DISCUSSION (Ranks and promotion/demotion)

As a note before you read into this massive wall of text :L I'm drafting my thought's, opinions and rough estimations off my knowledge and past experience of the British army structure to the best of my abilities and I'll be putting corresponding UK ground forces ranks in the square brackets to add to the British army theme

this is currently a work in progress (WIP) and will be updated soon until its finish

Commander (IC) [General (obviously the most prestigious officer rank available bar field marshal)]
Obvious

Executive O. (XO's) [Brigadier]
- My opinion of this this role is that we should have a few of these, though obviously we currently have way too many and clearly it's increased drastically from about 7-8 about 6 months ago when i was a former XO to a total of 14 at the moment. how many XO's we should be determined by the amount of troops we have that are actually "active" (i am currently looking into what we will be determining as active within the clan). following what i have just stated, if we have around 80 troops active during peak times (that being the evenings of GMT as following that this is a UK based clan though i do acknowledge that obviously some of our players are in different timezones etc) we should have about 6-8 XO's
- My reasoning for this amount shall be expanded on soon but here is a quick foreshadow of my reasoning through my thought's of what XO's roles are:

• Managing the senior officers (all above junior officer) reviewing the decisions made and replying to requests from those stated officers, for example; A PO is thinking of promoting trooper "X" but not too sure and asks for advice on this matter or A CO is wanting to setup some sort of regular training event prior to a big offensive or defensive but needs help
• Making Executive decisions, yes currently is seems as though all decisions are being routed through all the XO's and eventually the Commander, but i have already noticed that decision making is slow and inefficient being an XO should mean that the commander trusts you on being wise enough to make moderately sized decisions for the clan, not every small thing should be routed back to the commander else we'll end up with either of 2 situations; 1. the commander spends every single minute he's online carrying out administrative tasks and managing the clan and not playing the actual game or 2. nothing gets done and everything that needs a senior decision takes an age to be carried out.
  Though obviously it would still make sense that any issues or decision that are trickier to deal with don't have to be only kept to a single XO
• Deciding what provinces to attack on the global map, should be decided in conjunction with information gained from IO's, hence should also supply IO's with information of what they're planning to attack or request research in to the clan occupying the province

also being a senior of such high placement they should also have a decent standard of actual skill in game that being either commanding skirmishes and CW battles, being able to follow CO's tactics during team events and showing decent stats (still obviously stats aren't everything)

Personnel O. (PO's) [Captain]
-it was a wise decision for WG to put this role in and i know why, but clearly you all seem baffled as to why it exsists and henceforth we have ended up with many, MANY, MANY XO's that i reckon can be better placed into being either a PO or a CO
-the roles of a PO is as it says on it's tin, they should manage the personnel that more precisely being the the more junior troops (Junior officers and the ranks below):

• promotion and demotion of the troops based on their ability and contribution to clan
• reviewing the management of troop recruitment being organised by RO's
• proposing solutions for administrative issues to XO's or commander/ helping with the process of solving administrative issues
• a contact point for abuse within the clan to be reported etc

as to what "administrative" issues are i shall expand on later WIP

Combat O. (CO's) [1st Lieutenant]
-Right, it seems like we definitely have quite a few XO's who should just be moved into this rank

• CO's are pretty much the field commanders, they will be the ones that are delegated to take charge of battles for the clan like skirmishes and CW's unless an XO or even the lord commander himself (#GameofThronereferences) decides they would like to take charge of a battle
  -they should look into researching tactics in clan battles (skirmishes, CW's and any other event battles) for maps in general that they are going to lead a battle on and just slowly learn tactics for all maps in general (it's quite taxing as i attempted this in a short space of time back when i was a XO so don't feel pressured to learn it all in a short span of time and go at a comfortable pace) research can be done via videos ect, my personal favourite is using "http://wotguru.com/map-strategy/" and trying out things in training rooms
• a requirement is that they should have good confidence and skill at leading a team, this can be assessed by XO's, PO's and other CO's before an officer is promoted to this rank
• CO's should also think about setting up training and even possibly and small squad of select players meaning that you can learn the skill set of your squad and build upon that in personal squad training sessions

