or an anchor for generals, commodores, admirals and sky marshals (mace for Royal Army and Royal Flying Host personnel, anchor for Royal navy personnel). Only the highest ranks of the army, navy and air force - the Royal General, Admiral of the Royal Fleet and the Royal Sky Marshal - will have a stylised, heraldic Kymrian Royal Crown instead of a heraldic depiction of a historical weapon.
Heraldic animal or heraldic mythical beast body part (rank standing) - these indicate the numerical standing of an indvidual rank in the military, in the same way pips usually do in rank insignia. Instead of pips, the insignia chosen are either dragon paws or hawk feet, depicting a varying number of fingers with claws or fingers with talons. One finger is lower than two fingers, and those are lower than three fingers. For example, the Soldier First Class, Lance Corporal and Corporal all share the aforementioned glaive symbol in the upper part of their insignia, but the dragon paw has a differing number of fingers depending on the exact soldier's rank. Thus, a Soldier FC has a dragon paw showing a single finger, a Lance Corporal has a dragon paw with two fingers, and a Corporal has a dragon paw with two fingers. (Pilots FC, Flight Corporals and Corporal of the Royal Flying Host will have a one-fingered, two-fingered or three-fingered hawk foot instead.) The two highest rank officers of the Kymrian army, navy and air force, the two highest general, admiral and sky marshal ranks, will have a dragon head or a hawk head instead of a dragon paw or a hawk foot.
Colour-coding trimming (service branches of the Kymrian military) - each service of the Royal Armed Forces has their own colour-coded trimming on the standardised rank insignia of the armed forces. The Royal Army has 10 colour codes (for Infantry, Special Forces, Cavalry/Mounted, Artillery, Logistics, Engineering, Signals, Observers, Medical and Royal Bodyguards), the Royal Navy (and Royal Naval Aviation within it) has 4 colour codes (Surface navy, Submarine navy, Naval Aviation, Naval Airship Patrol), and the Royal Flying Host has only 2 colour codes (Aeroplane pilots/Glider flyers, Airshipmen). Colour-coding isn't as important a part of the rank insignia as the more key elements, hence why it's relegated to the trimming of the overall individual insignia. However, it adds depth and a great deal of information about the particular rank with very minimal use of colour differentiation.
In the case of my fictional Kymria, I've taken most of the terminological inspiration from British, Austro-Hungarian and some other central European terminological traditions, and I've tried to make it as consistent as possible. The rank names themselves are conventional, and differ very little from the sort of ranks you'd find in the OTL world during the last ca 200 years. Nota bene, I've done this attention to consistency in multiple languages. The Welsh-sounding one is the main one, but there are also minority languages heard in the forces, and as I've mentioned above, there's even a Kymrian equivalent to "Army Slavic".
On the visual side of things, I've largelly gone for an original approach. No stars or pips, and only the three topmost ranks of the main branches have a royal crown. The insignia is instead rooted in subtle but logical colour-coding and in a system of symbolic insignia largelly unique to Kymria and its national vexilology/heraldry.
There's not a mess of unique names for nearly every service branch's ranks, unlike in both real British tradition or Austro-Hungarian tradition. As you can see, they do have a system to specify which soldier comes from which branch, but unless there's a good reason to mention it, it's not added to the rank name as standard. Thus, everyone just goes by the standard army, navy and air force rank they have (see below, the overviews for each of the three services).
For example, you can have three sergeants of the army, navy and air force meeting, and neither of them will have a convoluted long name for their rank. They'll just be sergeants. Yes, even the navy has sergeants, because the Kymrian navy has a different tradition than a real world British or other anglophone one, and not quite an A-H one either. It's an industrial fantasy country, so I'm being creative, within reasonable limits, and not keeping things to some strict OTL template.
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Royal Army of Kymria (Byddin Frenhinolo Kymra)
View attachment 841953 Private - No insignia Private First Class - Glaive, one dragon claw Lance Corporal - Glaive, two dragon claws Corporal - Glaive, three dragon claws Sergeant - Bow and arrow, one dragon claw Master-Sergeant - Bow and arrow, two dragon claws Cadet - Bow and arrow, three dragon claws Ensign - Axe, dragon wing Lieutenant - Falchion, one dragon claw First Lieutenant - Falchion, two dragon claws Captain - Falchion, three dragon claws Major - Sword, one dragon claw Lieutenant Colonel - Sword, two dragon claws Colonel - Sword, three dragon claws Brigadier general - Mace, one dragon claw Major General - Mace, two dragon claws Lieutenant General - Mace, three dragon claws General - Mace, dragon head Royal General - Crown, dragon head
The rank insignia of Royal Army personnel ha light green trimming (infantry), light green trimming with camo light brown dots (skirmishers, special forces), dark green trimming (cavalry, mounted soldiers and early motorised-armoured vehicles), red trimming (artillery), light brown trimming (logistics), dark brown trimming (engineers and sappers), golden trimming with orange line (signals corps), salmon pink trimming (observers), white trimming (medical corps), alternating golden-light green-golden-dark green trimming (Royal Bodyguard units).
The higher ranks of the cavalry use sabres instead of swords as their rank insignia (for Major, Lieutenant Colonel and Colonel). The lower ranks of the Royal Bodyguard units use halberds instead of glaives as their rank insignia (for Private First Class, Lance Corporal and Corporal).
The only permanent aerial units of the Royal Army of Kymria are observation balloon spotters and crews, all formally under the observers corps. All of the airship, aeroplane and glider military units of the army had been moved to more recently established Royal Flying Host. The naval aviation of Kymria is part of the Royal Navy of Kymria.
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Royal Navy of Kymria (Llynges Brenhinolo Kymra) and Royal Naval Aviation of Kymria (Hedfan Llyngesol Brenhinol o Kymra)
View attachment 841799 Seaman / Aviator - No insignia Seaman First Class / Aviator First Class - Boarding pike, one sea dragon claw Pike Seaman / Spindrift Aviator - Boarding pike, two sea dragon claws Leading Seaman / Leading Aviator - Boarding pike, three sea dragon claws Sergeant - Crossbow, one sea dragon claw Master-Sergeant - Crossbow, two sea dragon claws Cadet - Crossbow, three sea dragon claws Ensign - Boarding axe, sea dragon tail (navy) / sea dragon wing (naval aviation) Lieutenant - Cutlass, one sea dragon claw First Lieutenant - Cutlass, two sea dragon claws Ship captain - Cutlass, three sea dragon claws Major - Ship's wheel, one sea dragon claw Lieutenant Colonel - Ship's wheel, two sea dragon claws Colonel - Ship's wheel, three sea dragon claws Commodore - Anchor, one sea dragon claw Rear Admiral - Anchor, two sea dragon claws Vice Admiral - Anchor, three sea dragon claws Admiral - Anchor, sea dragon head Admiral of the Royal Fleet - Crown, sea dragon head
The rank insignia of Royal Navy personnel has dark blue trimming (surface navy personnel) or dark blue trimming with a slightly lighter-blue wave-like pattern (submarine personnel). The rank insignia of Royal Naval Aviation personnel has dark blue trimming with light blue line (naval aviators) or dark blue trimming with light blue line and stylised light blue airship shapes (naval airshipmen).
