Chief Warrant Officers are still commissioned officers within the US Armed forces. How those CWO-2s and up were utilized were still the responsibility of the actual service. The US Army is the one service most likely to have a Chief Warrant Officer in a command position or, much more commonly, in a Staff Officer's billet. After elven years in the Army, I've seen both cases, each which are usually handled by a Lieutenant or a Captain, but a shortage of officers in the more technical fields means that Chiefs are the next best thing and they do have the administrative and regulatory authority to do such jobs.Just to butt in here with a little military background, Chief Warrant Officers are a completely separate ranking system from normal officers. CWO are officers that started their careers as enlisted servicemen; and are unable to advance past CWO-5 rank, and start as CWO-2. Officers that went through the Academy start as Ensigns. Of course this is the Navy ranking system I'm referencing.
The main difference is that a Chief Warrant Officer will be passed over for a command or staff officer billet if a qualified officer, no matter how junior, is available to take the position, as Officers are still higher in the Chain of Command than any and all Chief Warrant Officers.
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The MSO has the rank of Warrant Officer for pilots for the simple fact that Warrant Officers are still officers, which allows for some degree of authority that an enlisted person would not have. Namely, the ability to release weapon locks and use a lot of firepower on their own initiative in the absence of orders. Given the destruction a GD can unleash, you can see why making them officers makes some sense.
The rank structure does not correspond to the NATO OF scale, though it did influence things. The ranks were choses as it was considered easier to use existing scales, modified to suit their needs as it would make it easier to coordinate with conventional forces. As the MSO is a UN force, it does not fall under the purview of existing military alliances (NATO, SEATO, etc.), but instead reports directly to the UN Security Council and the UN Secretary General. The MSO does, however, try to maintain friendly, or at least professional, relationships with the various alliances.
Organizationally, I've actually looked at it more along the lines of the cavalry, rather than the Air Force.The furthest I got on unit structure was Unit > Team (2+ Units) > [Base] (Teams permanently assigned to that facility) > central HQ. It pretty much meant that bases with permanently assigned Units/Teams were their own commands (which might have other facilities/outposts that lacked units reporting to them) that worked with adjacent bases to maintain coverage and reported back to central HQ. This is more like Unit > Team (2+ Units) > Squadron (1+ Teams, minimum 8-9 Units; normally commanded by a Colonel) > Wing/Combat Group (1+ Squads; regional level; normally commanded by a Brigadier General) > central HQ (Major General).
Team -> Squad -> Troop -> Squadron -> Regiment -> MSO HQ
There would be three Regiments in the MSO, Atlantic, Pacific, Indian-Oceania. Of the three, the Pacific Regiment is the only one commanded by a still serving pilot, with the other two being commanded by former pilots who are retired from piloting for various reasons. Also, 200 GD frames requires a lot of maintenance and support personnel. The actual MSO has about 30-40,000 personnel, not counting conventional military forces seconded to them.
We can further flesh this out as we go on.
On another note, came up with this idea.
United Nations Space Forces:
Spoiler: show