Imperial Rank (Badges) for both the Navy and the Army

[Sutehp]

So I was messing around with gathering all the rank/post badges everyone gets for the number of posts they make here in a (likely) vain attempt to make sense of the Empire's military ranks. Considering that Lucas never bothered to actually denote which Imperial ranks were which in ANH and the wardroom bloopers that have happened in the rest of the OT since, I know that this is a completely subjective result that I've come up with.

Nonetheless, if anyone wants a complete listing of all the officer ranks in the Imperial Army and/or Navy, I've decided to list it here. I managed to figure out how to link the forum images of the rank badges, so the appropriate badge is next to its proper rank title.

Yeah, I'm copying the Navy Imperial Rank from your post ranking system; basically what I'm doing is just posting the equivalent Army ranks are in parens next to the appropriate Navy rank. I'm just doing this for sh!ts and giggles in the hope that you guys might find it useful in your Star Wars games.

Also, the first thing I noticed is that the early rank badges here on the forums appear to be upside-down in that in TESB and in other visual media including Rebels, the early ranks (ensign to captain) have the red pips on top, as opposed to the Rancor Pit badges which have the blue pips on top. (Not to mention that six red and blue pips denoted an admiral when they should be denoting a Navy captain.) This is just another thing I can't account for, so I'll go on the assumption that all those Imperial rank badges ever depicted on TV or in the movies are ALL wardrobe malfunctions and only the people who built the rank badges here on this forum had it right. (Yay, us!) 8)

-Cadet (Recruit)


-Ensign (2nd Lieutenant)


-Sub-Lieutenant (1st Lieutenant)


-Lieutenant (Captain)


-Lieutenant Commander (Major)


-Commander (Lt. Colonel)


-Captain (Colonel)


-Line Captain (High Colonel)


-Commodore (Brigadier General)


-Rear Admiral (Major General)


-Vice Admiral (Lt. General)


-Admiral (General)


-Fleet Admiral (High General)


-High Admiral (Surface Marshal)


-Grand Admiral (Grand General)


-Moff (This is a political posting but Moffs and Grand Moffs can and do take authority of both Army and Navy assets with Emperor Palpatine's permission)


-Grand Moff (as per Moffs, above)


And that's my list of Imperial officer ranks.

If you guys want me to dig through my WEG Imperial Sourcebook and actually list the units and/or orders of battle for each rank, I can do that upon request. Hope you guys find this useful.

EDIT: Also, I'm well aware that a high general and a high admiral are NOT equivalent in rank (while grand admirals and grand generals are indeed the same rank), but all my research confirms that this is correct.

EDIT2: Just got back from watching Rogue One for the second time and paid attention to the Imperial rank badges to see if Lucasfilm tried to make any sense of them. Nope! I saw one officer with a single row of pips that consisted of two blue pips followed by a single red pip (WTF?). In the opening flashback scene (approximately 15 BBY), Director Krennic's rank badge was a single line of six red pips. When we next see him at 0 BBY, he has the in-universe "Admiral" badge of 6 red pips over 6 blue pips. And Tarkin still had his six blue pips over three red pips and three gold pips, which is consistent with the in-universe Grand Moff badge but is the Rear Admiral badge in my/our system. At least they're keeping Tarkin's badge consistent throughout all visual media.

So yeah, apparently when they were making Rogue One, they either didn't bother to try to make the Imperial rankings make sense or they were doing an homage to the wardroom malfunctions of ANH.

Or both.
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