The World of The Gunny

Most of you guys are/where/want to be military in someform.

Im just interested in how you guys do things differently from us. what the lingo is, what the training and life is like. i saw a Marine Captain walking around today and wondered.

Australians have wierd camo and wierd ranking symbols..

I work with them at the urban warfare center some days

Well Benno, if you read the Gunny saga, you can pretty much sum up this is how the US Marines talk, and our lingo.

Now I would be interested to hear the lingo you Aussies use. So, fess it up bub.




Cheers, Þórgrímr

the Auscam? its great. blends into our bush superbly.

as for our lingo... its not all that different to how we normally speak (you'll probably see something i write and go "huh? wtf".) although there are a lot more abbreviations and we use target indications to point out hot chicks. the only real "slang" is jackspeak, which the navy use to confuse everyone. all i know is

scuffer - WRAN. used to be turtles, because once on their backs, they're fucked. the same applies to WRANs.

squinson - thingy

thats all i know off the top of my head. shit like this is hard to list, because you pick it up instead of studying it.


as for the rank symbols miles... i think your system is weird (1st sargent? staff sargent? gunnery sargent? wtf?) . if you want really weird look at the TNI, or really really weird, take a look at Finland, Sweden and Norway.

You people have like 7 types of crown emblems and they all are like officers or staff NCOs :P

Lingo.. hmm navys have wierd lingo

for instance
Scuttlebutt = waterfountain


Heres a big service difference.

what happens when you tell each service to secure a building.

NAVY = they would turn off the lights and lock the doors
ARMY = occupy the building so no one could enter.
MARINES = assault the building, capture it, and defend it with suppressive fire and close combat
AIRFARCE = take out a three-year lease with an option to buy.

Right, time for strange ranks:

Enlisted men:

Army:

Privates (dragoon if in the cavalry)
Corporal
UB-Corporal
Sergeant


Airforce:

Airforce solider
Corporal
UB-Corporal
Sergeant


Navy:

Private (as opposed to cadet, the term used for bootcamp navysoliders)
Leading private
Apprentice Quartermaster (my former rank during my time as enlisted)
Quartermaster

NATO:

OR 1
OR 4
OR 4
OR 5


Officers:

Army:

Ensign
Lieutenant
Captain (“rittmester” if in the cavalry)
Major
Lieutenant Colonel
Colonel
Brigadier
General Major
Lieutenant General
General


Airforce:

Ensign
Lieutenant
Captain
Major
Lieutenant Colonel
Colonel
Brigadier
General Major
Lieutenant General
General


Navy:

Ensign
Lieutenant
Captain Lieutenant
Orlog Captain
Commander Captain
Commander
Flag Commander
Contra Admiral
Vice Admiral
Admiral


NATO:

OF 1
OF 1
OF 2
OF 3
OF 3
OF 4
OF 5
OF 6
OF 7
OF 8
OF 9

Lol, damn Zed, you guys have ensigns in both the army and navy. Now that is really wierd.



Cheers, Þórgrímr

Yup, that is a bit strange but hey that's how its always been

hmm.. the crowns and shit are mainly army.

our rankings

Army
Recruit Private - no rank slide (E 1/2)
Private (or craftsman, gunner, trooper, sapper, musician, signaller) - blank rank slide (E2)
Private Proficient - blank (E3)
lance corporal (lance bombardier if artillery corps) - 1 chevron (E4)
Corporal/Bombardier - 2 chevrons (E5)
Sargeant - 3 chevrons (E6)
Staff Sargeant (obsolete) - 3 chevrons and crown (E7)
Warrant Officer class 2 - Crown (E8)
Warrant Officer class 1 - Australian Coat of Arms (E9)
Regimental Sargeant Major of the Army - Coat of Arms with wreath (E9)

Officer Cadet
2nd Lt. (pronounced LEFTENANT) - 1 pip (Order of Bath star)
1st Lt. - 2 pips (01)
Captain - 3 pips (O2)
Major - crown (O3)
Lt. Colonel - pip and crown (O4)
Colonel - 2 pips and crown (O5)
Brigadier- 3 pips and crown (O6)
Major General - Crossed Sword and Baton and pip (O7)
Lt. General - Crossed Sword and Baton and crown (O8)
General - Crossed Sword and Baton and crown (O9)

Air Force
Aircraftsman/woman recruit (ACR) - no rank slide (E 1/2)
Aircraftsman/woman (AC) - this is my current rank - blank rank slide (E 2)
Leading Aircraftsman/woman (LAC) - one chevron (E 3)
Corporal - two chevrons (E 5)
Sargeant - three chevrons (E 6)
Flight Sargeant - crown and 3 chevrons (E 8)
Warrant Officer - Australian Coat of Arms (E 9)
Warrant Offcer of the Air Force - Australian Coat of Arms and Wreath (E 9)

Officer Cadet
Pilot Officer - 5mm braid
Flying Officer - 17mm braid
Flight Leiutenant (LEFTENANT) - 2 17mm braids
Squadron Leader - 2 17mm braids and a 5mm braid
Wing Commander - 3 17mm braids
Group Captain - 4 17mm braids
Air Commodore - 50mm braid
Air Vice Marshal - 50mm briad and 17mm braid
Air Marshal - 50mm braid and 2 17mm braids
Air Cheif Marshal - 50mm braid and 3 7mm braids

