Topic: Inquiry Regarding the Ranks of Empire Soldiers

[Henry the Falconer]

Greetings everyone. I was developing some fluff fiction for an army list that I was working on (my first one!) when a question struck me. What kind of ranking system is employed for the armies of the Empire? From reading my Empire army book, the Warhammer website, and a Warhammer Fantasy RPG book I browsed in a bookstore, here is what I have been able to piece together so far.

It is clear that there are Sergeant and Captain ranks in the Imperial Army, with the Sergeant serving as the senior officer for a unit of soldiers and the Captain serving as a higher ranking officer capable of leading smaller armies as lower ranking generals, commanding units of soldiers, or serving as independent officers fighting astride pegasi or griffons. Elector Counts, acting as the supreme governing authorities of their provinces, are thus the supreme commanders of their province's armies. For them to command their forces, however, requires situations of dire peril, so it is likely that there are Marshals (Generals)  under their command that lead the armies during most situations. This is similar for the Emperor, who as ruler of the Empire would only command the army in the most dire of situations. As the Games Workshop webpage notes, it is the Reiksmarshall of the Empire, the second in command, that is in charge of the armies. Warrior Priests, while serving the army as fighters and leaders, would probably have no recognized rank in the army. Likewise, Engineers and Wizard Lords, while the option is possible, are unlikely to command armies and are more likely attached independently, serving "on loan" from the Wizard's College and the Engineers Academies.

Thus, the ranks so far seem to go like so: (from highest to lowest)

Emperor
Reiksmarshall of the Empire
Elector Count
Marshal
Captain
Sergeant

Does anyone know of any other possible ranks that the army could employ? My guess is that they would employ a system that would be a combination of two sources: the armies of the Holy Roman Empire and Renaissance armies. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find anything online regarding the structure of such armies. Any ideas or help would be much appreciated!  

Henry the Falconer

[RGB]

Ranks were fairly fluid in Renaiisance armies, especially mercenary ones. Generally speaking, an Oberst (Colonel) would lead a colonna, that is, an army of men, while a Hauptmann (Captain) would be a commander of a company of men, which could be anywhere betwwen a sigle regiment to a small mercanary force.

I'm sure there's people on this site who can tell you more though.

[jlutin]

I often field a General using the Elector Count rules.  He doesn't have a huge amount of magic items, so it's semi-fluffy.

Is the Marshal the Battle Standard Bearer?

[quadrille]

I think the command structures (historically) were much more complicated.

To start with though, we need to sort out the different military units:

The largest is the army. It consists of any number of regiments (historically somewhere between a few hundred and no more than perhaps 2000 men). The regiments are in turn made up of companies, approximitely 300 men. The companies consits of divisions (it wasn't until later that divisions became a term that was used for a group of regiments, as in ww2) and the divisons (30 or so men I think) inludes a number of squads with about 6 men in them.

I'm not sure this is how every army was organized, but I think most rennaisance and baroque european armies were at least similarly structured. I also cannot promise that I use the exact correct terms.

Now the ranks in this army would be:

(- king/emperor)
- Field marshal
- Major generals (each commanding a section of the forces, eg. infantry centre or right wing cavalry)
- The commander of a regiment; Lieutenant colonel (?)
- First lieutenant (commanding a company)
- Non commanding higher ranking positions, such as drummers, pipers, standard bearers (=second lieutenants) and a lot more.
- There were also commanders for each division, as well as "squad leaders" who actually had no higher rank than the privates but were the most experienced member of the squad and whose task was to teach untrained replacements.

Please forgive any inaccuracies, I wrote this from memory and I know the terms better in swedish..

[Jobbe]

I generally think of the elector count type from the army list as just an example of an accomplished general. I use the stats as the basis for my own characters, who could be Obersts or noblemen or some third thing.

With regards to ranks I don't know much more than what RGB has already noted. In any books I've read it seems that renaissance armies often only operated with very simple rank systems. The commanding titles mainly being:

Marshall (the over-all military commander of a country)
Colonel (the commander of an army)
Captain (the commander of a regiment)
Sergeant (the commander of a unit)

With maybe some noble authority (ex. the king or count) on the top of that system. But it seems like it differed greatly from country to country, from army to army, and from regiment to regiment.
Then of course there would be standardbearers, musician an so forth, but I don't think they had a military rank in a modern sense. Then again military history is not really my strong point.

[Kulgan]

You also have to keep in mind many warbands from say a small town were often related to the rich village-mayor who partially or fully equipped his men, some parts used feudalistic systems till after the end of the middle ages.

Also WH Empire is based on the Holy roman Empire, which was after all a blanket of hundreds different states, all having their own ways of doing things. Real hard to draw a line in these situations.

[Henry the Falconer]

Thank you everyone for all your help! It really clarified some terms for me!

Henry the Falconer

[Angerland]

The term "Officer" as we think of it wasn't used in Germany until end of the 16th century.  The had equivalents though.
In Emperor Maxmillian's day more often than not an army was led by an Oberst, which is a Colonel.  On rare occasions  a higher rank of General would be used, especially in the case of an army made up of many regiments. This would be led by a Generalobrist. This was also the case in an army that contains Artillery and Cavalry as well as infantry, one person in charge of the entire army.  

