Officer cadet
Officer cadet is a rank held by military cadets during their training to become commissioned officers. In the United Kingdom, the rank is used by members of University Royal Naval Units, University Officer Training Corps and University Air Squadron however these are not trainee officers and most do not join the armed forces; the term officer trainee is used interchangeably in some countries. The Australian Defence Force follows the same usage as the British military system, using the rank of officer cadet, for personnel undergoing initial officer training. Unlike midshipmen in the Royal Australian Navy and Officer Cadets in the Royal Australian Air Force who both hold a commission, officer cadets in the Australian Army do not yet hold a permanent commission, are not saluted or referred to as "sir" or "ma'am", they do however hold probationary commissions. Officer cadets in the Australian Army are subordinate to warrant officers and officers and address them as "sir" or "ma'am"; as officer cadets are appointed to their positions, they are technically superior to some other ranks, although they will not have direct subordinates.
Initial officer training can occur through either single-service institutions, such as the Royal Military College, Royal Australian Naval College, or the Officer Training School RAAF, or through the tri-service Australian Defence Force Academy. The ranks of officer cadet, staff cadet, midshipman are found at these establishments. However, RAAF officer trainees are appointed to a higher rank while undergoing their initial training course at OTS if they have prior military experience, either as officer cadets prior to their initial officer course, or at airman rank. Officer cadets are appointed to the Australian Army Reserve where training is conducted on a part-time basis at various University Regiments around the country. Australian Army Reserve officer cadets must pass various training courses throughout their training with the final module completed at the Royal Military College, Duntroon before being commissioned. At ADFA, upon completion of all academic training through the "UNSW@ADFA", military training and subsequent training at other military establishments, officer cadets from the RAAF are promoted to a higher junior officer rank, while those from the Australian Army spend another year at the Royal Military College, Duntroon before being commissioned.
Pilots, air traffic controllers and air combat officers joining the RAAF directly through the Officers' Training School start their career as an officer cadet. Once they have completed their employment training, they are promoted; this will change however, as of May 2018, where all graduates from OTS will graduate with a minimum rank of PLTOFF. This will mean. In the Canadian Forces, the appointment of officer cadet, or élève-officier in French, is held by beginning officers, as well as students attending the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Québec or a civilian university through the Regular Officer Training Plan. Officer cadets may sometimes hold a staff or line appointments within a unit, such as second-in-command of a platoon within a company-sized or larger unit; this is done for work experience purposes, in such roles, the officer cadet holds the same command authority as the position they hold. Some officer cadets, who are going through ROTP, are qualified in their military trade.
However, those officers are ineligible to receive a commission until holding a university degree. For Royal Canadian Navy members of the same rank, naval cadet, or aspirant de marine in French, is used in lieu of officer cadet. Officer cadets and naval cadets are referred to and addressed as "Mister Smith" or "Miss Smith", or more formally as "Officer Cadet Smith" or "Naval Cadet Smith". There is a tendency in less cordial environments to refer to an officer cadet as "OC Smith". However, rare. Officer cadets are addressed as "mister" or "miss" by commissioned officers and some senior non-commissioned officers. In non-training environments, such as a base or wing, they are referred to as "sir" or "ma'am" by non-commissioned members. Officer cadets and naval cadets in the CF are subordinate officers, but billet or mess with other officers, they do not carry the Queen's commission, as such are not required to be saluted by enlisted CF members. The rank insignia for the Royal Canadian Navy is a narrow gold braid and a narrow braid for the Royal Canadian Air Force, worn on the cuff of the distinctive environmental uniform jacket, on the epaulettes of all other uniforms.
This gives rise to the somewhat derogatory term'quarter-inch admiral' as a term for cadets who try to insist that they are superior in rank to other members. In the Canadian Army, the rank insignia is one pip over a white band; the peak of the service cap is plain. In the French Armed Forces, this rank, named « aspirant » in French, is attributed to officer candidates during their education, or to volunteers or reservists with a University diploma provided that their candidacy has been validated. In the Indonesian service academies, there is a ranking system associated to the cadets training and studying in
Commandant (rank)
For more information on commandant when used as a position, see Commandant. Commandant is a police rank. In the French, Spanish and Monegasque armed forces it is a rank equivalent to major. In South Africa for most of the second half of the 20th century, commandant was a rank equivalent to lieutenant-colonel. Commandant d'aviation was the Canadian French term for the air force rank of squadron leader; the rank of squadron leader itself had not been held by active duty personnel in the Canadian Forces since 1968 when it was replaced by major. Commandant is a military rank in both Irish Air Corps, it is equivalent to squadron leader. In the Irish Naval Service, the equivalent rank is lieutenant commander. Commandant, is an officer-grade rank of the Military of France the French Army and the French Air Force, equivalent to major; the commandant is styled chef de bataillon in the infantry, chef d'escadrons in the armoured cavalry and chef d'escadron in the artillery and the Gendarmerie. Commandant is the style, but not the rank, of the senior officers of the French Navy.
