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In fairness, Wehrmacht training probably doesn't cover short shorts-wearing teenagers throwing Hans at you.

In the Eyes of a Ranger,
The unsuspectin' stranger
Had better know the truth of wrong from right.
'Cause the Eyes of the Ranger are upon you...
Any wrong you do, he's gonna see!
When you're in Texas, look behind you,
'Cause that's where the Ranger's gonna be!

So you have your Elite Redshirts. They go anywhere, fight anyone, and keep on trucking no matter how hard they're hit. They're on the good side, they're a group of (usually) non-main characters, and they are AWESOME. So... what do you call them?

Easy: Rangers.

It seems that, every time you hear the word "Ranger", the person/people bearing the title will proceed to kick butt for quite a long time, and will almost never suffer from Badass Decay.

In short, "Ranger" is shorthand for awesome. As can be seen from the Real Life folder, there's some Truth in Television to this.

When applied to military units (such as the US Army 75th Rangers Regiment), they will typically be some form of light infantry Spec-Ops who specialise in mobility, stealth and occasionally guerrilla/counter-guerrilla tactics. The accepted vulnerability in these tactics (reduced armor, firepower, numbers, etc) add to the badass credentials.

See also the Army Scout, who may be equally badass, but tends to work alone scouting ahead of the army. See also Forest Ranger.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • The Survey Corps in Attack on Titan. They are trained to explore the lands beyond the walls, where giant people-eating Titans roam, so they figure out how to reclaim human land. They do this by using special equipment to fling themselves through the air at high speeds, navigating obstacles by impressive feats of acrobatics. Fifty percent of them do not survive their first mission, but the ones who do are considered a cross between a legendary hero and a complete lunatic. Unusual in the sense that the main characters are all members of the Corps.
  • Gate: Itami of all people turns out to have passed Ranger qualifications (with the bare minimum, but still) in the JGSDF. This causes something of a nervous breakdown in some of his squadmates who have difficulty accepting that such a self-admitted slacker could achieve that.
  • Ghost in the Shell:
    • Batou's past with the JGSDF as a Ranger-trained soldier is occasionally mentioned. In the SACverse, this has some prominence while he was tasked to hunt a suspected American Empire commando-turned-serial killer in Niihama.
    • In the Ariseverse, Ishikawa, Saito and Borma are implied to also be Ranger-trained soldiers.

    Comic Books 
  • Steve Rogers (a.k.a. Captain America) served in a Ranger unit during World War II.
  • The Cursed Earth Auxiliary, who patrol the Cursed Earth in the vicinity of Mega City One, in Judge Dredd are commonly known as the Rangers. The Texas Rangers still exist too, though they're more of a Bounty Hunter with a uniform.
  • The Rangers in the Marvel Universe are a Texas based superhero group. The group was later incorporated by The 50 States Initiative as one of it's government sponsored teams.
  • Badass superspy Nick Fury was also an Army Ranger during WWII.
  • The Rangers of Freedom were three teenage boys (and Ranger Girl), representing "the best specimens of American youth," recruited by the FBI to fight in World War II. As teens they were resistant to the mind-controlling powers of the Super-Brain, an alien aligned with the Axis Powers, and they were outfitted with bullet-proof, allegedly-patriotic costumes. Unfortunately two of the three boys got killed off in their fifth issue, when the Japanese captured them and used them for bayonet practice, but the survivor went on to fight in an actual US Ranger unit.
  • Tomahawk's Rangers in Tomahawk. The name invokes the real world Rogers' Rangers, while the team itself was essentially [[/Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos the Howling commandos]] in the Revolutionary War.