Equivalent rank listing (English term listed on the left, Kymrese term on the right):
Seaman (eq. of Soldier) - Morwr ("Seaman")
Aviator (eq. Soldier) - Awyrennwr ("Aviator")
Seaman First Class (eq. of Soldier First Class) - Morwr Dosbarth Cyntaf ("Seaman First Class")
Aviator First Class (eq. of Soldier First Class) - Awyrennwr Dosbarth Cyntaf ("Aviator First Class")
Pike Seaman (eq. of Lance Corporal) - Morwr Penhwyaid ("Pike Seaman")
Spindrift Aviator (eq. of Lance Corporal) - Awyrennwr Troellwr ("Spindrift Aviator")
Leading Seaman (eq. of Corporal) - Morwr Blaenllaw ("Leading Seaman")
Leading Aviator (eq. of Corporal) - Awyrennwr Blaenllaw ("Leading Aviator") (ranks same as in the Royal Army of Kymria)
Ship captain (eq. of Captain) - Capten Llong ("Ship captain") (ranks same as in the Royal Army of Kymria)
Commodore (eq. of Brigadier general) - Comodor ("Commodore")
Rear Admiral (eq. of Major General) - Cefn Llyngesydd ("Rear Admiral")
Vice Admiral (eq. of Lieutenant General) - Is-lyngesydd ("Vice Admiral")
Admiral (eq. of General) - Llyngesydd ("Admiral")
Admiral of the Royal Fleet (eq. of Royal General) - Llyngesydd y Llynges Frenhinol ("Admiral of the Royal Fleet")
The Kymrian navy does not use Petty Officer in its naval rank terminology (that tradition occurs in the navy of Victinya instead). The fictional rank of "Pike Seaman" is the direct equivalent to the real world Lance Corporal rank, which also exists in Kymria's Royal Army and Royal Flying Host. Just like the Lance Coporal symbolically "broke a lance in combat", so too is the "Pike Seaman" symbolically denoted as a seaman who "broke a boarding pike in naval combat". The ranks of naval aviators who fly naval aviation aeroplanes (flying boats, floatplanes) do not go above the rank of Colonel, because it's expected naval aviation commodores serve on naval aviation airships or command seaplane tenders.
The reason the Kymrian navy doesn't have a fully British-style or fully Austro-Hungarian style rank terminology tradition is because Kymria is a fictional country, and because the country of Victinya in the same setting already has British-style and American-style ranks terminology, including in the Victinyan navy. To keep things more unique and avoid confusing people, I wanted the rank terminology of the Kymrian Royal Armed Forces, including the Royal Navy, as well as the Royal Army and Royal Flying Host, to sound distinct from the rank terminology used in Victinya for their armed forces.
Some of the graphical elements in the navy ranks overview still need some touching up and I'll get to it soon. Please don't complain if you notice graphical artefacts. They'll be dealt with, I assure you.
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Royal Flying Host of Kymria (Llu Hedfan Brenhinol o Kymra)
View attachment 841798 Pilot / Flyer - No insignia Pilot First Class / Flyer First Class - Glaive, one hawk talon Flight Corporal - Glaive, two hawk talons Corporal - Glaive, three hawk talons Sergeant - Bow and arrow, one hawk talon Master-Sergeant - Bow and arrow, two hawk talons Airman Cadet - Bow and arrow, three hawk talons Ensign - Propeller, hawk wing Lieutenant - Falchion, one hawk talon First Lieutenant - Falchion, two hawk talons Captain - Falchion, three hawk talons Major - Sword, one hawk talon Wing Commander - Sword, two hawk talons Air Commander - Sword, three hawk talons Sky Commodore - Mace, one hawk talon Sky Vice-Marshal - Mace, two hawk talons Sky Marshal - Mace, three hawk talons Chief Sky Marshal - Mace, hawk head Royal Sky Marshal - Crown, hawk head
The rank insignia of Royal Flying Host personnel has light blue trimming (aeroplane and glider airmen and personnel) or light blue trimming with stylised white airship shapes (airshipmen and airship personnel).
Equivalent rank listing (English term listed on the left, Kymrese term on the right):
Pilot (eq. of Soldier) - Peilot ("Pilot")
Flyer (eq. Soldier) - Hedfanwr ("Flyer")
Pilot First Class (eq. of Soldier First Class) - Peilot Dosbarth Cyntaf ("Pilot First Class")
Flyer First Class (eq. of Soldier First Class) - Hedfanwr Dosbarth Cyntaf ("Flyer First Class")
Flight Corporal (eq. of Lance Corporal) - Corporal Hedfan ("Flight Corporal" / "Flying Corporal") (ranks same as in the Royal Army of Kymria)
Airman Cadet (eq. of Cadet) - Cadet Awyrwr ("Airman Cadet") (ranks same as in the Royal Army of Kymria)
Wing Commander (eq. of Lieutenant Colonel) - Cadlywydd Asgell ("Wing Commander")
Air Commander (eq. of Colonel) - Cadlywydd Awyr ("Air Commander")
Sky Commodore (eq. of Brigadier General) - Comodor Awyr ("Sky Commodore")
Sky Vice-Marshal (eq. of Major General) - Is-farsial Awyr ("Sky Vice-Marshal")
Sky Marshal (eq. of Lieutenant General) - Marsial Awyr ("Sky Marshal")
Chief Sky Marshal (eq. of General) - Prif Farsial Awyr ("Chief Sky Marshal")
Royal Sky Marshal (eq. of Royal General) - Marsial Awyr Brenhinol ("Royal Sky Marshal")
The "Pilot" and "Flyer" ranks are not only equal in standing, they are also largelly just semantic and symbolic, per the aviation traditions of not only Kymria, but the countries of the Aeroverse in general. "Pilot" refers to an airman flying an aeroplane (always a powered aircraft, one with a proper fuselage and cockpit where the pilot can be seated), while "flyer" refers to an airman flying a glider (aside from the earliest sailplanes, essentially always solo, rarely seated at all, more in the manner of a hand glider).
Real world Welsh might have words for "the heavens", "heaven", "the highs", but doesn't seem to differentiate between "sky" and "air". I was tempted to change the "sky" instances of awyr ("air", "sky") to cwmwl ("cloud"), but ultimately decided against it. However, if you personally prefer the cwmwl variation and find it more interesting, I am fine with that.
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I am also thinking of going back to some of my Sparrow Avengers countries and doing ranks for them as well. Should be fun.
Three things:
1. I would suggest switching Korporal and Zugführer around. Zugführer may usually be superior to Korporal but that is asking for confusion between a German speaking Korporal and a Kymrese Corporal, despite the latter being superior by one rank. (Another option is going from Lance Corporal - Corporal system to Corporal - Senior/Chief Corporal system)
2. Naval Captains/Ship Captains are equilavent of Army/Air Force Colonels. Use of the same term is fine (some languages do call their Naval Captains by their term for Colonel and have their equivalent for captain stay the same (thought I am not aware of any European language (other than Turkish if you count it) where this is the case. Anyway, the point is you can certainly call the Naval ranks equal to Army Captains and Colonels Captains and Colonels but then the Captain probably shouldn't be specified as ship captain as that would not be the case (Naval equilavent of an Army Captain is 1st Lieutenant/Lieutenant Senior Grade/Leutnant zur See/Linienschiffsleutnant, these officer might command only the smallest of ships like PT boats. There are three ranks above them to command most warships (Lieutenant Commander, Commander and Captain in the English scheme; Corvette, Frigate and Ship of the Line Captains (or Captains at Sea) for most of Continental Europe).