Prior to the French Revolution, the major was the officer appointed by the King to keep track of the expenditures and readiness of a regiment. He could be either a commoner or a nobleman. A major was graded as a commissar, not an officer; the officer at commandant rank level was the chef de chef d'escadron. Major is now, the most senior warrant officer rank, above adjudant-chef. In the Spanish Army and Spanish Air Force, the rank of comandante is senior to a captain and junior to a lieutenant colonel, making it equivalent to the rank of major or squadron leader in English-speaking countries. Comandante is a military officer rank used in some Latin American countries; the Chilean Air Force uses the rank of comandante de escuadrilla as a rank equivalent to the British rank of squadron leader. The Peruvian Air Force uses the rank of comandante as an equivalent to lieutenant-colonel or wing commander. Comandante can be translated into English either as "commandant" or as "commander"; the rank may be found in numerous paramilitary organizations, such as the Sandinistas.
In South Africa, from 1950 to 1994 commandant was the official designation of the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the South African Army, South African Air Force, South African Medical Service. Prior to this in 19th and early 20th centuries it was the title of the commanding officer of a commando unit. From 1950 to 1957, the rank insignia for a commandant was a crown over a five-pointed star. In 1957 the crown was replaced by a pentagonal castle device based on the floor plan of the Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town, South Africa's oldest military building. In 1994, the rank of commandant / kommandant reverted to lieutenant colonel. From 1968 to 1970, a related rank, chief commandant, existed in the Commando Forces; this rank of chief commandant existed purely in the army and slotted in between commandant and colonel. The rank was only used by officers commanding commando groups. In the United Kingdom the term commandant refers to an appointment, not a rank. However, between 1922 and 1928 the rank of brigadier-general was replaced by colonel-commandant.
This was not well received, was replaced by brigadier. Senior commandant and chief commandant were Auxiliary Territorial Service ranks equivalent to major and lieutenant-colonel used between 1939 and May 1941, when they were replaced by senior and chief commander; the Commanding Officers of individual battalions of the Brigade of Gurkhas was designated a Commandant, rather than a commanding officer. These ranks were used in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force until December 1939, when they were replaced by squadron officer and wing officer respectively; the rank was used for senior commanders of the Ulster Special Constabulary. Captain-Commandant, in the Belgian Army, the highest rank of subaltern officer, ranking above captain and below major
Wing commander (rank)
Wing commander is a senior commissioned rank in the British Royal Air Force and air forces of many countries which have historical British influence, including many Commonwealth countries but not including Canada and South Africa. It is sometimes used as the English translation of an equivalent rank in countries which have a non-English air force-specific rank structure, it ranks above squadron leader and below group captain. It has a NATO ranking code of OF-4, is equivalent to commander in the Royal Navy and to lieutenant colonel in the British Army, the Royal Marines, the US Army, Air Force, Marine Corps; the equivalent rank in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, Women's Royal Air Force, Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service was wing officer. The equivalent rank in the Royal Observer Corps was observer commander which had a similar rank insignia. With the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps adopting the name of Royal Naval Air Service 1 July 1914, the Naval Air Service adopted appointments in addition to the naval ranks.
Pilots wore insignia according to the appointment not their rank. One of the appointments was wing commander holding the rank of commander. On 1 April 1918, the newly created British Royal Air Force did not adopt a new rank structure with personnel continuing their prior services' rank and uniform. There were some changes in ranks but it was inconstant. In 1920, RAF began using the rank of wing commander. In the early years of the RAF, a wing commander commanded a flying wing a group of three or four aircraft squadrons. In current usage a wing commander is more to command a wing, an administrative sub-division of an RAF station. A flying squadron is commanded by a wing commander but is commanded by a squadron leader for small units. In the Air Training Corps, a wing commander is the officer commanding of a wing; the rank insignia is based on the three gold bands of commanders in the Royal Navy and consists of three narrow light blue bands over wider black bands. This is worn on both the lower sleeves of the tunic or on the shoulder of the flying suit or the casual uniform.
