Uniform Insignia Forum

jrichardn

Warrant Officer I in the Royal Navy is equivalent to Warrant Officer I in the British Army (not "Royal Army"; long story why not). The rank badge, the Royal Arms, originated in the Army. Regimental Sergeant Major is an appointment, not a rank, held by a WO1. Don't know the answers to your ...

jrichardn

Someone else will know the years when the changes but took place, but ... What's now PO and CPO used to be PO2 and PO1. What's now WO2 and WO1 were CPO2 and CPO1. (This was true in the Royal Canadian Navy at unification in '68. I think it was true in the RN at that time, too.) STANAG 2116 makes RN's...

jrichardn

Only suggestion is that a private soldier of cavalry is usually called a Trooper in English.

jrichardn

In most armies, it seems to me, stars are not used exclusively by or for generals. The "lozenges" of British generals were instanced: only two of the three general-officer ranks in the British Army use the pip - the key insigne is the device of crossed sword & baton. The pip is used in...

jrichardn

I was interested in Sunita Williams' "running" the Boston Marathon from the International Space Station, and found out she's a Commander (O-5) in the U.S. Navy. Although she's a Naval Aviator, she's basically an engineer and helicopter pilot. On the Shuttle and the ISS she's a flight engin...

jrichardn

In answer to Dharma's questions ... the Republic of Quebec doesn't exist ... it's the hypothetical independent state that would arise from the Province of Quebec's secession from Canada. Quebec's capital city is also named Quebec. There's not much of a naval establishment currently in Quebec - a few...

jrichardn

... at least with respect to uniforms. The Bureau of Customs & Border Protection (CBP), which is a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, has military- or police-style uniforms, as anyone crossing the border or coming off an international flight, will see. Those officers from the old Cus...

jrichardn

Well, the Queen is the nominal commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces. Her wearing a "5-star" uniform on ceremonial occasions is no really different than her wearing the dress of a colonel of the regiments she's colonel-in-chief of. Incidentally, her consort, the Duke of Edinburgh, is Capt...

jrichardn

On the 5-star thread we learned (thanks, El Supremo) that the topmost 4-stars in the U.S. armed forces are paid at a higher grade, O-10S, in effect a kind of “shadow” 5-star rank. Let’s suppose we throw out the (quite real) political considerations about reactivating the 5-star ranks, and grant the ...

jrichardn

Eisenhower died in 1969. Wasn't Omar Bradley (who died in '81) the last 5-star officer of any U.S. service?

Cheers, Richard Nelson
looking south to the United States from Toronto

jrichardn

The United Nations' police force in Kosovo, UNMIK CIVPOL, have been in the news recently. A glance through their Web site suggest a well articulated scheme of rank badges. Depending on the era, the badges look like stripes & loops; but a recent video of the UN police commissioner shows him in a ...

jrichardn

I did check most of the U.S. unified combatant commands' Web sites, and their chiefs are all styled Commander. The North American Aerospace Defence (or Defense) Command is a binational command, with a U.S. commander and a Canadian deputy. The commander of NORAD is also the commander of the U.S. Nort...

jrichardn

Thanks, Justin, for that piece of information. I hadn't realized that the Commanders in Chief had become "merely" commanders. Time-honoured abbreviations like CINCPAC are no more! (He's now, apparently, called COMPAC). It's interesting how even military Presidents have eschewed uniforms. I...

jrichardn

Just saw V for Vendetta on DVD. It takes place in either a slightly future Britain, or perhaps a parallel one (not important). Britain is now a Nazi-style totalitarian dictatorship. There’s no mention of the Royal Family, the dictator is known as the “High Chancellor”, and national emblems seem to h...

jrichardn

Can't speak for Interpretix (or indeed anyone else) but the question this wandering thread has tried to address was how to equivalence ranks not covered by the NATO equivalencies - particularly police ranks.

Cheers, Richard Nelson
Toronto

jrichardn

I don’t know if it’s specifically mentioned in Heinlein’s novel, but in the related novel Space Cadet the Patrol has no uncommissioned ranks. Heinlein, an old Navy man, may have felt there was a big difference between solders, who need uncommissioned ranks, and the “technical” specialists needed on ...

jrichardn

Hi, LZ! You could start with the Royal Air Force's rank structure, which started as a hybrid of the British army & navy's respective air arms. Besides, it would allow you cool-sounding ranks like Space Chief Marshal . :-) In the RAF (and its Commonwealth counterparts), officers between OF-2 and ...

jrichardn

Hi, Zdzislaw: For what it's worth, I'm sure you know that NATO has done extensive work to show equivalencies among the ranks it member countries' armed forces - it's all in STANAG 2116, which you can find pretty easily on the Web. Brigadier in the British Army is considered precisely equivalent to B...

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Trooper

Would Sunny Williams wear these wings?

U.S. sort of already has Home Guard ...

7 stars for President as Commander in Chief?

"Dwight D. Eisenhower the last commissioned 5-star gene

UNMIK CIVPOL

Commander v. Commander-in-Chief

"Commanders" of unified commands

V for Vendetta