3. Jäger also translates as hunter. So perhaps that should be a Soldier-Hunter like Hungarian as well, rather than Soldier-Skirmisher.
(I guess I could also say something about changing Master Sergeant to Staff Sergeant to match with Welsh/German but since the country does not actually use English I guess it doesn't really matter.)
Otherwise I do really like the rank insignia however.
Three things:
1. I would suggest switching Korporal and Zugführer around. Zugführer may usually be superior to Korporal but that is asking for confusion between a German speaking Korporal and a Kymrese Corporal, despite the latter being superior by one rank. (Another option is going from Lance Corporal - Corporal system to Corporal - Senior/Chief Corporal system)
The Zugsführer as an Austro-Hungarian or modern Austrian rank is a Corporal or Master-Corporal and the Korporal is just a Lance Corporal because this was the actual hierarchy used in the Austro-Hungarian army. The Hungarian language equivalents - szakaszvezető means Zugsführer, tizedes means a Korporal - are still used even in the modern Hungarian armed forces.
Here's the kicker. Though tizedes is corporal (and Korporal) in meaning, it was/is not a corporal in terms of hierarchy, when compared with the British system of a lance corporal in-between privates and a full corporal. Austria-Hungary developed the rank of Zugsführer as the actual corporal rank (in the sense of "full corporal", "higher-ranked corporal", in charge of a small-ish unit) and the Korporal / tizedes rank in its original naming was relegated to the actual rank that the British would refer to as a lance corporal. The Zugsführer was even used by Austria-Hungary at one point as their sergeant level equivalent, so it's a complete ruddy mess in terms of where it fit in the hierarchy. I didn't want it to be the equivalent of a sergeant, for certain in-universe fiction reasons, so it's actually an equivalent of a corporal, while what sounds like a corporal at face value (in "German" and "Hungarian", at least) is actually a lance corporal equivalent rank.
Part of the confusion, aside from different traditions of OTL past and present armies, might stem from the etymologies. In Hungarian, you had and still have the strictly logical, numerical approach to naming some NCO and officer ranks. Tizedes ("tenth-soldier") was a corporal, Százados ("hundred-soldier") a captain/Hauptmann style officer, Ezredes ("thousand-soldier") an officer at the level of a colonel. Some Slavic languages might have been influenced by this or created their own analogous terms. Desiatnik, desátník, etc. ("tenth-soldier") still mean corporal, while satnik, sotnik, or the archaic in some languages stotník (sto, "hundred-soldier") meant captain, Hauptmann, headman/hetman. Where the archaic terms didn't survive, they go straightforwardly with captain. The Slavic use of the term plukovník, polkovnik, pukovnik, etc., etc., for colonel was instead derived from the pluk, polk, etc. term, used for military units around the size of a regiment, later used as a direct synonym for a regiment in the modern sense.
On a sidenote, the reason the Királyi tábornagy rank of Kymria is also occassionally called just a tábornagy (lit. "camp-major", "camp-headman") is because tábornagy is the equivalent of "field marshal", "general of the armies", etc., and there is only a single related term lower in the hierarchy, altábornagy ("lower camp-major", "lower field marshal"). The real world current Hungarian armed forces don't use the rank of tábornagy anymore, their highest rank is equivalent to "general". The last time they had the rank of "field marshal" was back during WWII, and only the "lower marshal" survives in the modern rank hierarchy, amusingly enough.
2. Naval Captains/Ship Captains are equilavent of Army/Air Force Colonels. Use of the same term is fine (some languages do call their Naval Captains by their term for Colonel and have their equivalent for captain stay the same (thought I am not aware of any European language (other than Turkish if you count it) where this is the case.
This is the idea with Kymria. I intentionally avoided moving the standing of the rank upwards or downwards. if you're interested in a more British sytem, once I might do the ranks for Victinya from the same setting, those ranks are going to be far more British in style, right down to the names and positions. (Also, in their air force, Victinya uses "air marshal" rather than Kymria's "sky marshal". Part of why I gave Kymria's ranks a slight British undertone, but without going fully British in style.)
Anyway, the point is you can certainly call the Naval ranks equal to Army Captains and Colonels Captains and Colonels but then the Captain probably shouldn't be specified as ship captain as that would not be the case (Naval equilavent of an Army Captain is 1st Lieutenant/Lieutenant Senior Grade/Leutnant zur See/Linienschiffsleutnant, these officer might command only the smallest of ships like PT boats. There are three ranks above them to command most warships (Lieutenant Commander, Commander and Captain in the English scheme; Corvette, Frigate and Ship of the Line Captains (or Captains at Sea) for most of Continental Europe).
I know there's several levels to it. In the case of the Kymrian navy, the idea is that the captain is just a captain, and the colonels above him command some of the more capital ships of the navy, whereas the commodores and admirals have the command of fleets of various size.
The "captain" rank of the Kymrian navy does not command the largest capital ships of the fleet, or even flagship. At most, a Kymrian naval captain will command individual mid-sized ships of the navy, neither the smallest nor the biggest ones, and not large groups of ships.
I am also thinking of renaming it back to just "captain", because the ranks also have to account for naval aviation and it doesn't make much sense to call a seaplane crew member of a captain rank a "ship captain". A "ship captain" only makes sense for a ship or a naval airship.
Thing is, many of the Germanic languages' term for a "skirmisher" (in the 17th to 19th century sense, i.e. not line infantry soldier, but in recon, sharpshooting, ambushes, sabotage, etc.) or "ranger" soldier (in the 20th century sense, often an army paratrooper or other reconnaissance infantry with special training) was and is "hunter", e.g. Jäger in German, Jaeger in Swedish, etc. It was a reference to the fact these soldiers originated as skirmishers doing ambushes or other non-line-infantry raids and attacks on enemy forces, "hunting" them. Some of the earliest skirmishers in standing armies even had a hunter-sharpshooter background, so it wasn't all that surprising the nickname/term emerged from that. I have added a secondary translation to the "German" variation of the term in the fictional ranks, so it's translated as "Soldier-Hunter" or "Soldier-Skirmisher", since both are directly synonymous.
Part of Kymria's backstory is that its military scientists invented a repeating air rifle well over a hundred years before the setting's present day stories are set, and that particular repeater is simply the Girandoni rifle of the Habsburg monarchy from the late 1700s. Used primarily by Austrian monarchy Jägers. Similarly, Kymria's skirmisher/Jäger/Ysgarmeswr/Coediwr soldiers used it for sniping ambushes on the enemy, and the rifle was equally uneconomical to produce in large numbers.
The difference in the Aeroverse is, once the rifles stopped being used by the Kymrian military and started being sold off in later decades as an antique military rifle or hunting rifle, the aeronauts of the emerging aviation in the setting started to adopt it in fairly significant numbers. It's not the most powerful rifle, but it is a repeater, you don't need gunpowder for it, nor even cartridges. Even though it's a dated type of rifle, those advantages are still favoured by various sky pirates, aeronaut smugglers, etc. in the setting. If they're ever on the run or a long flight and run out of gunpowder, the "wind-gun" or the "airlock", as they call it (á la "flintlock", etc.) is a practical fall-back rifle.
Thank you. I tried to put as much thought into it as I could, with the cultural context (and storytelling context) of my fictional country in mind.
