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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

German naval ranks


Michael Lowrey

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Since we have had a number of discussions of Royal Navy ranks lately, I though it might also be useful to post a link to a site with details of Kaiserliche Marine (German navy) ranks and uniforms. There are a number of differences between the two world wars...

http://users.hunterlink.net.au/~maampo/mil...marine_1914.htm

Merry Christmas,

Michael

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Michael,

Thank you for that, very interesting, having only two ranks between the men and the officer corp suggests a very strict officer driven navy. I wonder what the officer rating ratio was.

Merry Xmas Charles

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Charles,

In the Kaiserliche Marine, the warrant officers (Deckoffiziere) were technically counted amount the enlisted men and not the officers. Still, the enlisted rank structure is flatter. (There's an extra officer rank though, which causes considerable confusion.)

As for the officer/enlisted ratio, I'm not sure its all that different. The UBII, UCII, and UBIII class submarines all had a typical compliment of three officers and 20 to 30+ men (a CO, a watch officier, and an engineering officer, with a Deckoffizier, such as a Steuermann, also standing watch).

The bigger U-boats (excluding U-cruisers) had four officers. From what I've seen, those numbers are comparable to Royal Navy submarines. The same would hold true on German destroyers and torpedo boats — the CO was only typically an Oberleutnant zur See, so it would be difficult to have too many officers under him.

Merry Christmas,

Michael

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