I see alot of Sgt Johnson vs Sgt Forge forums and seeing those forums a thought came to mind: If Sgt Johnson and Sgt Forge would meet on the battle field with their men during the Great War and began fighting the covies together. Both their previous COs (someone like a captain or major each) were killed, who would take command?
I know that Johnson was Black/Spec Ops and a Spartan I and lead deep assult missions before with no support (I.E reinforcements from another system) but Forge literally commanded entire battalions (unless i missed something) at the battle of Arcadia and at Alpha base on Harvest along with the entirety of the combat personal on the SoF. I might have missed something but im pretty sure it was at least one or two battalions (300-900 is a battalion) each at batle mentioned and more then that on the SoF because that early in the war it took overwhelming numbers (or plot armor) to deafeat or hold back against the Covenant on such a scale.
Johnson. Johnson was known as “Sgt Johnson” to his fellow Marines, but his actual rank was Sgt Major, which is the highest Sergeant subrank.
Forge’s rank, on the other hand, was just normal Sergeant.
They were both Marines, so they were in the same rank structure.
Simple: SgtMaj Johnson outranks Sgt Forge. Army/Air Force might be alright with lumping all rates of NCO as “Sgt”, but Marines differentiate all NCO/SNCO ranks, regardless of service. Johnson is an E-9, Forge is an E-5, by Navy/Marine Corps structure.
Thanks guys for the feed back! I wasn’t sure on Forges true rank as I said before he lead a hell of a lot more men than a squad or platoon with armor/air support and the fact he was Cutter’s Second in Command when it came to ground comabt. Also thank you for the link for the UNSC Marine Command structure as whenever i looked it up it came out as the United States Marine Corps (USMC) or the United Nations Peace Cops(UNPC).