Coolest/badassiest military ranks?

[SckizoBoy]

Sappers/Pioneers have always sounded cool. They're probably not used anymore but the were all the rage in ww2, yo!

...maybe.

They're both a lot older than that, though sappers came to mean something else in WWII and became subsumed by designations akin to engineers... pioneers are even more old fashioned and more of a hussar type unit... *shrug*

 

[Freaky Lou]

"Master Chief Petty Officer" just sounds awesome to me. Also, Commandant.

"Command Master Chief" and "Force Master Chief" are even better.

 

[Leadfinger]

I like Rittmeister. It was a Wehrmacht rank equivalent to a Captain of cavalry. Rittmeister sounds cool and knightly.

 

[KingHodor]

Not really a rank, but Colonel Hans-Ulrich Rudel, a German WW2 ace, received the highest military order in the of Third Reich, making him history's only Bearer of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds. Sounds posititvely fabulous, don't it?

To earn that honor, Rudel destroyed over 2000 targets, making it no wonder that even the designers of the A-10 Warthog and the leadership of the post-WW2 German Luftwaffe turned out to be gushing fanboys of his (even though the German government obviously didn't like to be associated with an unapologetic Nazi).