> As for the grades, what is the interest in knowing that someone is a
> rear-admiral or a vice admiral since the grades used are Japanese and do
> not match exactly with American. Why not use directly the Japanese grades?
> We know that Yang Wenli is Gensui and not some Admiral.
Obviously the Japanese grades have Japanese names for them, but weren't
they based on western ranks to begin with? So a translation of "Admiral"
for "Gensui" would not be 100% inaccurate. Outside of WW2 (for obvious
reasons), I am not familiar with Japanese military history, so correct
me if I'm wrong.
As another note, I think part of the confusion in LoGH ranks comes from the
fact that in Japanese the rank names for Army and Navy are the same, except
for Navy they just simply add a "Naval" infront of the title. So a "Rear
Admiral" literally translates into Japanese as "Naval Junior General."
what really confuses me most is the insignia worn by the Imperial officers.
Here's what I've managed to piece together so far:
Japanese Translation # stars Insignia in series
(kanji translation) (Imperial)
"marshal" Grand Admiral 5 ?????
"upper general" Admiral 4 ?????
"middle general" Vice Admiral 3 3 stripes?
"junior general" Rear Admiral 2 2 stripes on shoulder
"provisional general" Commodore 1 1 stripe on shoulder
If the above pattern holds we should see that Admirals have 4 shoulder
strripes and Grand Admirals 5 stripes, but I don't think we see any admirals
with 4 or 5 stripes, even though they are referred to as Admirals, as
Mittermeyer and Reuenthal for example are in series 1. Also I seem to
remember Kircheis being promoted to Admiral, but still wearing 3 stripes.
I also think I'm missing a rank somewhere...was there also a "Fleet Admiral"
or "Space Admiral" rank interposed somewhere, or did I just misremember?
> Once again, correct me if I'm wrong, but I do not think most of us know the
> difference between
> brigadier general and lieutenant general anyway.
It's not that hard...brigidier general is one star, lt. general is 3 stars.
-Hank
-----*****-----*****-----*****-----*****-----*****-----*****-----*****-----
Hank Wong renegade@hooked.net http://www.hooked.net/users/renegade/
"Cal, the University of California, is not Berkeley, any more than
Berkeley, the city, is Cal." --Art Spander
"Dreams do not vanish, so long as people do not abandon them."
--Phantom F. Harlock,"Arcadia of My Youth"
*****-----*L*O*N*G*---*L*I*V*E*---*S*A*I*L*O*R*---*M*O*O*N*-----*****-----