Navy
Seaman/woman recruit - nothing
Seaman - blank
Able seaman - reef knot
Leading Seaman - anchor
Petty Officer - crossed anchors and crown
Chief Petty Officer - anchor, crown and wreath
Warrant Officer - Coat of Arms
Warrant Officer of the Navy - Coat of Arms with Wreath

Midshipman - white patch
Acting Sub-Leiutenant - ring
Sub-Lt - ring
Lt. - 1 bar with ring
Lt. Comander - 2 bars with ring
Commander - 3 bars with ring
Captain - 4 bars with ring
Commodore - Crown, Anchor and Star
Rear Admiral - Crown, Crossed Sword and Baton, 2 stars
Vice Admiral - Crown, Crossed Sword and Baton, 3 stars
Admiral - Crown, Crossed Sword and Baton, 4 stars

but by strange ranks i meant the insignia.

Ah, okay I can try and look into that when I get the time. I mean I do know the navy ones already, but its a damn hard time describing everything with words. Especially when a picture can say it all far better then I can hope to acheive verbally.

Zed and Benno, Thanks guys for the rank structure of your armed forces. I can add them to my slowly growing database on the armed forces of the world so I can adapt it for the Gunny's world. Ya both get two rifles up for that information!

And as for strange insignia, the US Navy takes that award hands down for the US. I was in the Corps for 3 years and I STILL Do not know all their freakin wierd ratings.




Cheers, Þórgrímr

LOL Nice

Really, you have trouble with the navy ones? Those are the easier ones for me to remember. Navy and Marines I know off the top of my head, the Air Force is the one I always have a hard time with.

Lol, well I can't tell a machinsts mate from a gunners mate, each job has a different insignia under the stripes. Thats what throws me off.




Cheers, Þórgrímr

I guess that's a benefit of being from the ADD Generation then, we can learn pictures, just not much else

i just have a bit of trouble with officers and trying to tell the difference between Corporas nd Bombardiers. As far as i can tell, they have the same insignia.

I also forgot to put in the NCO Cadet. Some of the jobs you do around here are direct entry, but require a rank of Sgt. they have the sarge stripes and a big white square, meaning that they're in employment training and are essentially AC's or PTE's, but in a few months they'll be sargeants so you can suck arse if you're that way inclined.

what are the messes like for you guys? down here its pretty... crap. we call our chefo's "Fitters and Turners". they fit it into a pot and turn it into shit. the navy call the mess the SCRAN hall. Shit Cooked by the Royal Australian Navy.

just to top it off, i found a fucking pube in my dnner tonight. If defence hadnt outsourced all our services, meaning that the cooks are all civilian, i'd go find the chefo and flog him up. that shits not right... you dont put body stuff into food.

I never had better food then during my year of service (I think) So I can't complain. Of course some meals I just outright dropped since what was being served didn't suit me at that time, but lunch was alwasy good and as was dinner 90% of the time

To be quite honest, the Chow Hall meals were good for me. Breakfast was the best meal for me since I REALLY loved the sasuage gravy the Corps' cooks made. Now you may wonder why I am telling you this, two words, C-Rations.

When it comes to C-Rations imagine the worst meal you have ever had, then double it. That is how bad those god-awful things were. Let me give you a couple of examples, Beans and Franks, we called them Beanie Weenies and they had no less than half an inch of solid grease on top when the can was opened, and it came with a round candy bar we call a 'shit disk'. It was aptly named, for when you ate one you had no trouble with a bowel movement. Almost like it was made of Ex-Lax or something similar.

Then we have what was euphemisticaly called 'spaghetti with meatballs'. While in actuality it was a glutunous blob of one inch of grease on top, a chunk of what was surmised to be pasta and meatballs that were anything but meat. And I had to eat this shit. So I learned to savor the gourmet food they served in USMC Chow Halls.




Cheers, Þórgrímr

Yet another reason I could never join the service. I'm the pickiest eater you'll find, and since they've got better things to worry about then whether or not it's one of the few foods I like, I wouldn't last long

True I guess. And as for rations I tried our rations one two occations myself and both times they tasted rather harsh. According to the lable I was eating some sort of stew, still even after adding the prescribed water it tasted hard leather.

Sometimes I thought a leather belt would have tasted better than some of the garbage they had in those C-Rat boxes.




Cheers, Þórgrímr

man the rat packs we have here arent that bad compared to a lot of other things i've eaten, but still tate worse than half the girlfriends i've had. they got muesli bars, bikkies, m&m's, a tin of fruit, SAO's (water crackers), a tube of Vegemite, some condensed milk... good stuff. and then 2 sachet's of dog food. one of dogfood and one of "baked beans" if you get the vegetarian pack. oh, and dont forget the shitter sheets.


Just wondering... with your non-combat jobs, is there specialisation - one man one job, or does one man do any job that comes up that he's trained to do?

Benno, most of the MRE's the troops get today make the C-Rats look like a torture food. They are a hell of a lot better tasting, and don't come in those freaking heavy assed cans.

As for the non-combat arms, for the most part thats the way it is, especially in the Air Force and the Navy. The Army has a few units where you have troops wearing many hats, mainly in the SF area, same with the USMC.




Cheers, Þórgrímr

...i find that level of specialisation strange. we dont have it over here, in any service. more to the point, we cant do it. just dont have the manpower.