I think the majority of people know about enlisted servicemen, non-commissioned officers, and commissioned officers in fiction media, but I don't think very much is mentioned about warrant officers. So I have to ask: how necessary are warrant officers, and what is it exactly that they do?
Please note: I'm not saying that warrant officers are unnecessary. I'm just asking what is it about warrant officers that can't be done by enlisted, non-commissioned officers, or commissioned officers?
In the Army (I don't think the air force has WOs anymore) the warrant officers are the "technical" subject matter experts.
the enlisted guys are basically the worker bees. they do the majority of the manual labor and actual kiilin stuff.
the NCOs are the front line supervisors for the worker bees. they are the guys that actually take the orders from above and make things happen.
the commissioned officers are typically generalists who oversee the "big picture" stuff and make the medium/long range planning.
I tell my NCOs: this is what has to be done, this is the endstate we must reach
the NCOs figure out how/what is the best way to reach the given endstate.
When I was an air defense officer, our warrants were the guys who knew all the ins and outs and tech stuff of the hardware. I was the guy who knew how to operate the software to run the system. If something broke down, the warrants were the guys who came in and diagnosed the problem and fixed it.
As a military police officer, the only warrants we have are the maintenance officer. our motor chief is the guy who knows all the systems used to keep the trucks running, order replacement parts, etc.
In a way, you can look at the warrant officers as kind of a technical consultant.