What pay for soldiers?
 

I was just reading about soldiers pay today. It seemed relevant even to the game as it can influence your background.

Here is the pay for french soldiers (€/month, rounded up):
Soldat (Private): 1044
Caporal (Corporal): 1058
Caporal-chef (Technician Corporal): 1107

Sergent (Sergeant): 1104
Sergent-chef (Staff Sergeant): 1271
Adjudant (Technical Sergeant): 1369
Adjudant-chef (Master Sergeant): 1594
Major (First Sergeant): 1934

Sous-lieutenant (2nd Lieutnant): 1533
Lieutenant (1st Lieutnant): 1719
Capitaine (Captain): 2259
Commandant (Major): 2693
Lieutenant-Colonel (Lt Colonel): 3103

Pay in OPEX is regular pay+1.5 regular pay. For a private it will be 2610€ (for exemple currently in Afghanistan). Of course, all of this will be disrupted by T2K but not immediately. At the time of T2K the principles were already the same but pay was in French Francs. I'll try to do some research on that later. What about your armies?

In T2K, your pay is going to be food, ammunition, gear, and above all else, security. And possibly hope for the future.

Pay at that time was pretty meager. It was not quite half of what the current pay is today. An example, a PFC I knew made 30% more than I was I made as a Cpl ten years before. But for most of the 90s the pay seldom kept up with inflation and your annual increase on your anniversary date was usualy 15 to 20 a month increase which sucked.

Off of memory in the early 90s;

Pvt was about 738 a month
PFC was about 820
Lance Cpl was about 900 a month
Cpl was about 1200 a month

Of course these numbers changed each year and the pay amount would also increase on the anniversary of your enlistment, but those are close.

Obviously. I'm interested on pays IRL.:)

All I know is what my disability pay is.;)

My disability pay is more than your disability pay! :p

Oh wait, its from the same people....uh...er...never mind :D

My two computer screens are bigger than yours!:p

Burn Notice
 

I like the show on USA called Burn Notice. (Yes, it's unrealistic, I know.) But it brings the possibility of a new character or NPC type -- the burned spy.

(For those who don't know the show, Michael Weston is a "burned" spy -- one who has been so thoroughly disavowed by the CIA that he has been dumped in a city with no identity records, no work records, no nothing.) Might be more a Merc: 2000 thing.


Edit: Sorry, I meant that as a new thread. Can a moderator fix that?

Mo;

Here is a breakdown of the pay, I will attempt to post it in 5 year incriments 1985, 1990, 1995,2000 and 2005 so you can see howit changed and when the big jumps did occur. I have covered from 1985 to 2005 which are the years that cover most characters

I will only include the basic pay, and not include the time at specific ranks which means you get more. I will break it down to 3 catagories for enlisted and three for officers and one for warrant officers. Here we go!

Rank 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 Non-Rates

E-1/Pvt 620.40 724.20 854.40 1,005.60 1235.17
E-2/PFC 695.40 811.80 57.60
1,127.40 1384.50
E-3/L/Cpl 723.00 843.60 995.10 1,171.50 1456.20

NCO's
E-4/Cpl/Spec 767.40 895.50 1,056.00 1,242.90 1612.80
E-5/Sgt 822.60 960.00 1,132.20 1,332.60 1759.50

Staff NCO's
E-6/SSgt 937.20 1,094.10 1,290.30 1,518.90 1920.30
E-7Gunny/ 1089.60 1,271.40 1,499.70 1,765.80 2220.00
Sgt1C

E-8/1stSgt 1560.60 1,821.30 2,148.00 2,528.40 3193.50
Mster/Sgt

E-9/SgtMaj 1860.60 2,171.70 2,561.70 3,015.30 3901.20

Warrant Officers:
W-1 1,061.10 1,238.10 1,460.10 1,719.00 2290.20
W-2 1,273.50 1,485.90 1,752.90 2,063.40 2593.50
W-3 1,453.80 1,696.80 2,001.30 2,355.90 2948.40
W-4 1,599.60 1,866.90 2,202.00 2,592.00 3228.60

Mustang Officers <This only applies to Company Grade Officers>
OE-1/2nd LT 1,495.20 1,745.10 2,058.00 2,423.10 2948.10
OE2/1stLT 1,856.70 2,166.90 2,556.00 3,009.00 3660.90
OE3/Captn. 2,076.30 2,423.40 2,858.10 3,364.80 4168.20


Company Grade Officers:
O1/2nd Lt 1,188.60 1,387.20 1,636.20 1,926.30 2948.10
O2/1st Lt. 1,369.20 1,597.80 1,884.60 2,218.80 3736.20
O3/Captain 1,570.20 1,832.40 2,161.20 2,544.00 5083.20

Field Grade
O4/Major 1,689.60 1,971.90 2,325.60 2,737.80 5766.60
05/Lt.Col. 2,004.60 2,339.10 2,759.10 3,248.40 6048.60
06/Col 2,506.20 2,925.00 3,449.70 4,061.10 6433.80

Very nice, I'm trying to find the same thing for the french but so far, I failed.

