British military equivalent to American MOS

[drumist]

If an american service man or women asks another member of the services what your MOS? ( Military Occupational Speciality ) , they are simply asking what's your job, what do you do? what is the british equivalent acronym

[jacko50]

Do you mean the british Army euivalent? I happened to spend some time in the Army and the only thing i can think of would be you would ask, what mob are you in , then they would tell you what corps or regiment they were in and from that you would know what they did, for instance if they said they were in the royal signals (scaley backs) you would know the area of work he /she did, then they would usualy tell you there speciality, linesman, radio operator ect. if on the other hand they said i am in the green jackets , then you would know they were in the infantry, you then ask which batalion, 1st 2nd 3rd after that they would say something like mortar platoon, suport company and so on . am i rambling?

[4GS]

Yeah, I was recently (2003) part of an Senior NCO exchange with the American Army and jacko50 believe it or not they have a rank called 'Specialist' it's the equivalent to our Cpl. When I was introduced to my host's squad one guy called himself 'Specialist Smith', when I asked him what he specialised in he looked at me gone out until my host explained their rank structure to me

[jacko50]

yes 4gs, you hear them say it in documentarys about Iraq, specialist this and specialist that , i thought they meant that they were very good at a certain job , you know like sniper or something.I once was on exersize with some yanks and we were sharing rations ,american one day and brit the next, the sgts mess got a delivery whilst we were having lunch one day and the yanks saw milk being delivered so they said they wanted a carton of milk each (they said thet were entitled to it) anyway they were told to wind theyre necks in they weren't getting any so they said the would refuse to work , it took a top sgt about 10 min to sort them out and show them the errors of their ways.could you imagine brits doing that?

[4GS]

Lol yeah I know what you mean. Incidently, their Sgt's are the equivalent to our full screws, if I was in their (so called) army my rank would have been WO2

So what were you in?

[4GS]

You shared the Yanks 'rat packs'? I thought their MRE tasted awful, wouldn't give it to a dog, and I don't like dogs!!

[jacko50]

4gs the rations were k rations, this was 1972 ish , I was in the Rct, my equivelent rank would have been private first class. I was a chopsy git , mind you i only did 22 years.