    Film — Live-Action 
  • The A-Team were all US Army Rangers before being framed and dishonorably discharged.
  • Blackhawk Down gives us Colonel McKnight's Army Rangers and a team of Delta Force operators trapped in the city of Mogadishu after a raid goes south when two helicopters are shot down. In exchange for many of Mohamed Farrah Aidid's militia killed, the Rangers lose 19 men in the resulting battle. Based on a True Story.
  • Cameron Poe from Con Air is a newly-paroled ex-con and former U.S. Ranger who finds himself trapped in a prisoner-transport plane when the passengers seize control.
  • The Lone Ranger: The eight Texas Rangers of whom the Lone Ranger was the last surviving member.
  • In The Lord of the Rings,
    • During the extended cut of The Two Towers, Saruman has a rather visible Oh, Crap! moment when Gríma Wormtongue mention that one of the men at Edoras, Aragorn, appeared to be a Dúnedain Ranger (of course, Saruman has a bigger one when Grí­ma mentions he's wearing a ring of entwined serpents and realizes not just what but who he is).
    • In addition to the Dúnedain, there's also the Ithilien Rangers led by Faramir, who are shown in The Two Towers to be elite and badass guerilla fighters, conducting raids against Haradrim convoys moving through the region to link up with Mordor's forces.
  • The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra has Ranger Brad. He's seen bears do things even a bear wouldn't do.
  • Pacific Rim: "Ranger" is the term used for the specially-trained operators of the Jaegers, the Humongous Mecha that defend humanity from the Kaiju. The name of their position combined with their superiors being called "Marshals" are also meant to evoke Westerns.
  • Captain Miller and his squad (except Cpl. Upham) from Saving Private Ryan are members of the 2nd Ranger Battalion.
  • Along with being a highly decorated Delta Force operative, Major Gates from Three Kings also has a Rangers tab.
  • Yesterday (2002) has former Border Ranger soldiers as minor antagonists, mostly hired by the Big Bad as Elite Mooks.

    Gamebooks 
  • In the Lone Wolf series, the Sommlending Border Rangers, elite soldiers of Sommerlund. Unfortunately for them, in Book 4 (The Chasm of Doom) they are assigned to the command of Doom Magnet Lone Wolf, making them a Redshirt Army.

    Literature 
  • In Dale Brown's books, Hal Briggs and Trevor Griffin are Air Force officers who have gone for the Ranger course. Sergeant Major Ray Jefferson was also a Ranger.
  • Discworld: "Bush rangers" are shown in The Last Continent as being outlaws. Though, the Last Continent is a mishmash of Australian culture, pop culture and nostalgia for things long since abandoned. The term "bush ranger" refers to criminals operating beyond the settled and adequately policed areas of the time, analogous to American Wild West outlaws. Rincewind, however, thinks they're like park rangers.
  • Forest Kingdom: In book 3 (Down Among the Dead Men), the main cast consists of four Rangers, who are basically a commando unit sent to investigate a situation and deal with it, even if it costs them their lives. In this case, it doesn't.
  • Honor Harrington:
    • The Sphynxian Forest Rangers are the local wilderness experts, tasked with patrolling and protecting the Crown's lands, fighting wildfires, helping people who get stranded in the wilderness, and protecting the interests of the Sphynxian Treecats, the native intelligent lifeforms on Sphynx.
    • Stephanie Harrington and several of her friends are Probationary Forest Rangers, a Scouting-esque organization for youths that want to receive wilderness training and assist the Rangers in their work.
  • In Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan series, Domingo Chavez is a graduate of Army Ranger school, later bringing that expertise to the anti-terrorist Rainbow team.
  • The Lord of the Rings has the Dúnedain Rangers, fearsome guerilla fighters who are dedicated to protecting the free peoples of Middle Earth from Sauron's forces. They are split into two groups; the Rangers of the North led by Aragorn, who defend the peoples of the former Kingdom of Arnor, and the Rangers of Ithilien led by Faramir, who patrol the border between Gondor and Mordor.
  • In the Paladin of Shadows books, US Army Rangers are sometimes detailed to guard the Keldara valley while the normal occupants are away on a mission. We get to see some up close in Unto the Breach. Colonel Nielson was also Ranger-tabbed.
  • Ranger's Apprentice: The Rangers are Badass Normal special forces and investigators, Famed In-Story for stealth and archery skills, and Shrouded in Myth because they keep their secrets close to their chest. They're no slouches when it comes to close-quarters combat, either. Just the knowledge that a Ranger is in the area is generally enough to make bad guys think twice.
  • The rangers of the Night's Watch from A Song of Ice and Fire. There are builders, and they are necessary to keep the Wall at its present height (in previous years there were enough to build it higher every year). There are the stewards, and they keep track of accounts, equipment, and most importantly food stores, vital during the long winters. But virtually every person who still holds the Night Watch in any sort of respect tends to think of the rangers, the ones who go out beyond the Wall, more or less looking for trouble (at which point it won't be trouble for much longer). Especially if the ranger in question is Qhorin Halfhand.
  • The Star Wars Expanded Universe has the Antarian Rangers, an organization of clans founded to support Jedi Knights; they interbred somewhat with the Jedi, so Force-Sensitivity was common. Wraith Squadron member Tyria Sarkin is the last of the Antarian Rangers from her planet, and puts the infiltration skills she learned to good use.
    To be a Ranger meant knowing how to move in any environment. To blend in with the forest or grasslands, to sail, to swim, to dive, to pilot. To be masters of our surroundings. We were good spies, good warriors, very adept at intrusion and escape.