The only thing I can say is that, as a private conscript in 1994, I had 70$/month + 70$/month for lodging. Long term conscript (2 years) received much more and volunteer enlisted received the most.

I agree that pay is not the most but, when designing a character background it could be interesting to have some ideas.

Thanks Jest:)

Thats why I went back to 85 to give a good 10 years before the main events in T2K kicked off so people can get an idea for character background. I almost included the 2010 figure but ran out of room on the page and with my poor eyesight forget shrinking the font.

Does the US still pay extra for housing, based on the location of the assignment? I had an ROTC instructor who told us that he had had widely varying take-home pay, given his postings:

1. NW Pennsylvania: not much at all.
2. Ft. Campbell, KY: a bit more.
3. Washington, DC: a lot more. He was assigned to the Secret Service's bomb squad, so the Army paid for his Armani suits, too.

Yup. It's called Basic Allowance for Housing. Some places also get Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) as well. I keep hearing that the Air Force gets Substandard Housing Offset when they live in Army Housing, though I've not seen any real evidence of this.

Also Separate Rats (Separate Ration Allowance) so you can afford to not eat in the Mess Hall. The BAH and Separate Rats in Hawaii are gigantic due to the costs of off-base housing, and lots of personnel live off-base since the housing areas of bases aren't that big. You can also get TLA (Temporary Living Allowance) while you're waiting to get into base housing, and TDY (Temporary Duty Allowance), even if you aren't living off base -- I got TDY when I was on funeral detail, since we were in and out of hotels, and I got TDY in jump school, even though I was in training barracks.

Slightly OT, but..
 

Reading Eddie's post reminded me of something that happened when I was stationed on Okinawa. I'd met & befriended an Air Farce type, same rank as me, E-3. He showed me his room at the AF's barracks. Huge room, full size bed, no roommate, drinking fountain in the room that had hot water for coffee.

My barracks? Built shortly after WWII, was open squadbay converted to 2 man rooms with thin paneling, community shower/head, no a/c, standard military bunkbeds, steel lockers.

I have to admit to being slightly jealous.

Separate Rats doesn't change based on location though. For Os it doesn't even change with paygrade, I'm not sure about Es but I don't think it does for them either. In Hawaii, BAH and COLA skyrocket. As an O2E I was netting more than $10,000 a month while deployed and almost as much after redeployment.

The other pays, TLA, TDY, TLE, Clothing Allowance, Family Separation, Hazardous Duty, etc., are available only under certain conditions and are not a regular occurrence. Technically clothing allowance is, but it's only once a year. TDY is a whole separate animal altogether. I didn't go to Jump School on TDY so I got nothing. I didn't get my first TDY until I went to Ranger School. Then you have Permissive TDY which you don't get paid for, it's just free leave to find a house at a new duty station basically.

There are so many rules and conditions put on the special pays that it's barely worth the hassle anymore. But, extra pay you're entitled to is extra pay that you're entitled to.

Oh, and my favorite special pay, Dislocation Allowance. Of which, I recently found out that you can get more than once every fiscal year! I can't wait for my move in 2 weeks!

Back in the very early 90's as a reservist, a Private in the Australian Army received about $49 per day of active duty. We had a weekend (2 1/2 days pay) and two week night parades a month of 2 hours and 3 hours which were worth 1/3 and 1/2 a day respectively.
When in the field more than a couple of days (annual training of 16 days) we received Field Allowance ($15 per day). There were a number of other allowances of varying amounts depending on the situation - Deployment Allowance, Hard Living Allowance (when in tents rather than barracks), Separation Allowance (a favourite of the married men), just to name a few.

When I went full time in 94, the base daily rate had climbed to the dizzying heights of AU$56.65. As a regular soldier I received $371.07 per week plus $7.48 Uniform Maintenance Allowance, however immediately paid back $62.30 R&Q (Rations and Quarters), and $18.55 MSBS (can't find what that code is).

