How many men would be under which kind of sergeant? Which would be the most equivilent of a centurion (100 men commanded)?
A centurion was an officer who commanded a century (100 men). A sergeant is a non-commissioned officer who often acts as a second-in-command to a commissioned officer. I don’t know about the US, but in the UK I guess a sergeant would be second-in-command of an infantry platoon (say 30 men). There are lots of grades of sergeant in the US and some differences between services.
In the U.S., 100 men is the approximate size of an infantry company. It would be very unusual for an infantry company to be commanded by a sergeant. Normally that would be a command for a commissioned officer, most likely a captain. I believe his XO would usually be a 1st lieutenant.
Presumably the company headquarters section would have a sergeant of some rank, but he wouldn’t be in command of the company.
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I don’t think that the Roman military chain of command is comparable to the modern military. The centurions were the highest professional military ranks. They had their own heirarchy, there was a name for the senior centurion that I can’t find right now. Legates and consuls and military tribunes, nominally the commanders, were politicians or political appointees. I would say centurions were more like a hybrid of modern colonels (themselves subject to the political rank of general (my prejudice)) and sergeants.
The centurion is comparable to sergeant of the modern army. There are many types of centurions same as there are master sergeants, sergeant majors etc.
Each legion had 59 centurions, each cohort had about 10 centurions. All the centurions in the first cohort was higher than rank than any of the centurions in any other cohort. The top guy was the Primus Pilus, or the first spear, the first centurion of the first cohort. He’d be like the sergeant major of the regiment, the top ranking NCO that every junior officer would defer too in practice if not in rank.
Though the century was supposed to be 100 men, in practice it was about 84 men. The centurions were professionals and were expected to remain in the army for life. The officers were semi-professionals and many were from the aristocracy, expected a serve a few years as a rite of passage if they wanted to serve in politics.