    Live-Action TV 
  • The Anla'Shok in Babylon 5, known to the humans as the Rangers. Starting as a religious order dedicated to preparing for the Shadows' return, they operated as intel operatives and messengers through the early part of the third season, eventually becoming a Badass Army in their own right, before eventually becoming a sort of Space Police by the end of the series, keeping the peace between the members of The Interstellar Alliance.
  • Seeley Booth on Bones is a former Army Ranger and we do get to see him working with them in the season 6 opener, where he’s training newer guys in Afghanistan.
  • Game of Thrones: Benjen Stark is first ranger, which is a high position held in the Night's Watch, the group responsible for defending the Wall, and tasked with ranging beyond it.

    Music 
  • The Marty Robbins track "Big Iron" (featured on the Fallout: New Vegas soundtrack) tells the story of a duel between a nameless Arizona Ranger and the vicious outlaw "Texas Red". The Ranger is quickly established as a dead-shot as well as extremely quick on the draw.

    Myths & Religion 
  • Irish myth (and perhaps a speck of reality) gives us the fianna, wandering knights who lived off the land during the summer but were sheltered by lords in exchange for protection in the winter. The Irish Army Rangers get their nickname from these guys.

    Tabletop Games 
  • 2300 AD is set in a future where Texas is independent again. The Texas Rangers are the national police force, including on Texas's offworld enclave. One published adventure, called Ranger, deputizes the player characters into the Rangers to deal with a difficult alien species.
  • BattleTech gives us the 12th Vegan Rangers, a mercenary command that's somewhere between three and four regiments strong and has survived over 300 years of warfare and have their own planet to boot—no other mercenary unit can make that sort of claim in its entirety. Averted with the Waco Rangers, who, while a regiment-sized Ragtag Bunch of Misfits with great raiding skills, got so wound up in a bloody vendetta that it blinded them to danger, especially when dealing with the Clans. This got 90% of them killed in a single mission before finally being wiped out to a man when the Jihad started. Takes a turn for the silly with the Arcade Rangers, so named because most of them were recruited from the local virtual-reality Battletech arcade games of their home planet. Ironically, I Know Mortal Kombat turned out to be in full effect; these former mall rats turned out to be a surprisingly skilled if extremely unconventional team precisely because they'd had so much practice fighting alongside each other and trying crazy things to see if they worked in the arcades.
  • Deadlands uses the Texas Rangers—see the Truth in Television section below—and uses them shamelessly. One Riot, One Ranger is still the catchphrase, but the "riot" in question may well be undead, werewolves, worshippers of an Eldritch Abomination, whatever. If that seems unfair to the Rangers, that's because it is; even Player Character Rangers are told to "make do" when encountering adversity. Especially Player Character Rangers.
    • In the Deadlands: The Weird West timeline the Texas Rangers defected from the Confederacy when they realized that slavery was empowering the monsters they were fighting and have been rebranded as the "Territorial Rangers" with jurisdiction in the unincorporated territories, working alongside the Agency and U.S. Marshals that have jurisdiction in the States.
  • Dungeons & Dragons: The Ranger class — particularly in 1st Edition AD&D — almost defines Badass Normal. Rangers start their career with 2 Hit Dice rather than the 1 everyone else gets, a whompin' 90% base tracking chance (by comparison, a 1st level thief with maximum Dexterity would have 20-40% in all but one skill), a 50% chance to sneak up on anyone, and a huge (by 1st Edition standards) damage bonus to pretty much any humanoid monster. At high levels they can learn magic drawn from the spells of two different classes (druid and magic-user) and start to attract loyal followers, potentially up to storm giants and copper dragons. Yeah.
    • However, the effectiveness of the ranger differs by edition, with more recent editions being somewhat of a downgrade for them in terms of Character Tier.
    • Some editions indicate that having any player class means you're at least somewhat special (that's why 3E had "NPC classes", and 5E brought them back as "sidekick classes"). A ranger therefore is not your average wilderness fighting person regardless of where they might be in relation to other player classes... however, this principle is not consistently applied, even in editions where it is stated.
  • Mutant Chronicles has several varieties. The Capitol Airborne Rangers are frontline assault infantry, who fly into zones the Air Force has just bombed, take strategic positions, and hold them until the Army arrives. Bauhaus has the Venusian Rangers, who are selected from the best Bauhaus has to offer, sent through a two-year program known as "The Forge", and are then thrust into any situation where failure simply is not an option.
  • In Warhammer, Rangers have an interesting place in Dwarf society because they spend most of their time outside the Holds, on the surface. Their roles are securing the land outside the Holds, protecting Dwarf merchant caravans, reclaiming lost Dwarfish treasure and hunting down creatures like goblin mobs and lone trolls (and sounding the alarm if a larger creature or army is close by a Hold). Despite their clear importance, being a Ranger is a thankless job; a lot of Dwarfs even suspect that many Rangers are cowards who dishonoured themselves but didn't want to take the Slayer Oath so they became outcasts instead. Rangers and Slayers ironically tend to get along well, as they can both understand how it feels to not fit in anywhere.
  • Warhammer 40,000 has Rangers, a troop choice for the Craftworld Eldar. They're Eldar who have decided to leave the ultra-regimented Craftworlds to seek excitement and adventure out in the galaxy. Between their highly accurate long rifles, their ability to traverse difficult terrain easily, and skills at infiltration and survival, the Rangers make for excellent scouts, assassins and guerilla fighters, and they will often return to their home craftworlds to aid them and fight for them. There is also an elite version of the Ranger, the Pathfinder, Rangers who have been Rangers for so long that they will never willingly return to their craftworlds and have centuries of experience; just small groups of them have been known to harass and stall entire Imperial Guard columns, exacting devastating tolls on their numbers, supplies and morale while receiving very few casualties themselves.

