What do the characters above each soldier drawing say?
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Garuda
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L1E1
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Re: What do the characters above each soldier drawing say?
left to right.
士兵 = Solider = Private first class and below
軍官 = Officer = Commissioned Officer
士官 = Non-Commissioned Officer
士兵 = Solider = Private first class and below
軍官 = Officer = Commissioned Officer
士官 = Non-Commissioned Officer
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Garuda
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Re: What do the characters above each soldier drawing say?
Oh, the one in the middle is an officer? Usually the TV shows portray officers as the one wearing caps while the other soldiers wear helmets. So the TV shows are wrong?L1E1 wrote:left to right.
軍官 = Officer = Commissioned Officer
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L1E1
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Re: What do the characters above each soldier drawing say?
During 1937-1942, in rare case, like in the drawings, all ranks wear helmets (if helmets were enough). In most of the cases, all ranks wear caps to fight until they could capture enough helmets from the Japanese.
To distinguish who is who, you have to look at their shoes. Leather - CO, Cotton - NCO, Grass - Solider.
To distinguish who is who, you have to look at their shoes. Leather - CO, Cotton - NCO, Grass - Solider.
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gebhk
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Re: What do the characters above each soldier drawing say?
[/quote] Oh, the one in the middle is an officer? Usually the TV shows portray officers as the one wearing caps while the other soldiers wear helmets. So the TV shows are wrong?[/quote]
In modern combat everyone wears helmets (if they have them). Out of combat not, as the damn things tend to be heavy and uncomfortable. So yes, senior officers directing events from a relatively safe distance are less likely to wear a helmet but not officers leading from the front. Furthermore, in more modern times, officers are prime targets for snipers and all manner of unpleasantness, so they do not wish to stand out like a sore thumb. So not only would they wear helmets, but as the war wore on, the very obvious differences in equipment that you can see on the pictures that are the subject of our thread (and typical for all nations at the beginning of the war), would slowly become increasingly blurred.
The silver screen has different priorities. On the one hand you want your rank and file to wear helmets to make it easy for the viewer who knows little of military matters to differentiate between different combatants, particularly in black & white. Real helmets were quite deliberately made to look unique for each army so that friends and enemies could be quickly distinguished in the heat of battle, and so are brilliant for that purpose. Officers, however, are often 'characters' in the narrative so you not only want the viewer to see quickly who the officers are, but often you need him to be able to identify individual actors playing those officers. This is much easier if they wear a cap rather than a helmet.
In modern combat everyone wears helmets (if they have them). Out of combat not, as the damn things tend to be heavy and uncomfortable. So yes, senior officers directing events from a relatively safe distance are less likely to wear a helmet but not officers leading from the front. Furthermore, in more modern times, officers are prime targets for snipers and all manner of unpleasantness, so they do not wish to stand out like a sore thumb. So not only would they wear helmets, but as the war wore on, the very obvious differences in equipment that you can see on the pictures that are the subject of our thread (and typical for all nations at the beginning of the war), would slowly become increasingly blurred.
The silver screen has different priorities. On the one hand you want your rank and file to wear helmets to make it easy for the viewer who knows little of military matters to differentiate between different combatants, particularly in black & white. Real helmets were quite deliberately made to look unique for each army so that friends and enemies could be quickly distinguished in the heat of battle, and so are brilliant for that purpose. Officers, however, are often 'characters' in the narrative so you not only want the viewer to see quickly who the officers are, but often you need him to be able to identify individual actors playing those officers. This is much easier if they wear a cap rather than a helmet.