>>If she was still a sergeant when she got it, it can't be higher than
>>4th. If she was a field-grade (whatever that means) officer it's at
>>least 4th; given the lack of red/blue (and her not being a general
>>officer), it's not 2nd or 1st.
>
>Well, amusingly enough (to me, anyway), that fits too - I decided when
>writing her OWaW bio that hers is Fourth Class, because it splits the
>difference eligibility-wise between her NCO and junior officer days.
>
>Field officers are military middle managers - anyone ranking above a
>company commander (who are usually captains in an army-ranks context)
>and below a general officer. So, majors and colonels, basically. Mio
>is a field-grade officer (her canonical rank, shōsa, is
>variously translated as Major, Lieutenant Commander, or Squadron
>Leader, depending on whether the translators are using army, navy, or
>Anglophone air force ranks); Yoshika, even after receiving her
>commission for meritorious service, is not. Again, depending on how
>you choose to translate chūi, she's either a second
>lieutenant, an ensign, or a pilot officer.
>
>(The translations I've seen are not consistent about this.
>FUNimation's official subtitles call Mio "Major Sakamoto" in spite of
>the fact that, since she's a naval officer, if you were going to
>translate shōsa at all, the more appropriate translation would
>be "lieutenant commander". Shirley Yeager, on the other hand, is a
>captain in the Liberion Army Air Force, retranslated "taii" in the
>original Japanese, but the subs render her rank as the confusingly
>equivalent British RAF "flight lieutenant". By contrast, Gertrud
>Barkhorn is also called "taii" in Japanese, but that gets rendered
>into English as "captain" (the direct translation of the German
>Hauptmann) - but they're the same rank. Meanwhile,
>apparently taking a cue from this, the fansub of the movie I've seen
>calls Mio a Squadron Leader. This, as noted in Liz Windsor's OWaW
>bio, is also one of the puzzlingly named RAF ranks, and doesn't mean
>she actually leads a squadron - in fact, it's RAF for Major.
>Confused yet? :)
>
>--G.
>-><-
>Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
>Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
>zgryphon at that email service Google has
>Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

If you want confused, try being a writer for Battletech and trying to keep track of a dozen rank structures (Depending on the era I'm writing in).

:)

Craig