    Video Games 
  • Battle for Wesnoth has the Ranger and Elvish Ranger units. The Ranger is the 3rd level advancement of the bandit Poacher unit, while the Elven Ranger is the 2nd level of the Elvish Archer. In each case the ranger is one of two choices for level advancement, with the other option being a Glass Cannon type unit with Marksmanship. Rangers are more of an all around unit having equally good archery and melee skills as well as better movement rate, health, and defense than the Huntsman or Elvish Marksman.
  • Used by the Ranger skill of Axton in Borderlands 2. It provides a small boost to numerous statistics, and has the text "Makes you better at just about Everything" describing it.
  • Call of Duty
    • The 2nd Ranger Battalion appears in Call of Duty 2 as the main (and only) American force in-game.
    • Ramirez from Modern Warfare 2, who DOES EVERYTHING, is from the 75th Ranger Regiment. General Shepherd too, who stabs Soap in the chest with his own knife and nearly manages to beat Captain Price to death with his bare hands shortly after surviving a helicopter crash.
  • In Civilization VI, the lowly Scout unit can be upgraded to a Ranger once the Industrial-era Rifling technology is researched. Rangers can attack enemies without being countered (though they still have to be next to their target), and get a significant Combat Strength boost, allowing then to hold their own in a fight.
  • In Command & Conquer: Generals, Rangers are the basic infantry unit for the American faction - this isn't to say they suck, it's just that the US is an Elite Army where every unit is defined by superior skill and technology compared to their opponents. Unlike the other factions' rifle infantry, which can only shoot things, capture buildings or garrison structures, Rangers have unique abilities like using flashbangs to neutralize enemy infantry, or Fast-Roping from a Chinook helicopter hovering over a structure to clear it quickly and decisively.
  • In Company of Heroes, the Ranger squad is the most powerful infantry squad the Americans get and is good at killing infantry and armor. Their only competition is the Airborne units, British commandos, and German Knight's Cross Holders.
  • Dawn of War: Eldar Rangers, the "invisible sniper" type that does huge morale damage.
  • Featured in several of the Dragon Quest games that use a Character Class System, including Dragon Quest IX.
  • The Earth Defense Force series has the Ranger class. This mostly serves as the basic soldier type where anyone recruited in the EDF works as infantry.
  • Fallout:
    • Going back as far as the first game, recruitable companion Tycho states that he's a Desert Ranger as a Shout-Out to Wasteland.
    • The New California Republic has its own set of Rangers, which the player can join in Fallout 2 by wiping out some slavers.
    • Between Fallout 2 and Fallout: New Vegas, these two Ranger groups merged in recognition of the threat posed by Caesar's Legion, and in New Vegas you can find a monument to the Ranger Unification Treaty. One of the NCR Veteran Rangers graces the game's cover in their Gas Mask, Longcoat getup, and such soldiers are the most dangerous forces NCR can field.
    • One of the songs in-game, "Big Iron," mentions an outlaw named Texas Red who had killed twenty lawmen who tried to arrest him. Up until an Arizona Ranger armed with the titular Big Iron comes to arrest him. They have a classic showdown, which ends with the Ranger killing Texas Red with an astonishing quick-draw.