I also tried to improve upon real world precedents, including the rank system used in early 1900s Austria-Hungary. The colour-coding of their ranks based on the particular sevice of the armed forces was a neat idea, and not all that hard to remember, but Austria-Hungary arguably messed it up by introducing an overblown plethora of unique rank names for every single service. Something I wanted to avoid while designing the Kymrian ranks.
As I've explained above, it made more sense to me to have the colour-coding trimming, but keep the rank names entirely consistent within each of the three main branches (army, navy, air force). The hyphenation solution is far more elegant, as few outside the battlefield, military exercises or armed forces bureaucracy will even bother to clarify the rank to the minute details. The only unique ranks are between the three main branches themselves, and then tiny variations for the lowliest airmen ranks in the air force and the naval aviation.
The Zugsführer is an Austro-Hungarian or modern Austrian rank is a Corporal or Master-Corporal and the Korporal is just a Lance Corporal because this was the actual hierarchy used in the Austro-Hungarian army. The Hungarian language equivalents - szakaszvezető means Zugsführer, tizedes means a Korporal - are still used even in the modern Hungarian armed forces.
My issue is not the position of the rank and equilavency with IRL military. It is Corporal and Korporal sounding the same despite being at different levels.
I suppose that is the case with Army-Navy ranks in English but in this case with both being in the same service the potential for confusion seemed higher (and hell, iirc Anglophone navies like to call Marine/Army Captains that are aboard ships Majors just to avoid the issue).
(Then against, suppose I don't have much ground to complain. My Venusian Empire ranks (visible on the previous page of this thread) have some similar issues (Spanish sergeant ranks ended up higher than other languages because they had more Corporal (or Cabo) ranks. Thought I at least avoided French Majors being NCOs by not having that rank in specific but only as Sergeant-Major or Adjudant-Major. Another one is French Contre-Amiral being Commodore level and their Vice-Amiral being Rear/Counter Admiral level. With the Vide Admiral equalivent being Vice-Amiral de Escadrille))
Part of the confusion, aside from different traditions of OTL past and present armies, might stem from the etymologies. In Hungarian, you had and still have the strictly logical, numerical approach to naming some NCO and officer ranks. Tizedes ("tenth-soldier") was a corporal, Százados ("hundred-soldier") a captain/Hauptmann style officer, Ezredes ("thousand-soldier") an officer at the level of a colonel. Some Slavic languages might have been influenced by this or created their own analogous terms. Desiatnik, desátník, etc. ("tenth-soldier") still mean corporal, while satnik, sotnik, or the archaic in some languages stotník (sto, "hundred-soldier") meant captain, Hauptmann, headman/hetman. Where the archaic terms didn't survive, they go straightforwardly with captain. The Slavic use of the term plukovník, polkovnik, pukovnik, etc., etc., for colonel was instead derived from the pluk, polk, etc. term, used for military units around the size of a regiment, later used as a direct synonym for a regiment in the modern sense.
Turkish has something similar with Sergeant being Onbaşı (Head/Chief of Ten), Captain being Yüzbaşı (Head/Chief of Hundred) and Major being Binbaşı (Head/Chief of Thousand).
(Tümen, the word for Division comes from an older term for 10.000 soldiers).
This is the idea with Kymria. I intentionally avoided moving the standing of the rank upwards or downwards. if you're interested in a more British sytem, once I might do the ranks for Victinya from the same setting, those ranks are going to be far more British in style, right down to the names and positions. (Also, in their air force, Victinya uses "air marshal" rather than Kymria's "sky marshal". Part of why I gave Kymria's ranks a slight British undertone, but without going fully British in style.)
I know there's several levels to it. In the case of the Kymrian navy, the idea is that the captain is just a captain, and the colonels above him command some of the more capital ships of the navy, whereas the commodores and admirals have the command of fleets of various size.
The "captain" rank of the Kymrian navy does not command the largest capital ships of the fleet, or even flagship. At most, a Kymrian naval captain will command individual mid-sized ships of the navy, neither the smallest nor the biggest ones, and not large groups of ships.
I am also thinking of renaming it back to just "captain", because the ranks also have to account for naval aviation and it doesn't make much sense to call a seaplane crew member of a captain rank a "ship captain". A "ship captain" only makes sense for a ship or a naval airship.
My issue isn't Navy and Army sharing ranks (it is something the modern Turkish Navy does, with the exception of having Admirals instead of Generals) but the fact that a captain (rank) will most likely not be a captain (position).
So I would just use the exact same name. If distinction between services is ever needed Naval or Army could be added before the rank in conversation.
Even if using Kaptäin (or equilavent) instead of Hauptmann (or equilavent) I don't think the Kymrese needs specification in the title. I mean, not like you put ship or naval with sergeants or lieutenants so I don't think the captains need it either.
Thing is, many of the Germanic languages' term for a "skirmisher" (in the 17th to 19th century sense, i.e. not line infantry soldier, but in recon, sharpshooting, ambush sabotage, etc.) or "ranger" soldier (in the 20th century sense, often an army paratrooper or other reconnaissance infantry with special training) was and is "hunter", e.g. Jäger in German, Jaeger in Swedish, etc. It was a reference to the fact these soldiers originated as skirmishers doing ambushes or other non-line-infantry raids and attacks on enemy forces, "hunting" them. Some of the earliest skirmishers in stading armies even had a hunter-sharpshooter background, so it wasn't all that surprising the nickname/term emerged from that. I have added a secondary translation to the "German" variation of the term in the fictional ranks, so it's translated as "Soldier-Hunter" or "Soldier-Skirmisher", since both are directly synonymous.
I know that Jäger is essentially Ranger/Skirmisher equilavent but since you put "hunter" in the translation of the Hungarian I think it makes more sense for the German one to be translated the same way as well.
Thought I suppose I am being nitpicky since as you say, they are synonymous.
The rank insignia for the armed forces of the Kingdom of Kymria. A monarchy geographically, culturally and historically inspired by Austria-Hungary and Wales, from my fictional setting, the Aeroverse. The Kymrian military consists of the Royal Army of Kymria (Byddin Frenhinolo Kymra), the Royal Navy of Kymria (Llynges Brenhinolo Kymra), which includes the Royal Naval Aviation of Kymria, and the Royal Flying Host of Kymria (Llu Hedfan Brenhinol o Kymra). Like other countries in the Aeroverse, the Kymrian military is at a roughly 1910 to 1920 level of technology.
a.) Languages used in the Kymrian military
Kymrese (the Kymrian language) is the main communication language of the royal Kymrian armed forces. There is also a fictional equivalent to the real world "Army Slavic", something of an impromptu constructed language, used as a sort of soldier creole or soldier jargon for basic communication.
