>"The quality and character of an army is determined

>>34018815
no.

It is archaic bullshit held over from when western civilization was in social classes. When officers were only from the upper classes and the "men in the ranks" were from the lower classes.

>quality and character of an army is determined by its officer corps.
>Do you think this is true, /k/? Why or why not?

No. You can have officers and equipment, but if you don't have competent NCO's to direct joes at the ground level nothing gets done

t. Arab armies

>>34018815
A E S T H E T I C.

>>34018930
>if you don't have competent NCO's to direct joes at the ground level nothing gets done

Explain the USAF then. Best Air Force in the world, hands down some of the shittiest NCOs in existence.

Its all down to the commissioned officers.

>>34018960
because the air force fights with officers and leans on civilians at the airbases.
>>34018930
when allah is your squad leader, who needs a sgt?

>>34018960
the USAF is the best air force in the world because it has the biggest budget and greatest numbers, plus in most cases the best technology.

the best air force in terms of skill and prestige in the 21st century is without a doubt Israel's

>>34018960
>Best Air Force in the world, hands down some of the shittiest NCOs in existence.

Were you touched by your ncos or something airman?

>>34018960
Arnt all USAF pilots officers?
Also >>34019007 army and especially infantry is unique because unlike other branches they literally are just men on the ground, they have no technological medium to gain a significant advantage over the enemy (I know better equipment but I'm talking modern jets or aircraft carriers) NCO's are the lifeblood of combat infantry, CO' are the lifeblood of support entities (use that term loosely to describe everything not infantry from fleets to cavalry)

>>34018960
USAF is also completely different from the army, since it's the officers who go off to fight while the enlisted sit around all day.

>>34018815
Back then when officer had license to shoot someone that failed to go over the top, maybe. Today, not so much.

>>34018960
Any general statement is generally bullshit.

>>34019986

Including that general statement?

Rifles No1 dress is god tier.

>>34018815
The smaller the units are, the more important low level decision making is. Things have changed a little since queen victoria.

>>34018815

You know the smartest thing an officer can say?

"What do you think, Sargent?"

>>34018815
In the private sector, it is the responsibility of management to ensure that training is effectively conveyed to and relevant regulations enforced on employees. I don't imagine it's much different in military life.

>>34023155
>sArgent

Found the dumb fucking private.

>>34023610
The mnemonic device i always used was Serge, the slavic ant

>>34018958
however militaries shouldn't be wasting money on any uniform except working ones. The british army has more horses than tanks, it wastes money on regimental bands: it's a joke.

>>34018929
To be honest back when commissions were a thing most aristocratic officers were the runt of the family usually sent of to join the army because the family doesn't want them around to be an embarrassment.

This is resulted in extraordinarily poor officers, hell even Napoleon despite his many outstanding qualities had a poor idea of how supply lines work and how detrimental foraging and raiding was in the long run as a supply solution.

However incompetent leadership usually stayed at the bottom by the time it came to the Napoleonic war's at worst you would have a incompetent colonel. This is why most sides had a competent general in charge such as Napoleon, Nelson, Wesley, Blucher and Kutuzov

>>34018984
Because Allah won't maintain your weapon, teach you how to operate a radio or guide you bullets onto the target.

>>34018815
The thing is that it did prove in a number of wars in India. They noted that the rank and file of India states were as skilled &motivated as their British counter parts or in some cases more. However their officers were jokes when compared with their counters parts.

Here is a different way of putting it, how much room is there for each room for their mistakes to cause fuck ups? You may stat thinking of O1 and how E5+ personal do all their work for them. The system is designed to prevent them from causing fuck ups. I am not thinking of O1 platoon commanders. The dangerous place for officer fuck ups to happen is a place far from were most people on /k have been part of. Places like Quartermaster Corps or the Ordnance Corps. US vets from the current era pay them little mind because the US has great examples of both of those things. They work well most of the time and thus are out of the lime light. However it does not take much imagination to picture what happens when those folk fuck up.

>>34018815
It was definitely true at the time it was written and its probably true in some of the more backwater places, but we've moved on a bit since then.
Being an officer now is mostly a mix of management, administration and leadership, troopies didn't pretend that they knew how to run anything and I didn't pretend to tell them how to be soliders when something needed to be done.

>>34019007
>the best air force in terms of skill and prestige in the 21st century is without a doubt Israel's

Confusing the mid 20th century and the current era there.

>>34018815
sounds like some shit an officer would say before making his leading sergeant make HIS men stand in a row and march in a column as they're taking bullets.

Basically, the more an officer tries to do his job, the worse he'll be at it. The best officer is one who manages to not have his G.I standing by to stand by, the one who recognizes competent leadership and promotes it whilst simultaneously preventing the advancement of those whom lack the skills necessary regardless of their experience.

The one who's never given a lower enlisted an order.

>>34023984
>The one who's never given a lower enlisted an order.
This, if youre a pvt/cpl and youre getting a direct order from a lt/cpt theres a bunch of fuckery happening, be very wary.

>>34022020
Especially that general statement.

>>34018815
Enough competence at any level can make up for deficiencies at the other levels. Good officers, good NCOs and good grunts are obviously the ideal, but the thing is it's hard to get good NCOs into position without good officers, and its hard to get good grunts without good NCOs.