  • Rangers in Final Fantasy XI are defined as being ranged attack masters. Indeed, until a few years ago, Rangers were so far and away the top DPS job it didn't seem possible for anyone else to catch up... at least, until ranged attacks got Nerfed. While many see it as being a little bit too much, Rangers are still a good candidate for any party.
  • In Final Fantasy Tactics A2, we got the Moogle Rangers, which consist of... well, Moogles. And five of them. However, they have hundreds of counts of breaking the peace (and one of trespassing) and need to be taken down by your clan. At the end of the battle, for no reason whatsoever, they leave by rising into the sky.
  • In the Fire Emblem series, there have been a few classes called the Ranger. In Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War and Fire Emblem: Thracia 776, the Ranger is a promoted Free Knight who wields swords and rides on a horse; in Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, they are promotions for the Archer and Mercenary, and act as Horse Archers with swords as a backup; in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, Ranger is Ike's personal base class.
  • The Rangers appear in some Medal of Honor games, particularly Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, Medal of Honor: Frontline, and Heroes 2.
  • The Rangers in Metro 2033 is a faction composed entirely of this trope. Only the most badass gets to become a Ranger.
  • NetHack has a ranger class, focused on stealth and death from far-off, which is strong but very well-balanced compared to its contemporary in AD&D
  • Pokémon Ranger has you control the eponymous Pokémon Rangers, a peacekeeping organization dedicated to protecting the Pokémon world.
  • In Ragnarok Online, Rangers are one of the highest-tier classes of the Archer class line, capable of utilizing animals such as falcons and wolves to battle, setting traps, and of course, firing Rain of Arrows in the battlefield.
  • The third Ratchet & Clank had Galactic Rangers, who were generally cowardly and preferred to have Ratchet take care of all the work. However, they pull a Big Damn Heroes in the endgame, helping him clear the path to Nefarious and taking out Giant Mooks in only a few shots.
  • The main characters of Valkyria Chronicles 4, Squad E, are all part of the Ranger Corps of the Federation military. Specifically the 32nd Armored Ranger Corps.
  • The Desert Rangers (the source for Fallout's Desert Rangers) of Wasteland were (in-universe) inspired by the Texas Rangers, and (once they realized other communities had survived the nuclear war) decided to help rebuild and re-establish human civilization in the wastelands. Your characters belong to the group, and will either die or end up doing many impressive things.
  • One of the single-player missions in World in Conflict starts with you in command of just four infantry squads—but they're Norwegian rangers, so they all start off at the star rank (the highest level of four a unit can evolve to). It is entirely possible for them to remain your main strike force for the entire mission, despite heavier and theoretically more powerful units becoming available half-way through. In the multiplayer, the rangers are the NATO paratrooper units (US has the Marines, instead, while USSR sports VDV Spetznaz)—they don't start off at star rank anymore, but they are still extremely useful in scouting ahead deeply in the enemy territory.