As an officer in the reserves, I think the pay was upwards of $90 per day plus allowances (I should have taken the commission they offered me!).

I had heard those soldiers who deployed to Rwanda (and got totally messed up psychologically by the terrible experience of the genocide they witnessed) earnt around $40k each for the 6 month tour. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2nd_Bat...egiment#Rwanda

Norwegian pay in the 90s
 

Regular pay for conscripts were around 10 US dollars a day .12 if you were a cpl. ( 60 and 70 NOK respectively ).

As a sargent you had a monthly pay of around 15000 NOK or 2,500 US dollars roughly .But this increased with any field time ( i.e duty out of camp or any travel.) If I got lucky and had a couple of courses with travel to and from and a big EX one month ,it got to be around 3000 US (21000 NOK).

Not bad for a 20 year old I guess.

But when I deployed overseas so many bonuses kicked in in addition to favourable taxation rules .

As a 2nd LT. I made around 5000US /30 000 NOK a month after taxes.

Dont know what they make today out there ,but I hear our SF guys make around 7000-10 000 US a month when you add all of it up and factor in tax cuts etc .

Heck, the Air Force doesn't even call them barracks -- they're dormitories. Even the barracks rooms my stepfather's Marines had were luxurious compared to the Army barracks we had when I was in.

Wes,

What camp were you at in Oki?

We did Hansens, the open bays by the lower Chow Hall, empty pool at the Very edge of the base. Just a side wall divider for a cubicle, and when it rained heavily, it would flood., glad I got a top bunk ;)

I did a stink at Camp Courtney, the HQ 3rd Mar Div for a bit and they gave me a room! Damn! They had carpeting, bathtubs and TEAK cabinets for wall lockers and real furniture, again some kind of nice hardwood desks and talbles and even a nice refrigerator. It was like night and day from where I had come.

Paul, you are kidding even when I was in Hawaii in the 90s many of us were living in open squadbays <a couple that had been condemed since the 60s>


As for pay per day, we would sit and do the math.

As a L/Cpl before taxes we got about $34 a day which well when we thought about it, it was rather demoralizing. I recall many a time guys saying "For the hours I work it comes out to half minimuim wage. Phuc, I'd be making more flipping burgers." But then again, it wasn't about getting rich, it was more about chasing women, riding fast in helos and boats, shooting automatic weapons and blowing things up. AHHHH, even the memories have a slight adrenaline rush :)

Well, you've heard about how the US Air Force builds its bases, right? ;) First, they put up the golf course, officers' quarters, officers' club, NCO & enlisted dormitories and eating facilities. After that, hangars and maintenance facilities. By then, they've blown through the allocated money, and go back to Congress: "Our new base doesn't have runways yet." And Congress agrees that you can't have an airbase without runways, so they fund it some more.

Apparently, the Navy lays down the runways first, then some of the other stuff, and runs out of money about halfway through the hangars and enlisted facilities. When they go back to Congress, they get told to see what next year's budget brings.

So I'm told....

So I guess the Army builds the motor pools and buys the vehicles and weapons, then says "Damn! Where are we going to put our troops!"

Isn't that what tents are for? ;)

The only time I slept in a tent was in Basic. I don't recall ever setting up a pup tent on active duty or in the National Guard. Closest I came was rigging a lean-to.

Unless you count my REMF days at 2X...it was like Shangri-La. We even had cold soda and hot food in the field. Going back to the 82nd after that was a shock!

I spent the first half of my deployment to Iraq in a GP Large with my platoon. The other two platoons got buildings and the Os had a Leader's room in the CP building, but I opted to sleep in the same conditions as my guys.

Paul, I hate you for another reason!

I had to actualy sit down and count the number of times I slept in a shelter half!

1 week in Boot Camp
1 Week in MCT
1 Week in SOI
1 Week at Mt. Fuji in the Fleet
1 one night in the desert when we had to hunker down because of a sandstorm. Then they got ditched. Damn thats not alot, considering all the time we had to hump the heavy things.

Woh! I was at Camp Kinser back in 80. It sure has changed since then. Ive looked at pics and hardly recognize it.

I admired BG Granrud at 2X for that reason. He kept the nice luxury 5-ton we outfitted for him at the motor pool, and slept in a pup tent just outside the TAC. I had it better than him -- I slept on top of a 577. I never had much real respect for most officers, but I respected the hell out of General Granrud.

I carried the shelter half, sometimes -- it's a bit bulky, though, and a poncho can serve many of the same purposes.