The command pennant is two triangular command pennants used in the RAF. Two thin red lines differentiate this one from the other. During 1941-45 RAF Fighter Command's wing leaders were allowed to use their own initials as aircraft identification letters on their personal aircraft, e.g. Wing Commander Roland Beamont's personal Hawker Tempest, JN751, was coded "R-B", Wing Commander John Robert Baldwin's personal Hawker Typhoon was coded "J-B"; the rank of wing commander is used in a number of the air forces in the Commonwealth, including the Bangladesh Air Force, Ghana Air Force, Nigerian Air Force, Indian Air Force, Pakistan Air Force, Royal Australian Air Force, Royal New Zealand Air Force, the Sri Lankan Air Force. It is used in the Egyptian Air Force, Hellenic Air Force, Royal Air Force of Oman and the Royal Thai Air Force; the Royal Malaysian Air Force used the rank until it was retitled as that of lieutenant colonel in 1973, with the same rank insignia. The Royal Canadian Air Force used the rank until the unification of the Canadian Forces in 1968, when army-type rank titles were adopted.
A Canadian wing commander became a lieutenant colonel. In official French Canadian usage, a wing commander's rank title was lieutenant-colonel d'aviation; the rank of wing commander continues to be used as a cadet rank at the Royal Military College of Canada. In the 1990s, the Canadian Forces Air Command altered the structure of those bases under its control, redesignating them as wings; the commander of such an establishment was re-designated as the "wing commander". Like the United States Air Force usage, the term "wing commander" is an appointment, not a rank. A wing commander holds the rank of colonel. In the United States Air Force wing commander is a duty title, not a rank; the equivalent USAF rank is lieutenant colonel who has command of a squadron. Because USAF wings are larger formations than RAF wings, the commander of a wing must hold at least the rank of colonel, is a colonel or a brigadier general; the one exception to this is the commander of the 59th Medical Wing, customarily a major general.
The Civil Air Patrol, the volunteer auxiliary of the USAF, follows the USAF rank structure. The CAP divides the nation into 52 wings; each wing is headed by a CAP colonel. Douglas Bader, Second World War fighter pilot and double amputee, was the first commander to lead formations of three or more squadrons during the Battle of Britain. Roland Beamont, Second World War fighter pilot and post-war test pilot. Abdel Latif Boghdadi, pilot in the Egyptian Air Force turned politician Pierre Clostermann, Second World War fighter pilot and author of The Big Show. Linda Corbould, first woman to command a RAAF flying squadron Roald Dahl, Second World War fighter pilot, famous novelist, his record of five aerial victories has been confirmed by post-war research and cross-referenced in Axis records. Brendan "Paddy" Finucane, top ranking RAF World War II ace with 32 kills. A native of Rathmines, Ireland, he is the youngest wing commander in the histor
Admiral
Admiral is one of the highest ranks in some navies, in many navies is the highest rank. It is abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM"; the rank is thought to have originated in Sicily from a conflation of Arabic: أمير البحر, amīr al-baḥr, "commander of the sea", with Latin admirabilis or admiratus, although alternative etymologies derive the word directly from Latin, or from the Turkish military and naval rank miralay. The French version – amiral without the additional d – tends to add evidence for the Arab origin. In the Commonwealth and the U. S. a "full" admiral is equivalent to a "full" general in the army, is above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet. In NATO, admirals have a rank code of OF-9 as a four-star rank; the word admiral in Middle English comes from Anglo-French amiral, "commander", from Medieval Latin admiralis, admirallus. These themselves come from Arabic amīr, or amīr al-, "commander of", as in amīr al-baḥr, "commander of the sea"; the term was in use for the Greco-Arab naval leaders of Norman Sicily, ruled by Arabs, at least by the early 11th century.
The Norman Roger II of Sicily, employed a Greek Christian known as George of Antioch, who had served as a naval commander for several North African Muslim rulers. Roger styled George in Abbasid fashion as Amir of Amirs, i.e. "Commander of Commanders", with the title becoming Latinized in the 13th century as ammiratus ammiratorum. The Sicilians and Genoese took the first two parts of the term and used them as one word, from their Aragon opponents; the French and Spanish gave their sea commanders similar titles while in Portuguese the word changed to almirante. As the word was used by people speaking Latin or Latin-based languages it gained the "d" and endured a series of different endings and spellings leading to the English spelling admyrall in the 14th century and to admiral by the 16th century; the word "admiral" has today come to be exclusively associated with the highest naval rank in most of the world's navies, equivalent to the army rank of general. However, this wasn't always the case.