There was the second in command of a regiment the Locumtenens, the Provost who was in charge of discipline in the regiment, the Schultheiss who was in charge of the application of the law set forth in the regiments articles of war drawn up when the regiment was formed,  
the Oberst Feldweibel in charge of the order of battle, and the Hurenweibel or "whore's Sergeant" who was in charge of the trains.  Also the Nachrichter or executioner, the stockmeister and his assistannts the steckenknecht who guarded prisoners, the pfenningmeister who was in charge of pay, and the wachtmeister who was in charge of guarding and defending the camp and train. The feldartz or doctor and his assistants.  These men were all picked by the Oberst.

In charge of each Fahlien(company), 10 of which made up a regiment was a Captain. The Fahlien was between 300-500 men and a mix of handgunners, pikemen and dopplesoldners.  The captain had a Lieutenat or second in command and the Ensign also considered an officer of the Fahlien. Just as the Oberst the Captain would also have a staff and bodyguards. Unlike the Oberst the Captain would fight on foot armed with poleaxe, halberd or two handed sword. The Ensign of each Fahlien was chosen by the Oberst and was second in importance only to the Captain. Interestingly the Ensign was not always, nor obligated to be in the front ranks of the Fahlien.

Each Fahlien had a Feldweibel or Sergeant Major, the lowest of the ranks chosen by the Oberst.He was in charge of mauvering the unit, setting up the order of battle, and drilling the men. At the end of the front rank of each Fahlien were two Gemenweibel or comon Sergeants. These men were elected to the position each month from out of the company. They helped dress the lines and interact on behalf of the men

The company was made up of ranks(geld) and files (rott).  We know what a rank is from the game, a file is simply this: Each man in the front rank of your formation is also the first man in a file made up of all the men standing in the line right behind him. For example in a simple 4x5 formation of 20 men. You have 5 ranks of four men each and you also have 4 files of 5 men each.  The front rank and sometimes ranks were made up of Dopplesoldner or double soldiers, veterans who earned twice the pay of a regular trooper thus the name. The dopplesoldner in the front rank was called the Rottmeister.  They also filled into the rear ranks only interspersed in order to keep the formation together.

Hopefully this wasn't too awfully dry to read and I hope it helps too.

[quadrille]

The question is though: What does the warhammer units represent? Their typical size would suggest a division (read my post a bit up), in which case a large warhammer army would representent at the most one company (Fahlien or whatever) which is not very impressive. The term "regiment" is often used, does this mean a 30-man unit actually represents a 1200 man regiment? The problem with this is that regiments IRL typically consisted of several different troop types which WH "regiments" most often does not. And as you wrote Angerland, this was true even for companies, which would rule them out too. But then again, warhammer has no intents on being very historical, so maybe a 300 miniatures army in WH actually does represent a 12000 man army, which would mean that all but the highest ranking officers are excluded.

[Angerland]

A Fahlien was all of the same troop type (infantry)  they had mixed weapons and such but they were all infantry.   It seems pretty clear that GW uses the word regiment on a whim for it's units.  A typical Empire Army would be just that, an army.  The artilery would be the aretilery regiment, the Cavalry, the cavalry regiment, and the Infantry well, you get the idea.

A Captain as refered to in Warhammer would be like an Oberst.  One of the Lord choices would be like a Generalobrist, and the Emperor would be whaat would have been called "Feld Generalobrist" and that is as high as it goes.

I can see unit champions being the Sergeant majors of the Fahlien or companies, standard bearers obviously are ensigns but not as tough or imposing as the Ensign was. Actually the closest thing to a real Ensign would be the Battle Standard Bearer

[RGB]

I thought a lot of the ensigns were Standartenjungern, no? As in, they'd have been quite young....or is that just Cavalry?

[Armour]

Remember, though looking suspiciously rennaissance-style, the empire is still fantasy.

[Angerland]

Armour- I agree completely. I didn't post that trying to definitively describe every facet of Empire Rank structure, just my interpertation of it.

RGB- I haven't seen anything in my books and such about Ensigns being young. Only that they were often the largest, strongest men in the unit as they were supposed to represent the units strength and power in combat, as well as inspire the unit on the field.

[Henry the Falconer]

Interesting. I think I'll try employing some of the rack structures discussed here in the army I'm working on. Thank you everyone.

Angerland, where did you find all of that information regarding the composition of Emperor Maxmillian's army? You mentioned you owned several books on the subject. Do you have the titles offhand? I'd be really interested in looking them up and reading them.

[TheBuilder]

I cant speak to what angerland has but the Osprey 'Landsknechts' is quite good.  concise yet comprehensive and with pictures.

[wissenlander]

Osprey books are awesome, I've looked for some for this time period but haven't found any yet.

[Angerland]

Osprey has a number of titles I own, for my Empire army I look at "Landsknecht Soldier" out of the Warrior line of Osprey books, "The Landsknecht" from the men at aarms line of Osprey books and also "The Art of War in the Middle Ages" by Omar.