b.) Specifying full ranks in the Kymrian military (only for bureaucratic use, not everyday use or field use)
The Kymrian approach to specifying ranks is to hyphenate them in the individual languages. The lowest rank, soldier, as an example:
- Kymrese:Milwr-Troedfilwyr ("Soldier-Infantryman"), Milwr-Coediwr ("Soldier-Woodsman", older version Milwr-Ysgarmeswr, "Soldier-Skirmisher"), Milwr-Dragŵn, Milwr-Dragwner ("Soldier-Dragoon"), Milwr-Gwaywr ("Soldier-Lancer"), Milwr-Hwsâr ("Soldier-Hussar"), Milwr-Magnelwr ("Soldier-Artilleryman"), Milwr-Cloddiwr ("Soldier-Engineer"/"Soldier-Sapper"), Milwr-Gyrrwr ("Soldier-Driver"), Milwr-Trehnmann ("Soldier-Supply-trainist"), Milwr-Medygg ("Soldier-Medic")
- Minority language 1:Soldat-Infanterist ("Soldier-Infantryman"), Soldat-Jäger ("Soldier-Skirmisher"/"Soldier-Hunter"), Soldat-Dragoner ("Soldier-Dragoon"), Soldat-Ulan ("Soldier-Lancer"), Soldat-Husar ("Soldier-Hussar"), Soldat-Kanonier ("Soldier-Artilleryman"), Soldat-Pionir ("Soldier-Engineer"/"Soldier-Pioneer/Sapper"), Soldat-Fahrer ("Soldier-Driver"), Soldat-Trehnmann ("Soldier-Supply-trainist"), Soldat-Sanitäter ("Soldier-Medic")
- Minority language 2:Közkatona-Gyalogos ("Soldier-Infantryman"), Közkatona-Vadász ("Soldier-Hunter"), Közkatona-Dragonyos ("Soldier-Dragoon"), Közkatona-Ulánus ("Soldier-Lancer"), Közkatona-Huszár ("Soldier-Hussar"), Közkatona-Tüzér ("Soldier-Artilleryman"), Közkatona-Árkász ("Soldier-Engineer"/"Soldier-Sapper"), Közkatona-Vezető ("Soldier-Driver"), Közkatona-Trénos ("Soldier-Supply-trainist"), Közkatona-Medikus ("Soldier-Medic")
- Minority language 3: Vojak-Pešiak ("Soldier-Infantryman"), Vojak-Zálesák ("Soldier-Woodsman"), Vojak-Dragún ("Soldier-Dragoon"), Vojak-Ulán ("Soldier-Lancer"), Vojak-Husár ("Soldier-Hussar"), Vojak-Delostrelec ("Soldier-Artilleryman"), Vojak-Ženista ("Soldier-Engineer"/"Soldier-Sapper"), Vojak-Vodič ("Soldier-Driver"), Vojak-Trénnik ("Soldier-Supply-trainist"), Vojak-Zdravotník ("Soldier-Medic")
- Minority language 4:Vojín-Pěšák ("Soldier-Infantryman"), Vojín-Zálesák ("Soldier-Woodsman"), Vojín-Dragoun ("Soldier-Dragoon"), Vojín-Hulán ("Soldier-Lancer"), Vojín-Husar ("Soldier-Hussar"), Vojín-Dělostrelec ("Soldier-Artilleryman"), Vojín-Ženista ("Soldier-Engineer"/"Soldier-Sapper"), Vojín-Vodič ("Soldier-Driver"), Vojín-Trénník ("Soldier-Supply-trainist"), Vojín-Zdravotník ("Soldier-Medic")
This makes it easier to denote which soldier is in which branch of the armed forces, without having to remember a unique rank name for every branch of the forces. The three cavalry soldier branches are also called collectivelly Marchogwr ("cavalryman", "horseman") and can sometimes be given with that variation in the first half of the hyphenated term (e.g. Marchogwr-Dragŵn, Marchogwr-Gwaywr, Marchogwr-Hwsâr). The minority languages can substitute this with their own terms Reiter, Lovas and Jazdec. The only cavalry variation on the rank of Captain in a minority language occurs with Rittmeister.
Historical examples of occassional Kymrian use of rank hyphenation
In the past of the Kymrian royal army (ca a century and more earlier), what became the Milwr-Troedfilwyr was originally two different ranks, depending on whether the footman was a Musketeer or a Rifleman, he was likely to get called a Milwr-Mysgedwr or a Milwr-Reifflwr, respectivelly. Some of the royal riflemen, trained as sharpshooters (including with the innovative repeating "wind-rifle" of the Kymrians, updated versions still popular among sky pirates) were called Milwr-Coediwr ("Soldier-Woodsman"), later changed to Milwr-Ysgarmeswr ("Soldier-Skirmisher"), but then reverted back to Milwr-Coediwr ("Soldier-Woodsman").
c.) Other rank terminology naming conventions in the Kymrian military and related notes
The equivalent to a real world Marshal rank in the Kymrian military is the Royal General, the head general of the entire Royal Army. The only official usage of the term "marshal" in the Kymrian military are the "sky marshals" of the Royal Flying Host. The Royal Navy has the most divergent terminology for its individual ranks (most soldier and NCO ranks, most of the highest ranks), whereas the individual ranks in the Royal Army and the Royal Flying Host are fairly similar to each other (the biggest difference being the lowest soldier rank and the highest ranks, the latter replacing "general" ranks with "sky marshal" ranks).
Do note that Kymria itself does not actually use real world English terminology, whether UK, US, Canadian, Australian or any other anglophone country designations for the individual ranks. Kymria does not speak English at all, save for people who know foreign languages. Their most used names for the individual ranks are in what appears to us as real world Welsh.
d.) Heraldic weapons, heraldic animals or mythical creatures and colour-coding in Kingdom of Kymria rank insignia
The rank insignia of the Royal Armed Forces of Kymria uses a simple, but fairly deep system of "heraldic-coding" and colour-coding that's designed to be as intuitive and easy to remember as possible, and make it impossible to unintentionally confuse ranks, even by a layperson. Famously, the insignia is designed to work completely without any letters or numbers as indicators, and work according to a logic similar to that used in the "keep it simple" logic of designing coats of arms and other heraldry.
As in the real world, the lowest-ranking soldiers, i.e. privates/seamen/aviators/pilots, do not have their own rank insignia. From the second soldier level onward, regardless of service, they get a set of rank insignia that gradually increases in importance, varying its overall level based on alternating "trios" of symbols.
Heraldic weapons (soldier-officer rank scale) - located in the upper part of the rank insignia, a heraldic depiction of a historical weapon. The lowest three ranks have polearms as their insignia (glaives for Royal Army and Royal Flying Host personnel, halberds for Royal Bodyguards, boarding pikes for Royal Navy personnel), the three continued NCO ranks after that have archery weapons (a bow and arrow for Royal Army and Flying Host personnel, a crossbow for Royal Navy personnel), the Ensign equivalent has an impact weapon or propeller and an animal or dragon body part other than a paw or foot (one-handed battleaxe for army Cadets, boarding axe and sea dragon tail for naval Cadets, propeller and sea dragon wing for naval aviation Cadets, propeller and hawk wing for Airman Cadets), a single-edged sword for three ranks of lower-ranked commissioned officers (falchion for Royal Army and Royal Flying Host personnel, cutlass for Royal Navy personnel), a longsword or a ship's wheel for three higher-ranked commissioned officers (longsword for Royal Army and Royal Flying Host personnel, ship's wheel for Royal navy personnel), a mace or an anchor for generals, commodores, admirals and sky marshals (mace for Royal Army and Royal Flying Host personnel, anchor for Royal navy personnel). Only the highest ranks of the army, navy and air force - the Royal General, Admiral of the Royal Fleet and the Royal Sky Marshal - will have a stylised, heraldic Kymrian Royal Crown instead of a heraldic depiction of a historical weapon.