Intelligence O. (IO's) [2nd Lieutenant] WIP
-i reckon these guys should be secondary field commanders in skirmishes and CW's

• they should have similar traits to the CO's roles, but don't look into map tactic as intensely and rather take more time into researching both our own and opponent and skills, habits and tank positioning.
• Though it will be difficult to research opponents that we encounter before reaching the province owning clan, there should be sufficient time on researching the capabilities of the province owning clan and the likely hood of their tactics
• during clan battles if we can train up IO's to be secondary field commanders being a able to setup pincer manuvers and braking enemy defensive positions would become drastically easier (being able surround enemy positions is crucial to being able break enemy defensive positions, hence why at tier 6 Cromwells and their good mobility for gaining and denying map control is the current meta, the issue is very few commanders are able to setup and take control of double triage advances hence bunching up as one whole unorganised mash of tanks will occur. i was going to do training related to this 6 months ago but many things occured and i disappeared)
• If we were to get like in the high end on the clan wars ladder i guess you could also try setting up a spy network but we're a long way off that XD

Quartermaster (QM's) [Warrant officer class 1 AKA Regimental sergeant major (most prestigious soldier rank attainable in the UK army)]
Honorary position for people who contribute materialistic value to the clan
^^i agree with you on this one Swathe

Recruitment O.(RO's) [Warrant officer class 2 AKA Company sergeant major] WIP
-the name is quite obvious as to what this role is, but not only that though

• they will manage the terms of recruitment with the approval of the PO's/li]
  [li]help with the PO's "administrative" issues that will need to be addressed soon
• obviously accept clan applications and keeping track of the recruits and to deem whether they meet the requirements for promotion to a private
• and scouting for players that have good stats and show good performance and if they are somehow not already in another clan

the number of senior staff can only determined once someone has bothered to look and organise many factors within the clan

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I've tried to make it so each rank of the senior officers aren't overloaded with "work" as obviously this is a game we're playing, we can't just dump everything on a select few people to manage and tuck people into their beds, if you want get more involved and gain more respect in the clan, you have to take up more responsibilities and contribute more but i don't people to feel like they're being forced to do more than they should

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from here downwards i reckon we should setup a different system to the senior officers

WIP

these ranks will be ranks that have a lesser standard of commitment to the clan compared to the the senior officers and the ranks will be based more on ability to play and following of commands in skirmishes and CW

Junior O. [Sergeant]
The elites and the pride of the clan, the troops that have good WN8/stats/skills (stats aren't everything so performance aswell, of which will be determined by CO's in conjunction with PO's) ,discipline and good contribution to the clan, e.g. skirmishes and CW, will earn this title, and are to be the ones who participate in CW's, skirmishes regularly and in the training for being commanders. Contributing to the clan, for example; training your juniors either by platooning and giving advice or doing training session in customs etc. , will increase the chances of you being promoted to more senior roles fitting to your capability.

Private [Corporal] WIP
this is to be the general rank for most of our troops if they fulfil the basic requirements
they contribute to the clan on a regular basis, that'll most easily attained by skirmishes;a requirement of that will be setup soon i believe.
and also time in the clan. see the recruit section as why time in the clan should also be a factor into promotion

Recruit [Lance Corporal]
new joiners etc
we only want to promote people from this rank when they're of decent ability and have shown contribution
the reasoning for this is that all the ranks above this are able to access restricted clan information and as we're now gradually climbing up the CW's ladder we'll need RO's and PO's to manage this to fend off spies.
as for the time it takes to be promoted; if we gained a province and a spy joined our clan and was to be promoted from a recruit very quickly it would mean he'd a able to access our information, and gain information of tactics and positions of our province defence, hence by restricting the speed of promotion of a recruit by a fair length of time, e.g. a week or 2, would mean we could stall or even prevent a spy from attaining the data they want. Hence recruits shall not be allowed to participate in clan wars, unless of reliable source, but are more than welcome to participate in skirmishes

Reservist [nil]
what it says on the tin
inactives can also be put here can also be assigned here before the decision of being kicked is made