The rank of admiral has been subdivided into various grades, several of which are extinct while others remain in use in most present day navies. The Royal Navy used colours to indicate seniority of its admirals until 1864; the generic term for these naval equivalents of army generals is flag officer. Some navies have used army-type titles for them, such as the Cromwellian "general at sea"; the rank insignia for an admiral involves four stars or similar devices and/or 3 stripes over a broad stripe, but as one can see below, there are many cases where the insignia do not involve four stars or similar devices. Admiral is a German Navy OF-9 four-star flag officer rank, equivalent to the German Army and German Air Force rank of General. Post-WWII rank is Bakurocho taru kaishō or Admiral serve as Chief of Staff, Joint Staff（幕僚長たる海将） with limited function as an advisory staff to Minister of Defense, compared to Gensui during 1872–1873 and 1898–1945. Admiral of Castile was a post with a important history in Spain.
Comparative military ranks Laksamana, native title for naval leaders in Indonesia and Malaysia Ranks and insignia of officers of NATO Navies Admiralty Nebraska admiral "Admiral". Encyclopædia Britannica. 1911. "Admiral". New International Encyclopedia. 1905
Commander
Commander is a common naval and air force officer rank. Commander is used as a rank or title in other formal organisations, including several police forces. Commander is a generic term for an officer commanding any armed forces unit, for example "platoon commander", "brigade commander" and "squadron commander". In the police, terms such as "borough commander" and "incident commander" are used. Commander is a rank used in navies but is rarely used as a rank in armies; the title "master and commander," originated in the 18th century to describe naval officers who commanded ships of war too large to be commanded by a lieutenant but too small to warrant the assignment of a post-captain and a sailing-master. In practice, these were unrated sloops-of-war of no more than 20 guns; the Royal Navy shortened "master and commander" to "commander" in 1794. The equivalent American rank master commandant remained in use until changed to commander in 1838. A corresponding rank in some navies is frigate captain.
In the 20th and 21st centuries, the rank has been assigned the NATO rank code of OF-4. Various functions of commanding officers were styled commandeur. In the navy of the Dutch Republic, anyone who commanded a ship or a fleet without having an appropriate rank to do so, could be called a Commandeur; this included acting captains. In the fleet of the Admiralty of Zealand however, commandeur was a formal rank, the equivalent of Schout-bij-nacht in the other Dutch admiralties; the Dutch use of the title as a rank lives on in the Royal Netherlands Navy, as the equivalent of commodore. In the Royal Netherlands Air Force, this rank is known by the English spelling of commodore, the Dutch equivalent of the British air commodore; the rank of commander in the Royal Australian Navy is identical in description to that of a commander in the British Royal Navy. RAN chaplains who are in sivisions 1, 2 or 3 have the equivalent rank standing of commanders; this means that to officers and NCOs below the rank of commander, lieutenant colonel, or wing commander, the chaplain is a superior.
To those officers ranked higher than commander, the chaplain is subordinate. Although this equivalency exists, RAN chaplains who are in divisions 1, 2 or 3 do not wear the rank of commander, they hold no command privilege. In Denmark, the rank of commander exists as kommandørkaptajn, senior to kaptajn and kommandør ("commander", senior to kommandørkaptajn. In France, the rank of commander exists as capitaine de frégate, it is senior to capitaine de corvette, junior to capitaine de vaisseau. The rank of commander was used in the Imperial Japanese Navy, continues to be used in the modern Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force. Though the modern rank is translated as "commander" in English, its literal translation is "captain second rank"; the rank is equivalent to that of a commander in the U. S. Navy. Commander is a rank in the Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem, is denoted by the post-nominal letters CLJ; the corresponding rank in the Polish Navy is komandor porucznik. In the Russian Navy the equivalent rank to commander is "captain of the second rank".
The rank was introduced in Russia by Peter the Great in 1722. From the introduction of the Russian Table of Ranks to its abolition in 1917, "captain of the second rank" was equal to a court councillor, at the sixth level out of 14 ranks; until 1856 it was conferred hereditary nobility on the holder. The equivalent rank in the Soviet Navy from 1918 to 1935 was "first mate"; the rank returned to the Imperial Russian Navy form of "captain 2nd rank" in 1935. Commander is a naval rank in Scandinavia equivalent to the Anglo-American naval rank of captain; the Scandinavian the rank of commander is above "commander-captain", equivalent to the Anglo-American naval rank of commander. In the Spanish Navy the equivalent rank to commander is capitán de fragata. A commander in the Royal Navy is above the rank of lieutenant commander, below the rank of captain, is equivalent in rank to a lieutenant colonel in the army. A commander may command a frigate, submarine, aviation squadron or shore installation, or may serve on a staff.