Heraldic animal or heraldic mythical beast body part (rank standing) - these indicate the numerical standing of an indvidual rank in the military, in the same way pips usually do in rank insignia. Instead of pips, the insignia chosen are either dragon paws or hawk feet, depicting a varying number of fingers with claws or fingers with talons. One finger is lower than two fingers, and those are lower than three fingers. For example, the Soldier First Class, Lance Corporal and Corporal all share the aforementioned glaive symbol in the upper part of their insignia, but the dragon paw has a differing number of fingers depending on the exact soldier's rank. Thus, a Soldier FC has a dragon paw showing a single finger, a Lance Corporal has a dragon paw with two fingers, and a Corporal has a dragon paw with two fingers. (Pilots FC, Flight Corporals and Corporal of the Royal Flying Host will have a one-fingered, two-fingered or three-fingered hawk foot instead.) The two highest rank officers of the Kymrian army, navy and air force, the two highest general, admiral and sky marshal ranks, will have a dragon head or a hawk head instead of a dragon paw or a hawk foot.
Colour-coding trimming (service branches of the Kymrian military) - each service of the Royal Armed Forces has their own colour-coded trimming on the standardised rank insignia of the armed forces. The Royal Army has 10 colour codes (for Infantry, Special Forces, Cavalry/Mounted, Artillery, Logistics, Engineering, Signals, Observers, Medical and Royal Bodyguards), the Royal Navy (and Royal Naval Aviation within it) has 4 colour codes (Surface navy, Submarine navy, Naval Aviation, Naval Airship Patrol), and the Royal Flying Host has only 2 colour codes (Aeroplane pilots/Glider flyers, Airshipmen). Colour-coding isn't as important a part of the rank insignia as the more key elements, hence why it's relegated to the trimming of the overall individual insignia. However, it adds depth and a great deal of information about the particular rank with very minimal use of colour differentiation.
In the case of my fictional Kymria, I've taken most of the terminological inspiration from British, Austro-Hungarian and some other central European terminological traditions, and I've tried to make it as consistent as possible. The rank names themselves are conventional, and differ very little from the sort of ranks you'd find in the OTL world during the last ca 200 years. Nota bene, I've done this attention to consistency in multiple languages. The Welsh-sounding one is the main one, but there are also minority languages heard in the forces, and as I've mentioned above, there's even a Kymrian equivalent to "Army Slavic".
On the visual side of things, I've largelly gone for an original approach. No stars or pips, and only the three topmost ranks of the main branches have a royal crown. The insignia is instead rooted in subtle but logical colour-coding and in a system of symbolic insignia largelly unique to Kymria and its national vexilology/heraldry.
There's not a mess of unique names for nearly every service branch's ranks, unlike in both real British tradition or Austro-Hungarian tradition. As you can see, they do have a system to specify which soldier comes from which branch, but unless there's a good reason to mention it, it's not added to the rank name as standard. Thus, everyone just goes by the standard army, navy and air force rank they have (see below, the overviews for each of the three services).
For example, you can have three sergeants of the army, navy and air force meeting, and neither of them will have a convoluted long name for their rank. They'll just be sergeants. Yes, even the navy has sergeants, because the Kymrian navy has a different tradition than a real world British or other anglophone one, and not quite an A-H one either. It's an industrial fantasy country, so I'm being creative, within reasonable limits, and not keeping things to some strict OTL template.
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Royal Army of Kymria (Byddin Frenhinolo Kymra)
View attachment 841953 Private - No insignia Private First Class - Glaive, one dragon claw Lance Corporal - Glaive, two dragon claws Corporal - Glaive, three dragon claws Sergeant - Bow and arrow, one dragon claw Master-Sergeant - Bow and arrow, two dragon claws Cadet - Bow and arrow, three dragon claws Ensign - Axe, dragon wing (most ensign posts) / Axe, dragon tail (certain ensign posts) Lieutenant - Falchion, one dragon claw First Lieutenant - Falchion, two dragon claws Captain - Falchion, three dragon claws Major - Sword, one dragon claw Lieutenant Colonel - Sword, two dragon claws Colonel - Sword, three dragon claws Brigadier general - Mace, one dragon claw Major General - Mace, two dragon claws Lieutenant General - Mace, three dragon claws General - Mace, dragon head Royal General - Crown, dragon head
The rank insignia of Royal Army personnel ha light green trimming (infantry), light green trimming with camo light brown dots (skirmishers, special forces), dark green trimming (cavalry, mounted soldiers and early motorised-armoured vehicles), red trimming (artillery), light brown trimming (logistics), dark brown trimming (engineers and sappers), golden trimming with orange line (signals corps), salmon pink trimming (observers), white trimming (medical corps), alternating golden-light green-golden-dark green trimming (Royal Bodyguard units).
The higher ranks of the cavalry use sabres instead of swords as their rank insignia (for Major, Lieutenant Colonel and Colonel). The lower ranks of the Royal Bodyguard units use halberds instead of glaives as their rank insignia (for Private First Class, Lance Corporal and Corporal).
The only permanent aerial units of the Royal Army of Kymria are observation balloon spotters and crews, all formally under the observers corps. All of the airship, aeroplane and glider military units of the army had been moved to more recently established Royal Flying Host. The naval aviation of Kymria is part of the Royal Navy of Kymria.
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Royal Navy of Kymria (Llynges Brenhinolo Kymra) and Royal Naval Aviation of Kymria (Hedfan Llyngesol Brenhinol o Kymra)
View attachment 841799 Seaman / Aviator - No insignia Seaman First Class / Aviator First Class - Boarding pike, one sea dragon claw Pike Seaman / Spindrift Aviator - Boarding pike, two sea dragon claws Leading Seaman / Leading Aviator - Boarding pike, three sea dragon claws Sergeant - Crossbow, one sea dragon claw Master-Sergeant - Crossbow, two sea dragon claws Cadet - Crossbow, three sea dragon claws Ensign - Boarding axe, sea dragon tail (navy) / Propeller, sea dragon wing (naval aviation) Lieutenant - Cutlass, one sea dragon claw First Lieutenant - Cutlass, two sea dragon claws Ship captain - Cutlass, three sea dragon claws Major - Ship's wheel, one sea dragon claw Lieutenant Colonel - Ship's wheel, two sea dragon claws Colonel - Ship's wheel, three sea dragon claws Commodore - Anchor, one sea dragon claw Rear Admiral - Anchor, two sea dragon claws Vice Admiral - Anchor, three sea dragon claws Admiral - Anchor, sea dragon head Admiral of the Royal Fleet - Crown, sea dragon head
The rank insignia of Royal Navy personnel has dark blue trimming (surface navy personnel) or dark blue trimming with a slightly lighter-blue wave-like pattern (submarine personnel). The rank insignia of Royal Naval Aviation personnel has dark blue trimming with light blue line (naval aviators) or dark blue trimming with light blue line and stylised light blue airship shapes (naval airshipmen).