Junior officers can make or break infantry, but that's what sergeants are for: plugging gaps.

>>34018815
in this thread, butthurt self important enlisted fags

>>34024238
What's it like being such a little pussy you can't even give note to those whom booty blasted you fuck boy?

Little bitch, go gossip somewhere else.

It's all about the NCO's.

I was a Cpl in the Britfag army, and the majority of lads under my command were complete and utter spunk trumpets that you couldn't trust to boil a BV.

Most of the officers were sound and knew their place due to the chat they get from the SNCO when they first come to the Regiment, which is "You mind yourself Sir, I'll mind the lads".

However there's nothing wrong with an officer giving one of the lads an order. Certainly in my Regt. anyway where it was armoured, so the officer would be in a wagon with three or four lads. Also, in barracks, it's not an order as such, it's just a task being given out.

On the ground operationally, the officer gives far less orders than you might expect as they can't micro manage it.

They'd say 'advance on that compound's and we'd take it from there.

Meh. There's a time and a place, but really, an army is the made up of its NCOs and SNCOs who keep both the officers and sprogs in check.

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>>34023809
*tips fedora*

>>34018815
To be fair, NCOs are important too.

Beyond that you may as well use trained monkeys for the difference it would make.

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>>34018815

guess who's the first to get shot by the enlisted men if fucked up shit commands get put out by some smartass Eaton officer

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>>34018815
I don't think that's necessarily true, but one thing i do believe is that sergeants are the spine of an army.

>>34024307
>important too
But less important. Important, but much less important.

>>34018815
It was true in the 19th century and earlier, but not anymore.

The rise of small unit tactics backed up by formal rules of engagement means that the soldiers themselves have a much greater role in determining the quality of the army as a whole.

>>34018930
Arab "armies" don't have competent officers at any level.

>>34024862
of the few i've met one was pretty good.

NCO > Officer> Jr. Enlisted

>>34024921
Where does SNCO fit in?

>>34024921
Where does Warrant fit in?

Where does Praporshchik fit in?

>>34018815

>ITT: People who don't understand that NCO's are considered part of the officer corps

Noncommissioned OFFICER

>>34023771
until the Dick Act of 1903. you had rich people in america buying their way into the officer corps. they could simply raise a militia unit and make them selves the colonel of it.

A lot of Union officers were made this way.

>>34024497
This never happened

>>34026472

Are you actually retarded?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragging

>>34023771
When GWB was president it was families running the military upper general ranks. I remember watching a documentary by PBS about the Iraq war where an incompetent general was leading with disastrous results, eventually General Petraeus replaced him, and became quite famous for it. Of course, I am sure that did him no favors in the long run as he's essentially vanished from politics and security entirely, which really is a shame because he is talented. I am not sure if the family connection thing is still going on, but I'd assume the entire military upper ranks is just about friends with connections to some great extent. To be fair, it's always been that way with every nation through out history and the United States likely handles such issues better than other nations.

>>34026486
>On 23 March 2003, in Kuwait, Sergeant Hasan Karim Akbar cut power to his base, threw four hand grenades into three tents where fellow members of the 101st Airborne Division were sleeping, and opened fire with his rifle when the personnel ran to take cover. Army Captain Christopher S. Seifert and Air Force Major Gregory L. Stone were killed, and fourteen other soldiers were wounded by shrapnel. Akbar was tried by court martial at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in 2005. On 21 April 2005 Akbar was found guilty of two counts of premeditated murder and three counts of attempted premeditated murder and was sentenced to death on 28 April.[18][19]

>Akbar

>>34026040
You are so wrong, you should be embarrassed to have typed that.

>>34018815
>Maybe unpopular opinion here
An army's NCO corps is most influential factor in determining its quality and character. While this may not have been true up until the post-WWII, NCOs determine the effectiveness of small-unit tactics in today's counter-insurgency operations as well as providing expertise in technical skills (mechanics, maintainers, etc).

See "Imperial Grunts" by Robert D. Kaplan and its sequal "Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts."

>>34027696

>>>/pol/

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>Be from a long line of officers.
>Be applying to OCS this year.
>Every retired officer in the family comes to me at one point and says some version of the following "Listen to your platoon sergeant boy, learn from him and you'll come out looking like fucking superman". "You're there to ask questions, pass on information, and run".

>>34029351
>>>/cuckshed/
OR
>>>/niggerafrica/
depending

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>>34018984
>When Allah is your squad leader who needs a Sargent
Kek

>>34029016
the meat in the combat zone is hardly as influential to the outcome of battle as the officers who plan, supply, and direct reserve forces at the right time. not to say that an army could do without expierenced ncos but, in reality their job is as hard as a shift manager at mcdonalds and cannot compare too corporate executives.

>>34023771
Nah the runts joined the priesthood. First born went to the military

>>34032642

r u srs

firstborn inherited the property. the runts joined the military.

>>34032642

Your statement would be true in medieval times, when the firstborn had to inherit the land and learn how to defend it from heretics, scoundrels, and Burgundians, and the youngest could be safely stowed away in a monastery to gain favor with the Church. However, that trend started to disappear around the time militaries started modernizing and the nobility stopped being a bunch of hardened killers in plate armor.