Almost as soon as Nero spoke, all the cadets felt like groaning. The last thing they wanted to do was train some more, especially on the day they had for rest. The struggle was real, not to mention the soreness and mental fatigue.
Yet when Bella volunteered to be taught, and all the cadets saw Nero teaching him tricks to watch out for, and tips on what to do, they all felt like trying as well. The first to step forward was Luna.
Much like Nero himself, she had an unquestionable, unrelenting desire to become stronger, even if her reasons were different from his. While male and female cadets slept in different quarters, there were no restrictions in combat, so she did not feel uncomfortable asking Nero for pointers.
Nero, in turn, gave her advice suited to her height, physique and strength before helping her practice his tips a few times.
Watching them train, the others felt tempted as well and asked him if they could take up on his offer. Not only was Nero not bothered, he was quite pleased with this outcome.
He paired up cadets that he had already trained, and had them practice their moves on one another while he continued to analyse cadets and give them advice. It was too soon for these cadets to use Nero’s advice in combat, at least without having tried it on each other repeatedly.
Thus, what was originally intended to be a relaxing evening ended up being filled with combat practice. Silas had also arrived since Nero had called him over, and received far more detailed instructions than others. Before calling it an evening, Nero had all the cadets switch partners and carry out a spar.
Training with new techniques and utilizing them in real combat were vastly different experiences, and Nero needed the cadets to know exactly their skill level in a real fight lest they mess up when it counts. Only when they tried it out in real fights, and realised that it was not as easy as practice, would they avoid masking such a mistake when it truly counted.
After that, though, they all went for dinner in a surprisingly harmonious mood. By sparring and training with one another, Nero had expedited the rate at which they started to get to know one another.
As the day came to a close, Nero went to sleep but as always, he woke up early to study. Reading books and understanding the content would not be so easy if the subjects he was taking weren’t so straightforward for now. He knew that in future semesters, the subjects would become increasingly difficult and complex, and his speed of learning would drop.
For example, his General Military studies was teaching him how the ranks in the army worked. The exact details were different for each army and each country, naturally, but Kolar had a clear and distinct system.
When a cadet from KMA graduates, for example, they generally attain a rank of a Second Lieutenant, though it was not uncommon for them to directly get the rank of First Lieutenant either, which was higher. This was because cadets often did missions in their third year onwards, and if it was judged that their service, and more importantly their exposure was sufficient they could get a higher rank.
In some, very rare cases, cadets could directly get the rank of captain as well, which was one step above First Lieutenant.
Such cases were rare, because merit alone was not sufficient for promotions. Officers, especially high rank officers, were expected to make decisions which would influence several levels of the army. By having fresh officers go through every level, working up from the lowest rank to higher ones gave them an in-depth understanding of every level of the army. Thus, in the future, when they made decisions, they would know the exact impact of each of their decisions.
More importantly, the sense of camaraderie and belonging that seniors often had towards junior ones as a result of knowing they had been in their shoes before would result in them less likely to make decisions that would get their juniors killed. Similarly, junior officers would feel more motivated seeing the senior ones at higher ranks, aware that they too could reach such a rank one day.
Below the captain level, officers did not have any soldiers under them, and worked side by side with enlistees. At the captain level, they could get a fireteam which consisted of four or five soldiers. Above the captain was a Major, and above Major was a Lieutenant, which was the rank that Earl Berkin had.
Yet his situation was unusual for various reasons that Nero did not know. A Major had three captains under him, and a Lieutenant had three Majors underneath him. Thus, a Lieutenant was not a senior enough rank to control an entire base.
In fact, generally speaking, the minimum required rank to control a base would be Colonel, which was right after Lieutenant. As one could guess, a Colonel was supposed to have 3 Lieutenants under him. Thus, a colonel had 3 Lieutenants, 9 Majors, 27 Majors and 81 captains under him. This was sufficient size for a small army base, for accounting for the fireteams under captains, and the supporting logistical staff, that accounted for an army base of anywhere between 600 to 1000 soldiers.
Nero had to pause at this point, and think about Earl’s situation. His Aetheric rank was high, which might be why he had such a high command, but his military rank was low. That was odd, but maybe he had a complicated history which had resulted in such an unusual situation.
He continued reading. After the Colonel rank was the Brigadier rank, who had 3 Colonels under him. At this rank, they were all important people who had a tremendous service record, and had proven themselves as excellent officers because they did not just control bases, they had influence over small regions!
Above the Brigadier rank came the ranks of generals, such as Major and Lieutenant General which were also respectively ranked.
Starting all the way from cadet up until Lieutenant General made up 10 army ranks, but the majority never made it up that high. As if that was not complicated enough, there was an entirely different ranking system for enlisted soldiers, starting from private, all the way up to Sergeant Major. In between were many other ranks as well, but that did not make them less important.
While officers made strategic decisions for the army, it was the enlisted soldiers who kept it running on a ground level. Generally speaking, barring some exceptions, high ranking enlisted soldiers had greater respect among the citizens of Kolar than officers because they were more likely to face danger, making their rise much more difficult.
After studying about ranks, Nero continued to study about the division of the actual army itself. Starting from fireteams, they went up to squads, platoons, companies, battalions and so on. Just as with the officer ranks, each group consisted of a number of smaller groups.
For example, squads could consist of 2 to 4 fireteams, while platoons were made up of 3 or 4 squads, and so forth.
If all of this was not complex enough, the division and responsibilities of technical and support officers was entirely different, and they had their own dedicated Divisions, which was the largest group right beneath the corps level, of which there were only 3 in Kolar.
To systematically manage and run the army on such a massive scale was not an easy endeavour, and involved numerous complicated moving parts. Yet to learn all of that was the requirement of a single course in one single semester at the start of KMA. This was merely the foundation of the knowledge about the army, and only after mastering it could a cadet have the understanding and vision to understand the following subjects.
When Nero switched from this subject to the next, which was Military science, he discovered that a lot of it was about the control of resources and morale, both of which were often linked. Perception was one of the most crucial tools available to an army, and it influenced both enemies and allies alike. The art of feigning strength as weakness and covering weakness with strength were also crucial aspects of an army. Furthermore, balancing the power in an army, ensuring that no one went without accountability without also limiting the army’s ability to act and react to a situation was one of the most crucial parts of keeping the army operating, and operating effectively.
Nero absorbed all of the theory like a sponge, taking in the examples and making them a part of his regular thought process. He needed to understand the army as it was represented in books, and as it was in reality. This was only the beginning of his journey, and he would not make a mistake right at the start.
He kept studying until right before morning call, and then started to get ready. Today... he should be hearing back from Isabella. That would affect a lot of things, so he was looking forward to her response.