Equivalent rank listing (English term listed on the left, Kymrese term on the right):
Seaman (eq. of Soldier) - Morwr ("Seaman")
Aviator (eq. Soldier) - Awyrennwr ("Aviator")
Seaman First Class (eq. of Soldier First Class) - Morwr Dosbarth Cyntaf ("Seaman First Class")
Aviator First Class (eq. of Soldier First Class) - Awyrennwr Dosbarth Cyntaf ("Aviator First Class")
Pike Seaman (eq. of Lance Corporal) - Morwr Penhwyaid ("Pike Seaman")
Spindrift Aviator (eq. of Lance Corporal) - Awyrennwr Troellwr ("Spindrift Aviator")
Leading Seaman (eq. of Corporal) - Morwr Blaenllaw ("Leading Seaman")
Leading Aviator (eq. of Corporal) - Awyrennwr Blaenllaw ("Leading Aviator") (ranks same as in the Royal Army of Kymria)
Ship captain (eq. of Captain) - Capten Llong ("Ship captain") (ranks same as in the Royal Army of Kymria)
Commodore (eq. of Brigadier general) - Comodor ("Commodore")
Rear Admiral (eq. of Major General) - Cefn Llyngesydd ("Rear Admiral")
Vice Admiral (eq. of Lieutenant General) - Is-lyngesydd ("Vice Admiral")
Admiral (eq. of General) - Llyngesydd ("Admiral")
Admiral of the Royal Fleet (eq. of Royal General) - Llyngesydd y Llynges Frenhinol ("Admiral of the Royal Fleet")
The Kymrian navy does not use Petty Officer in its naval rank terminology (that tradition occurs in the navy of Victinya instead). The fictional rank of "Pike Seaman" is the direct equivalent to the real world Lance Corporal rank, which also exists in Kymria's Royal Army and Royal Flying Host. Just like the Lance Coporal symbolically "broke a lance in combat", so too is the "Pike Seaman" symbolically denoted as a seaman who "broke a boarding pike in naval combat". The ranks of naval aviators who fly naval aviation aeroplanes (flying boats, floatplanes) do not go above the rank of Colonel, because it's expected naval aviation commodores serve on naval aviation airships or command seaplane tenders.
The reason the Kymrian navy doesn't have a fully British-style or fully Austro-Hungarian style rank terminology tradition is because Kymria is a fictional country, and because the country of Victinya in the same setting already has British-style and American-style ranks terminology, including in the Victinyan navy. To keep things more unique and avoid confusing people, I wanted the rank terminology of the Kymrian Royal Armed Forces, including the Royal Navy, as well as the Royal Army and Royal Flying Host, to sound distinct from the rank terminology used in Victinya for their armed forces.
Some of the graphical elements in the navy ranks overview still need some touching up and I'll get to it soon. Please don't complain if you notice graphical artefacts. They'll be dealt with, I assure you.
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Royal Flying Host of Kymria (Llu Hedfan Brenhinol o Kymra)
View attachment 841798 Pilot / Flyer - No insignia Pilot First Class / Flyer First Class - Glaive, one hawk talon Flight Corporal - Glaive, two hawk talons Corporal - Glaive, three hawk talons Sergeant - Bow and arrow, one hawk talon Master-Sergeant - Bow and arrow, two hawk talons Airman Cadet - Bow and arrow, three hawk talons Ensign - Propeller, hawk wing (most ensign posts) / Axe, hawk wing (certain ensign posts) Lieutenant - Falchion, one hawk talon First Lieutenant - Falchion, two hawk talons Captain - Falchion, three hawk talons Major - Sword, one hawk talon Wing Commander - Sword, two hawk talons Air Commander - Sword, three hawk talons Sky Commodore - Mace, one hawk talon Sky Vice-Marshal - Mace, two hawk talons Sky Marshal - Mace, three hawk talons Chief Sky Marshal - Mace, hawk head Royal Sky Marshal - Crown, hawk head
The rank insignia of Royal Flying Host personnel has light blue trimming (aeroplane and glider airmen and personnel) or light blue trimming with stylised white airship shapes (airshipmen and airship personnel).
Equivalent rank listing (English term listed on the left, Kymrese term on the right):
Pilot (eq. of Soldier) - Peilot ("Pilot")
Flyer (eq. Soldier) - Hedfanwr ("Flyer")
Pilot First Class (eq. of Soldier First Class) - Peilot Dosbarth Cyntaf ("Pilot First Class")
Flyer First Class (eq. of Soldier First Class) - Hedfanwr Dosbarth Cyntaf ("Flyer First Class")
Flight Corporal (eq. of Lance Corporal) - Corporal Hedfan ("Flight Corporal" / "Flying Corporal") (ranks same as in the Royal Army of Kymria)
Airman Cadet (eq. of Cadet) - Cadet Awyrwr ("Airman Cadet") (ranks same as in the Royal Army of Kymria)
Wing Commander (eq. of Lieutenant Colonel) - Cadlywydd Asgell ("Wing Commander")
Air Commander (eq. of Colonel) - Cadlywydd Awyr ("Air Commander")
Sky Commodore (eq. of Brigadier General) - Comodor Awyr ("Sky Commodore")
Sky Vice-Marshal (eq. of Major General) - Is-farsial Awyr ("Sky Vice-Marshal")
Sky Marshal (eq. of Lieutenant General) - Marsial Awyr ("Sky Marshal")
Chief Sky Marshal (eq. of General) - Prif Farsial Awyr ("Chief Sky Marshal")
Royal Sky Marshal (eq. of Royal General) - Marsial Awyr Brenhinol ("Royal Sky Marshal")
The "Pilot" and "Flyer" ranks are not only equal in standing, they are also largelly just semantic and symbolic, per the aviation traditions of not only Kymria, but the countries of the Aeroverse in general. "Pilot" refers to an airman flying an aeroplane (always a powered aircraft, one with a proper fuselage and cockpit where the pilot can be seated), while "flyer" refers to an airman flying a glider (aside from the earliest sailplanes, essentially always solo, rarely seated at all, more in the manner of a hand glider).
Real world Welsh might have words for "the heavens", "heaven", "the highs", but doesn't seem to differentiate between "sky" and "air". I was tempted to change the "sky" instances of awyr ("air", "sky") to cwmwl ("cloud"), but ultimately decided against it. However, if you personally prefer the cwmwl variation and find it more interesting, I am fine with that.
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I am also thinking of going back to some of my Sparrow Avengers countries and doing ranks for them as well. Should be fun.
Unless the Field Marshal stand-in "Royal General" literally is the monarch, I would just suggest to call him the equivalent of "Lord High General" or "Royal Lieutenant-General" to indicate that officer is the General *delegated* by the monarch to lead his / her army rather than the monarch itself.
My issue is not the position of the rank and equilavency with IRL military. It is Corporal and Korporal sounding the same despite being at different levels.
I suppose that is the case with Army-Navy ranks in English but in this case with both being in the same service the potential for confusion seemed higher (and hell, iirc Anglophone navies like to call Marine/Army Captains that are aboard ships Majors just to avoid the issue).
(Then against, suppose I don't have much ground to complain. My Venusian Empire ranks (visible on the previous page of this thread) have some similar issues (Spanish sergeant ranks ended up higher than other languages because they had more Corporal (or Cabo) ranks. Thought I at least avoided French Majors being NCOs by not having that rank in specific but only as Sergeant-Major or Adjudant-Major. Another one is French Contre-Amiral being Commodore level and their Vice-Amiral being Rear/Counter Admiral level. With the Vide Admiral equalivent being Vice-Amiral de Escadrille))
Another bit of weirdness that I didn't mention is that the German-language ranks, even of Austria-Hungary, would have the Gefreiter ("Free-Soldier", or loosely "Private", I suppose) at roughly the Private First Class rank, especially compared to the rank hierarchy of several modern central European militaries. Where it gets funny is that, e.g. in Czech and Slovak the long-established etymological/terminological equivalent of Gefreiter is Slobodník (same meaning as Gefreiter, from sloboda, "free-ness", "freedom"), but in the actual hierarchy, it's above the Czech and Slovak equivalents of Private First Class (Vojak druhého stupňa/Vojín druhého stupně, to use the present terms), so the Slobodník is actually a Lance Corporal within the rank hierarchy. Given the rank drift between countries, especially among NCO ranks, it's a bit of a fool's errand to completely pin it down to a particular rank.
