karlunity Posted December 3, 2008 Report Share Posted December 3, 2008 What are " Specialist" ranks in the Army and why does the army have two rank structures ? I have never understood that. Karl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swamprat Posted December 3, 2008 Report Share Posted December 3, 2008 I've never understood it myself but I guess its to keep Congress guessing. Would a General of Artillery be out ranked by a Specialist General in Transportation? "Yes Sir, we can deliver the bombs. "Just give us 24 hours and a clear road." Swamprat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Limpid Lizard Posted December 3, 2008 Report Share Posted December 3, 2008 I do not know if I will get the wording exactly right, but here goes. A specialist does not have the same command power as a NCO. That is, a corporal is in a command position, while a spec 4 is in a technical position. An E4 of either outranks a PFC, but a Corporal would be able to order a Spec 4 about even if the Spec 4 had time in grade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cold shot Posted December 4, 2008 Report Share Posted December 4, 2008 Yuppers on that ,,sounds about right....Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimro Posted December 4, 2008 Report Share Posted December 4, 2008 Corporal is a way for us to turn an E4 into an NCO for when we need an NCO. Specialist is the highest automatic promotion. In some Military Occupational Specialties the promotion point cutoff scores are so high that Corporal is the highest rank they can attain without changing jobs. We used to have Specialist ranks all the way up to E6, but then we also used to have the "Technical Sergeant" ranks. Jimro Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ken98k Posted December 4, 2008 Report Share Posted December 4, 2008 I do not know if I will get the wording exactly right, but here goes. A specialist does not have the same command power as a NCO. That is, a corporal is in a command position, while a spec 4 is in a technical position. An E4 of either outranks a PFC, but a Corporal would be able to order a Spec 4 about even if the Spec 4 had time in grade. When I was in the Army, a Corporal (E-4) usually had more authority than a Spec 5 but not a Spec 6. I don't know if they still have Spec 5-6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FC Posted December 4, 2008 Report Share Posted December 4, 2008 No Spec 5 or 6 anymore. I think SPC is a dumb idea for a rank. To be honest, there wouldn't be much occasion for either SPC or CPL to boss each other around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karlunity Posted December 4, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 4, 2008 Ok. So a "Specialist" would be a support troop, what we call a "Pogue" and a Cpl. would be a combat arms troop, what we would call a grunt? karl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Limpid Lizard Posted December 4, 2008 Report Share Posted December 4, 2008 Bearing in mind that it has been a long time since I was drafted, and seniltiy is getting to be a permanent state, let me try expanding. Also, there may have been official rules about this stuff that we were not privy to, and the way we operated may not have been in complete alignment with those rules. They made me an MP. An MP of lower rank can in certain instances tell a higher ranking enlisted man what to do, but that authority went with job title, not rank. Within the MPs, we had many specialists, but I never saw a real corporal. Depending on where and what I was doing, we had either a desk sargent or a sargent of the guard for each shift. If there were not enough NCO's in the unit to provide complete shift coverage with NCOs, some specialists would be given temporary NCO status equivalent to their specialist rank. They may not have been the senior specialist on that shift, but they would be in charge, would assign duties to the other specialists and privates, and answer for the screwups. On the sites, the missle crews were run in the same manner. That is, a NCO was in charge of each shift, and if there was a dearth of NCOs, they made one temporarily. LL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ken98k Posted December 4, 2008 Report Share Posted December 4, 2008 No Spec 5 or 6 anymore. I think SPC is a dumb idea for a rank. To be honest, there wouldn't be much occasion for either SPC or CPL to boss each other around. At one point I had a Corporal as a squad leader. One of the other members of the sqaud was a Spec-5. Even though the Spec-5 had more time in the Army, he subordinate to the "hard stripe" corporal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.