Should MechWarrior be an officer rank?

[Trailblazer]

I find it a little weird that MechWarrior is treated as an enlisted rank by all the factions.  In the universe it seems similar in status, eliteness and exclusivity to contemporary fighter pilots.  But 20th and 21st Century fighter pilots are always commissioned officers.

I guess you could say it should be equivalent to a tank commander, which is a senior sergeant in the present-day US?  But fighter pilot feels more analogous to MechWarrior to me.  Like maybe a standard MechWarrior should be a "second lieutenant" and a lance commander a "first lieutenant."

[Arkansas Warrior]

In US Army Aviation, all pilots are at least Warrant Officers, which is the paradigm that makes the most sense to me (but then, I was in Army Aviation, so I’m biased).  But Warrant makes sense because they’re technical experts in their field (like flying helicopters) but somewhat outside the chain of command per se.  I mean, technically a W-1 outranks any NCO, but you’ll never see a W-1 commanding anything more than the people on his aircraft, and the emphasis is very much on technical expertise in piloting, not on climbing the ranks to positions of greater authority as it is for commissioned officers.  I fact, I knew commissioned pilots officers as high as a full colonel who gave up their commission to become warrant officers because they were tired of the rat race of Army politics and just wanted to fly.  As intense and particular a discipline as piloting a Battlemech is, having pilots be at least warrant officers makes sense to me, rather than having situations where an infantry platoon sergeant doesn’t want to take orders from a mechwarrior sergeant.  Likewise, it conforms to the neo-feudal idea of the knight-mechwarrior, where being a mechwarrior and being a noble are essentially synonymous, and having someone be at once a noble and an enlisted man just doesn’t make a lot of sense.  Using warrants (as, sadly, almost no IS militaries do) allows you to have noble mechwarriors who are highly skilled in that craft, without that automatically leading to their being promoted into command ranks they aren’t qualified for, or being incensed at being passed over for promotion and staying a lieutenant for thirty years despite their combat record.  “Yes, yes, Baron Johnson, you have a stellar combat record.  That’s why we’re promoting you from CW-3 to CW-4.  No, you haven’t met all of the required pre-reqs for OCS, if you want a commission you’ll have to go to an academy.  No, you just want to fight? Yes, that’s fine.”

[The Eagle]

I was in the 2 shop of Army aviation units for 10 years, so the "MechWarriors are mostly WOs with officers in charge, and the enlisted are the service & support shops" was also the most appropriate structure I could also come up with.  I can sort of see senior NCOs in militia units getting their own ride, but in line units?  WOs and academy grads only.

[Trailblazer]

Ah good points, I hadn't thought of warrant officer ranks!

[butchbird]

Thought I could give a well cut reply on this, but a quick research to confirm my faulty memory advises me not to say too much. But having actually looked through this, I'll add a few things none the less.

As its clear mechwarriors are best compared, in the 20th/21st century, to fighter pilots and that aristocrats still held a huge deal of prestige during WWI (Ah, the woes, complaints and hatred of the russian "warrior lesser aristocracy" (hard to translate this one to my liking) for the changing times, but I digress), something has to be pointed out concerning that war.

Fact is, back in the early days of aerial warfare, NCOs made up a huge chunk of the fighter pilots. Even reknowned aces spent a large part of that war as sergeants (or ranks "around that"), though they'd often get commissioned once they "earned enough prestige". If I'm not mistaken, WWII also had many NCOs as pilots.

I'd argue that, while the BTU is in the future and would be affected by developments in the structure of the military and all that, "knights of the air" are more closely related to mechwarriors then F-22 pilots would be, as far as the whole feel & vibe is concerned and hence what is aimed to be presented.

Another thing is how mechwarrior training programs have been described. If I remember well the Marik Handbook rundown on military academies, the fact that one of these academies only churned out mechwarriors with officer training was a big deal, implying that most aren't schooled in the art of commanding. Going against this conception would require a fair bit of retconing or contorsions.

But this does not necessarly mean that a infantry captain would think ill of being ordered around by a lesser rank mechwarrior in many cases. Prestige is a very real thing. Mechwarriors (and aerospace pilots, supposedly, though they get much less screen time) are simply superior to any other branch. It's a well known and integrated fact. Being recognized as the nation's elite would have quite the weight on the battlefield, no matter the rank.

[BrianDavion]

Many sucessor states seem to effectively award their mechwarriors the rank of sergant in the military. the DCMS distinctly does, and the AFFS awards anyone who has graduated the academy the rank of sergent. I suspect this is the case for the Lyrans too, and wouldn't be suprised it it was near universal

[Cannonshop]

Many sucessor states seem to effectively award their mechwarriors the rank of sergant in the military. the DCMS distinctly does, and the AFFS awards anyone who has graduated the academy the rank of sergent. I suspect this is the case for the Lyrans too, and wouldn't be suprised it it was near universal

I think a lot of it depends on how top-heavy or officer-heavy your military command chains happen to be.  Someone with more recent Army experience than me mentioned that the bottom rank for chopper pilots was Warrant officer, and that's been true for a few decades, but at 51, I remember when the Army got rid their last non-officer/non-Warrant officer pilot ratings-so it wasn't as terribly long ago as you might think, and IS linked to some of the rank inflation we saw in the post-nineteen-seventies military (particularly the post-drawdowns of the early 1990s where there were a LOT more officers with a lot fewer slots after the festival of RIF post Gulf War and pre 9/11.)

That said, 'mechwarrior isn't something you can just fill.  At least, if they're still keeping consistency with the older editions, roughly 1 out of 1000 people have the neural conductivity to use a Neurohelmet, out of those, only a fractoin (depending on harshness of training) will be able to learn to use it, and only a fraction of those, are going to be able to complete the process of learning how to fight as part of an army.

and only a fraction of the ones who can fight, can also lead.

So it makes perfect sense that a fresh-out-of-training 'mechwarrior would be pulling down a Sergeant's pay when they get to the unit-because they're a valuable commodity, but it also makes sense that the pay  doesn't come with the duties.  In the Old days of the army, Specialist rank went all the way up to eight or nine.  NCO pay, but not NCO duties.

This, I think, is the equivalency most of the functionally effective armies in the Inner Sphere and Periphery would default to out of necessity, whatever else they might call it-for some, it may well be just a service so lacking in nco's and officer heavy that 'Sergeant" is sufficient, in others, there may well just be a "Mechwarrior" with an E-rating or equivalent, or some combination of those.

See, the basic difference between an Officer, and an NCO (in services with a strong NCO corps) is that an officer Commands, while an NCO Leads.

You might think those are synonyms, but no, they really aren't.  An NCO's weapon is his Weapon.  An Officer's Weapon is the men under his command, including NCO's.  thus, why in the World War they gave NCO's submachine guns, because they were expected to use them, while officers got a pistol, and if he had to use the pistol, it meant shit had gone horribly wrong.