Since the British Royal Air Force's mid-rank officers' ranks are modelled on those of the Royal Navy, the term wing commander is used as a rank, this is the equivalent of a lieutenant colonel in the army or a commander in the navy. The rank of wing commander is below that of group captain. In the former Royal Naval Air Service, merged with the Royal Flying Corps to form the Royal Air Force in 1918, the pilots held appointments as well as their normal ranks in the Royal Navy, they wore insignia appropriate to the appointment instead of the rank. A flight commander wore a star above a lieutenant's two rank stripes, squadron commander wore two stars above two rank stripes or two-and-a-half rank stripes, wing commander wore three rank stripes; the rank stripes had the usual Royal Navy curl, they were surmounted by an eagle. Commander is a two-star field grade officer of Vietnam People's Navy For instance, as
Officer (armed forces)
An officer is a member of an armed forces or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. In its broadest sense, the term "officer" refers to commissioned officers, non-commissioned officers, warrant officers. However, when used without further detail, the term always refers to only commissioned officers, the more senior portion of a force who derive their authority from a commission from the head of state; the proportion of officers varies greatly. Commissioned officers make up between an eighth and a fifth of modern armed forces personnel. In 2013, officers were the senior 17% of the British armed forces, the senior 13.7% of the French armed forces. In 2012, officers made up about 18% of the German armed forces, about 17.2% of the United States armed forces. However, armed forces have had much lower proportions of officers. During the First World War, fewer than 5% of British soldiers were officers. In the early twentieth century, the Spanish army had the highest proportion of officers of any European army, at 12.5%, at that time considered unreasonably high by many Spanish and foreign observers.
Within a nation's armed forces, armies tend to have a lower proportion of officers, but a higher total number of officers, while navies and air forces have higher proportions of officers since military aircraft are flown by officers. For example, 13.9% of British army personnel and 22.2% of the RAF personnel were officers in 2013, but the army had a larger total number of officers. Having a command authority is one requirement for combatant status under the laws of war, though this authority need not have obtained an official commission or warrant. In such case, those persons holding offices of responsibility within the organization are deemed to be the officers, the presence of these officers connotes a level of organization sufficient to designate a group as being combatant. Commissioned officers receive training as leadership and management generalists, in addition to training relating to their specific military occupational specialty or function in the military. Many advanced militaries require university degrees as a prerequisite for commissioning from the enlisted ranks.
Others, including the Australian Defence Force, the British Armed Forces, Nepal Army, the Pakistani Armed Forces, the Swiss Armed Forces, the Singapore Armed Forces, the Israel Defense Forces, the Swedish Armed Forces, the New Zealand Defence Force, are different in not requiring a university degree for commissioning—although a significant number of officers in these countries are graduates. In the Israel Defense Forces, a university degree is a requirement for an officer to advance to the rank of lieutenant colonel; the IDF sponsors the studies for its majors, while aircrew and naval officers obtain academic degrees as a part of their training programmes. In the United Kingdom, there are three routes of entry for British Armed Forces officers; the first, primary route are those who receive their commission directly into the officer grades following completion at their relevant military academy. In the second method, an individual may gain their commission after first enlisting and serving in the junior ranks, reaching one of the senior non-commissioned officer ranks, as what are known as'direct entry' or DE officers.
The third route is similar to the second. LE officers, whilst holding the same Queen's commission work in different roles from the DE officers. In the infantry, a number of warrant officer class 1s are commissioned as LE officers. In the British Army, commissioning for DE officers occurs after a 44-week course at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst for regular officers or the Army Reserve Commissioning Course, which consists of four two-week modules for Army Reserve officers; the first two modules may be undertaken over a year for each module at an Officers' Training Corps, the last two must be undertaken at Sandhurst. For Royal Navy and Royal Air Force officer candidates, a 30-week period at Britannia Royal Naval College or a 24-week period at RAF College Cranwell, respectively. Royal Marines officers receive their training in the Command Wing of the Commando Training Centre Royal Marines during a gruelling 15-month course; the courses consist of not only tactical and combat training, but leadership, management and international affairs training.
Until the Cardwell Reforms of 1871, commissions in the British Army were purchased by officers. The Royal Navy, operated on a more meritocratic, or at least mobile, basis. Commissioned officers are the only persons, in an armed forces environment, able to act as the commanding officer of a military unit. A superior officer is an officer with a higher rank than another officer, a subordinate officer relative to the superior. Non-commissioned officers, to include naval and coast guard petty officers and chief petty officers, in positions of authority can be said to have control or charge rather than command per se. Most officers in the Armed Forces of the United States are commissioned through one of three major commissioning programs: United States Military Academy Unit
.svg){kind=small}