    Webcomics 
  • Ranger from 8-Bit Theater is a parody, double-classing as Ranger/Ranger to dual-wield his dual-wield. With bows and arrows.
  • The Highland Raiders from Drowtales. The various Sarghress units are mostly among the best in the business in their chosen field. The highland raiders may not excel as a group in any specific field, but they compensate by doing a bit of everything for long periods of time. Including expeditions to the surface, where they will suffer from mana deprivation if they stay too long and are too few.

    Western Animation 
  • Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers: Alongside the growth of human activities in space, criminal activities also grew, and the new colonies required defense against various threats, including the Crown Empire. A group known as "BETA" (Bureau for Extra-Terrestrial Affairs) was founded to cope with these tasks, with a "Ranger" division being a part of it. BETA is shown to be the major military and exploratory arm of Earth.
  • Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers: Chip and Dale are two chipmunks who start a detective agency, Rescue Rangers, along with their friends Gadget Hackwrench, Monterey Jack, and Zipper. The pint-sized detectives deal with crimes that are often "too small" for the police to handle, usually with other animals as their clients.
  • Agent Fowler in Transformers: Prime is eventually revealed to be a former US Army Ranger.

    Real Life 
  • United States Army Rangers, who are advanced light infantry troops in the United States Army. Their berets are a bit of military tradition inherited from the British Commandos, who helped train the first Army Rangers. The Rangers in turn passed the Beret on to the Air Force Security Police airmen who attended Ranger School during The Vietnam War when they needed to expand their skills from being military policemen to defending their bases against major ground attacks.
    • By extension, people who go to Ranger School are identified as badasses by their Ranger Tab, even though they are not considered to be part of the actual 75th Ranger Regiment ("Scrolled" Rangers are generally required to go earn their Tab if they serve in a combat capacity in the Regiment, especially if they hope to lead one day). This honor also goes to foreign allied soldiers who are vouched by their COs to attend them.
  • Similarly, Irish Army Rangers, although they are actual special forces as opposed to advanced light infantry. They took the Ranger name due to their first members having attended Ranger School in the United States.
  • The Texas Rangers, Trope Namer for One Riot, One Ranger.
    • The Colorado Rangers are an all-volunteer Colorado-base law enforcement agency, with its root from the Jefferson Rangers. The JR was responsible for law enforcement at Jefferson Territory during the Pikes Peak Gold Rush. Used to have law enforcement powers, but operated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit when they known as the Colorado Mounted Rangers. The CR provides extra manpower to other police departments in the state or work with NGOs in humanitarian operations.
  • Philippine Army Scout Rangers aka the 1st Scout Ranger Regiment. They're a special forces unit, created by Rafael M. Ileto after the Alamo Scouts and the American Rangers since he had served with the American military against the Japanese in the Pacific War. The Regiment is highly known in Asia for their experience in fighting against the communist New People's Army and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front with the Islamist terrorist group Abu Sayyaf.
  • The Pakistan Rangers. They operate in a paramilitary role with two branches in the Sindh and Punjab provinces.
  • The Nepal Army Rangers, being treated as a special forces unit.
  • The JGSDF has this, but it's more of a soldier's qualification than a unit. It's been coveted since JGSDF soldiers with Ranger training are for the most part either with the Special Forces Group, the JGSDF's counter-terrorist/elite special forces unit or with the elite paratrooper unit, the 1st Airborne Brigade. JGSDF soldiers with Ranger status are also trained to conduct anti-guerrilla/infiltration operations (alongside other special forces-type training) throughout Japan should there be a future conflict involving commandos/soldiers from intruding nations or terrorists inserted into Japan. The training courses are also offered to various civilian emergency services, including police, fire departments and paramedics.
  • Vietnamese Rangers, also known as the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) Rangers. They were trained by the 75th Ranger Regiment to operate in conventional/unconventional warfare. After the NVA secured Saigon, NVA officers considered Ranger-trained soldiers/officers to be dangerous that they were incarcerated for long periods of time in redducation camps due to their tenacity and bravery in holding them back.