Turkish has something similar with Sergeant being Onbaşı (Head/Chief of Ten), Captain being Yüzbaşı (Head/Chief of Hundred) and Major being Binbaşı (Head/Chief of Thousand).
(Tümen, the word for Division comes from an older term for 10.000 soldiers).
My issue isn't Navy and Army sharing ranks (it is something the modern Turkish Navy does, with the exception of having Admirals instead of Generals) but the fact that a captain (rank) will most likely not be a captain (position).
So I would just use the exact same name. If distinction between services is ever needed Naval or Army could be added before the rank in conversation.
Even if using Kaptäin (or equilavent) instead of Hauptmann (or equilavent) I don't think the Kymrese needs specification in the title. I mean, not like you put ship or naval with sergeants or lieutenants so I don't think the captains need it either.
I need to correct a few cosmetic things in the army and especially navy overviews, so I plan to adjust it anyway. I want to revert the Ship Captain to... erm, Captain... just so it would also easily fit the naval aviation stuff without having to make up completely new ranks. While the seaman/aviator distinctions can work for the lowest ranks, they can quickly become a real mess if I go any higher. So Captain it is...
I know that Jäger is essentially Ranger/Skirmisher equilavent but since you put "hunter" in the translation of the Hungarian I think it makes more sense for the German one to be translated the same way as well. Thought I suppose I am being nitpicky since as you say, they are synonymous.
There's no easy equivalent for the word skirmisher in all of the individual languages used for the rank names.
The Slavic-based languages translate it as "Woodsman", as does Kymrese/RW Welsh, though it had historically also used "Skirmisher" directly, before reverting. The Hungarian-based and German-based language opts for "Hunter". You'll notice I have actually synced the translations in the brackets, so the exact meaning and the more general meaning is both acknowledged.
It's ultimately not all that important, as the hyphenated versions of the ranks are barely ever used on the actual battlefield, and are more of a bureaucratic thing.
Unless the Field Marshal stand-in "Royal General" literally is the monarch, I would just suggest to call him the equivalent of "Lord High General" or "Royal Lieutenant-General" to indicate that officer is the General *delegated* by the monarch to lead his / her army rather than the monarch itself.
Good observation, but Kymrian monarchs have not led armies in the field for a long, looong time. All of the present day Kymrian monarchs are purely figurehead commander-in-chief-s. In the case of an actual armed conflict involving the country, the king or queen would delegate all actual military responsibilities to the prime minister, the minister of defence, and the Royal General. The only direct military involvement of the monarch would be on a diplomatic level, and in occassional talks with the trio of actual commanders.
As traditionalist as Kymria is, they don't really think of the monarch delegating his military command position as being an actual general. So the Royal General is not considered some sort of military pretender, precisely because the title was coined by and provided by the monarchy itself. In Kymrian domestic political thought, the Royal General, Admiral of the Royal Fleet and the Royal Sky Marshal are public servants serving the citizenry, with the monarchy providing the symbolic military honours, and the actual coordination happening between government institutions (especially the ministry of defence) and the armed forces themselves.
Kymria did have a system more similar to the one you describe back when it had its monarchs actually fighting on battlefields, or at least visiting battlefields. That system was particular for the era when Kymria's first standing army and permanent navy were forming, and when monarchs still occassionally took direct part in warfare. Prior to that, there was an even more archaic and in essence feudal system, with the monarchs regularly personally fighting on the battlefield, and there being a feudal muster system instead of a standing army.
Marc, I would also like to personally thank you for your thread on a hypothetical ATL RAF, the Royal Flying Host, that you created over a decade ago, and the interesting but plausible ATL rank insignia you invented for your RFH. Consider the Kymrian "Royal Flying Host" to be a homage to your ATL naming of the UK air force. I distinguish it as RFH - the original, your's - and the RFHK ("...of Kymria") from my own setting.
Typical Royal Army of Kymria infantrymen, with the more common boots-and-putties setup and the rarer wearing of longer boots, depending on the weather. The helmets are based on Austro-Hungarian variant Stahlhelm helmets, the M17, M18 and Berndorfer design helmets. The rifles are a fantasy version of the standardissue Austro-Hungarian Männlicher M1895 rifle.
Kymrian Royal Army soldier with standard issue putties and boots, rifle, trench knife, trench-raiding club, keppi or helmet (work in progress).
Kymrian soldier buddies conversing while resting during a military exercise in the Kymrian countryside.
Signals Corps captain Karl Iwan Novák (left) and Medical Corps master-sergeant Alys Hajnalka Beddoe (right).
Note that the Medical Corps of the Royal Army of Kymria tends to wear their white squares and red crosses on the lapels of their uniforms, where most of the Royal Army uniforms place their rank insignia. This creates the different tradition of the Medical Corps wearing their rank insignia in the shoulder area of their sleeve.
Variant officers uniform, with Royal Army of Kymria rank insignia denoting a First Lieutenant.
Why is it in a display case ? Oops, I probably provided you with a classified photo from the Artefacts Archive of the MIEC, you weren't supposed to see this. Regardless, there aren't that many artefacts available from the alternate Earth of the Aeroverse. The way... is shut.
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Typical Royal Army of Kymria infantrymen, with the more common boots-and-putties setup and the rarer wearing of longer boots, depending on the weather. The helmets are based on Austro-Hungarian variant Stahlhelm helmets, the Bergdorfer design helmets. The rifles are a fantasy version of the Männlicher M1895 rifle.
Just a suggestion, maybe the use of high boots instead of puttees might be linked with either ranks (NCOs and up) and / or a sign of distinction (i.e. worn by NCOs as well as members of elite units.)
Marc, I would also like to personally thank you for your thread on a hypothetical ATL RAF, the Royal Flying Host, that you created over a decade ago, and the interesting but plausible ATL rank insignia you invented for your RFH. Consider the Kymrian "Royal Flying Host" to be a homage to your ATL naming of the UK air force. I distinguish it as RFH - the original, your's - and the RFHK ("...of Kymria") from my own setting.
As traditionalist as Kymria is, they don't really think of the monarch delegating his military command position as being an actual general. So the Royal General is not considered some sort of military pretender, rpecisely because the title was coined by and provided by the monarchy itself.
To me, it was mainly the use of the term "Royal" which seemed to indicate a connection to the monarch,
In commonwealth countries OTL, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces is the Governor General *as a delegate* of that realms' monarch. Said GG as no day-to-day business in running the armed forces affairs but is still, technically, the commander in chief.
The *de facto* chief of the armed forces is the "Chief of the Defence Staff" (Canada) or "Chief of the Defence Force" (Australia), normally a full-general, admiral or air-marshal. As such, their title does not contain the term "royal" as they are neither the monarch nor a delegate of said monarch.
For this reason, is just feels odd to me to have the topmost rank containing the term "royal" rather than something which means he is "The Armed Forced Leader" or, even if if symbolically, the officer delegated by the monarch to lead the armed forces.
