Imperial 203rd Aerial Mage Battalion

Imperial 203rd Aerial Mage Battalion is a reinforced Aerial Mage Battalion led by Maj. von Degurechaff, reporting directly to the Imperial General Staff. It consists of 48 active men with powerful Type 97 Elinium dual core Orb that is capable to fly more than 8,000 feet above sea level and match Tanya's firepower and mana efficiency.

However, due to their high level of skill and coordination in addition to their unusually powerful orbs, the unit is often mistaken for a regiment of over 100 mages, simply because the other nations are incapable of imagining a unit this small doing this much damage.

They are also, in principal, their worlds first special forces unit.

Terminology
The name "battalion" is a direct translation of Japanese "大隊". Unlike in the European languages, the same terms are used for military ranks and organizations across all branches of service in Japanese. Thus, a "少佐" (Shōsa, lit. "junior field-grade officer") can be any kind of OF-3 officer, such as a navy lieutenant commander or an army major. Similarly, a "大隊" can be an army battalion or any equivalents in other branches of service.

Since "mage" has no real life equivalent, different translators have chosen different terms. The Crunchyroll anime translation used army terms while the fan translations of the Light Novel and the manga used air force terms.

Background
Before the Great War, the Empire made a national defense strategy named plan 315, which meant letting the regional army groups focus on defense while the Great Army launching the offensive. The General Staff treated the Great Army as the rapid reaction troops. After the Great War began, the Great Army were proved not as flexible as they had predicted before, since its scale was too large, spending too much time on domestic transport. The few standing units in the Central with excellent reaction speed also were proved insufficient because of their amount. The General Staff needed a freely available unit with a certain level of mobility and combat prowess. Considering it was unrealistic to reorganize the army in broad strokes during the war, and they also didn't have many strategic reserve troops, the General Staff finally decided to set up an aerial mage units as the alternatives. It would be under the direct command of the General Staff and consists of the mages from Eastern Army Group and Southern Army Group. The 203rd is that rapid reaction mage battalion.

After several successes due to the high level of skill and capability of the battalion's soldiers and Tanya's strategic skills, the unit essentially became "The tip of the Empire's spear". Were they were the vangaurd of the majority of the Empire's operation.

Battalion Commander

 * Tanya Degurechaff

Vice Commander

 * Matheus Johan Weiss

Adjutant

 * Viktoriya Ivanovna Serebryakov

First Company
C. Commander: Tanya Degurechaff

C. 2nd in Command: Viktoriya Ivanovna Serebryakov

Members:

 * Two Warrant Officer (Platoon Leader)
 * Four Corporal
 * Four Private First Class

Second Company
C. Commander: Matheus Johan Weiss

C. 2nd in Command Vooren Glanz

Members:

 * Two Warrant Officer (Platoon Leader)
 * Four Corporal
 * Four Private First Class

Third Company
C. Commander: Wilibald Koenig (Viktoriya in LN)

Members

 * Three Warrant Officer (Platoon Leader)
 * Four Corporal
 * Four Private First Class

Fourth Company
C. Commander: Rhiner Neumann (Vooren Glanz in LN)

Members

 * Three Warrant Officer (Platoon Leader)
 * Four Corporal
 * Four Private First Class

Trivia

 * Though it wasn't directly under the command of Zettour, the Deputy Chief of Logistics, Rudersdorf always asked for his consent before he utilized it.
 * After the selection, about 72 men remained to compose the training unit called V601. Soon, this unit was trained by Tanya for retraining, and selecting the competent mages to compose the rapid reaction mage battalion.