  • The original rangers were colonial troops hired as special forces along the American frontier by various colonies. Rogers Rangers were among the most famous of these.
  • The Lebanese Maghaweer aka the Lebanese Army Rangers or the Lebanese Commando Regiment.
  • The Swedish Coastal Rangers, Parachute Rangers and Army Rangers (the Swedish name is actually "Jägare", meaning hunter, but it is usually translated as Ranger) make up the elite of the regular Swedish Armed Forces (after the classified Special Operations Task Group). Members of the different units have argued for more then 50 years over who are more elite.
  • The term "ranger" derives from authorized hunters, game wardens, and foresters of royal hunting grounds going back to at least 15th century England, from whom units of elite infantrymen were raised. The same concept gave rise to terms like chasseur, jaeger, cacciatore, and others (most of which mean "hunter") which are used for elite light infantrymen, including special forces, in various other European countries. (see the Swedish example above). Naturally, for less-than-elite forces, this makes them all examples of Names to Run Away from Really Fast.
  • Royal Ulster Rangers, then the Royal Irish Rangers, now part of the Royal Irish super-regiment of the British Army note  Recruited in the Six Counties of Northern Ireland but accepts recruits from the Republic.
    • On a related note, the Pathfinder Platoon of 16 Air Assault Brigade may not have "rangers" in the name but their role is roughly equivalent to the modern definition: A lightly equipped and intensively selected and trained unit whose task is to survey the terrain and gather intelligence ahead of the main body of an assault force.
    • The British created the Ranger Regiment in 2021, under the Army Special Operations Brigade, as part of British military reforms under Future Soldier.
  • Canadian Rangers (or Rangers Canadiens if you speak French), a volunteer force meant to show Canadian military force in the northern parts of Canada, usually in isolated, coastal or in hard to reach places via surveillance and patrols. It's made up of Inuit, First Nations, Métis and non-Aboriginal volunteers. It's the modern-day successor of the Pacific Coast Militia Rangers, formed in the 1940s in case the Imperial Japanese Army was able to land its forces in western Canada.
    • They even do the name proud. As of 2015, the Canadian Rangers have finally opted to get new rifles (one of the ONLY pieces of gear a Ranger is actually issued by the Canadian Forces, they're expected to buy the vast majority of their gear). The previous rifle? Lee Enfield No. 4's. The only reason they're being phased out is that they ran out of parts. And they've been using them since the days of the PCMR.
  • The Kenyan Army's Ranger Strike Force or "40RSF" in the Special Operations Regiment. It was established in 2009 when 6 KDF soldiers were deployed to Fort Benning to be trained at the Warrior Training Center. Its existence was only made public after Operation Linda Nchi. Their lineage was traced back to the Rangers Strike Company, formerly under the army's 20th Parachute Battalion.
  • The Malaysian Army's Royal Ranger Regiment. Some of its predecessor units include the Sarawak Rangers, which fought against pro-communist guerrillas during the Cold War.
  • The Singaporean Army's Commando have a Commando Training Wing course that include a Ranger Training Course, developed by Singaporean Army soldiers/officers who were deployed to the US and trained at Ranger School.
  • The Thai Army's Thahan Phran, which means Hunter Soldier.
  • The Israeli Army has established the 89th "Oz" Brigade under the Central Command, based on experience learned from the Second Lebanon War and Operation Protective Edge. The brigade's formation was influenced by the 75th Ranger Regiment.
  • The Italian Army's 4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment, which operates as a special forces unit. Italian media dubbed them the equivalent of the 75th Ranger Regiment, although they specialize in mountain warfare, where they may need to ski through snowy terrain and survive harsh weather. They trace their legacy through the Alpini soldiers, who were known to use mountainous terrain during World War I.
    • Although not a Ranger unit, The US 10th Mountain Division was formed during World War II largely as a counter to Italian Alpini troopers.
  • The ex-Afghan Army Commandos are seen as the Ranger equivalent. Despite their SF background, their training and command structure was influenced by Ranger instructors.
  • The Polish Jednostka Wojskowa AGAT is called the Ranger equivalent by Polish media.
  • The North Macedonian Army's Rangers Battalion.
  • Byzantine Akritai on Caliphate border and Croatian and Hungarian border troops (hussars, Uskoks etc.) on later Ottoman border are probably the Real Life military units closest to fantasy rangers.

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