Talk:Finnish military ranks

Private ranks
An anonymous IP user has made a couple of edits claiming that "combat medic" lääkintämies is a rank. This is not the case. Medic is a training branch, important as such, but the privates with such training carry the private rank of their combat arm. For example, an artillery medic is a gunner, a Border Guard medic, a frontier jaeger, a medic in Finnish Air Force, an airman. As a proof, you may read the article 40 of the General Regulations (Yleinen palvelusohjesääntö:
 * ''Varusmiehestä käytetään palvelusaikansa alussa nimitystä alokas. Joukko-osaston komentaja nimittää alokkaat sotamiehiksi tai matruuseiksi peruskoulutuska

udella. Sotamiehestä voidaan käyttää seuraavia puolustushaara- tai aselajikohtaista sotilasarvoja:
 * ''jääkäri        jalkaväessä ja rannikkojoukoissa
 * ''tykkimies      tykistössä ja rannikkojoukoissa
 * ''pioneeri       pioneerijoukoissa ja rannikkojoukoissa
 * ''viestimies     viestijoukoissa ja rannikkojoukoissa
 * ''autosotamies    autojoukoissa sekä
 * ''lentosotamies   ilmavoimissa.
 * ''Edellä lueteltujen arvojen asemasta voidaan käyttää esimerkiksi seuraavia joukkokohtaista sotilasarvoja: rakuuna, ratsumies, kaartinjääkäri, panssarimies, panssarijääkäri, rannikkojääkäri ja suojelumies.

This translates as:
 * At the start of his training, conscript is called Recruit (alokas). The commanding officer of the brigade-level unit promotes the Recruits to Privates (sotamies) or Seamen (matruusi''). Privates may be called with the following service- or branch-specific ranks:


 * Jaeger (jääkäri'') in infanrty and coastal troops
 * Gunner (tykkimies'') in artillery and coastal troops
 * Engineer (pioneeri'') in engineer and coastal troops
 * Signalist (viestimies'') in signal and coastal troops
 * Driver (autosotamies'') in transport troop and
 * Airman (lentosotamies'') in Finnish Airforce
 * In addition to aforementioned ranks a unit-specific rank may be used, e.g. the following: Dragoon (rakuuna), Cavalryman (ratsumies), Guard Jaeger (kaartinjääkäri), Armourman (panssarijääkäri), Armour Jaeger (panssarijääkäri), Coastal Jaeger (rannikkojääkäri) and NBC protection man (suojelumies'').

So, as you see, the "combat medic" is not listed as a rank. --MPorciusCato (talk) 20:01, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the insignias of lieutenant colonel and colonel
Having the background in red for those, but green for ranks below, may confuse the reader to believe that ranks above Major have red backgrounds. Therefore, I recreated the images with an infantry green color for those as well. The Lieutenant Colonel roses were not aligned and looked pretty bad. --Malin Randstrom (talk) 22:58, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

General Officers' Collar Plates
The Collar Plates are not always gold on red, contrary to this article. Quite right, the borders are golden (whatever the original colour), but the background colour depends on general's branch or training. Firstly, Air Force generals have blue background on their collar plates. Chaplain-General has black background. Most of Army generals have red which is the colour of general staff officers (actually white on red). General staff officer's degree is requirement to all higher posts in Finnish military. However, it is not required from specialist officers: Brigadier General (Engineering) Jukka Juusti has gold on purple as he previously served in Electrotechnical Corps (black on purple). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.153.170.40 (talk) 13:23, 3 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, you are quite correct. In addition, I remember seeing the portrait of Vilho Nenonen, General of Artillery. He carried artillery collar plates (black on bright red) even as a full general. Similarly, I remember seeing colonels who kept carrying their branch colours despite having the general staff officer degree. --MPorciusCato (talk) 17:37, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Throughout the article, I would substitute the term 'collar patch' for 'collar plate'. Collar patch is the usual term in English. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.68.12.85 (talk) 19:38, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Border Guard
There seems to be no mention about the fact that Senior Border Jaeger (ylirajajääkäri) is used instead of Lance Corporal (korpraali) in Finnish Border Guard. Also, it seems that FBG has replaced frontier jaeger with border jaeger as translation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.197.99.181 (talk) 20:12, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Rank patches have wrong coloring. They all ought to be green with orange borders. In practise these gorget patches are not worn but shoulder patches. --93.106.11.81 (talk) 23:07, 22 February 2024 (UTC)


 * As seen here: https://www.iltalehti.fi/kotimaa/a/201705082200125342 93.106.11.81 (talk) 23:10, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Reserve officers non-commissioned?
Vuo noted that Finnish reserve officers are non-commissioned. To me, this seems to be incorrect. The Finnish reserve officers are clearly officers, as specified in §22 of the General Regulations of the FDF, which lists the officer ranks from 2nd Lieutenant to General. The NCO ranks are given in §29, which lists the ranks from corporal to chief warrant officer (sotilasmestari).

The Finnish officer and reserve officer ranks were consolidated in 1942. Before that, there existed an officer rank (e.g luutnantti) and the reserve officer rank (e.g. reserviluutnantti), with slightly different insignia. Since then, the reserve officers are officially called upseeri reservissä, "officers in reserve", e.g. §31 of the General Regulations.

The Finnish reserve officers are, indeed, inactive for most of the time, but using the term "non-commissioned" is incorrect. If you wish to use the term to refer to the letter of commission, then all Finnish officers are non-commissioned, because even active officers lack a formal letter of commission. --MPorciusCato (talk) 19:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

All Finnish officers are commissioned by appointment of the president. Local FDF offices present the president a list of candidates to approve twice a year. Q-FUNK (talk) 17:09, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Counter Admiral?
The third highest rank of the Navy, kontra-amiraali, has been translated as "Counter Admiral". I believe the standard equivalent in English is "Rear Admiral".--Death Bredon (talk) 16:25, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Change in NCO translations
It seems that some of the official NCO rank translation have beem changet

http://www.puolustusvoimat.fi/wcm/9791bc80458b5dd8b0bbba49521bfd22/Varusmies_2011_sisus+eng.pdf?MOD=AJPERES — Preceding unsigned comment added by Feldwebel (talk • contribs) 07:00, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Incorrect Rank Translations
Since this article is becoming an revert war I want to discuss about this. Mesoso2 has been adding rank terms which are incorrect according to the Official English terms used by the Finnish Defence Forces, I see the ranking terms problematic as they have incorrect meanings.

For example Korpaali doesn't equal to Corporal, Alikersantti equals to Corporal in Western sense. Also Upseerikokelas is not Officer Cadet, it is Reserve Officer Cadet to be precise or (Reserve) Officer Candidate according to the official documentation. Rank of Kadetti equals to Officer Cadet in other countries.

Similar thing is with Sub-Officer Student which is in fact an NCO-Student (Aliupseeri is Finnish for Non Commissioned Officer). Also there are some terms which are not real English like "Feldwebel", which is German for Staff Sergeant.

I strongly believe that the terms added by Mesoso are incorrect and we should rather use the official terms used by the Finnish Defence Forces.

Here is one recent documents which confirm that the so called "American" terms are indeed being used by the Finnish Defence Forces (last pages):

http://www.puolustusvoimat.fi/wcm/20f2ae804718c5dcb3dfb3786bf3619b/Opas+variusmiespalvelus+englanninkielinen+2015+22012015.pdf?MOD=AJPERES

87.92.99.1 (talk) 05:48, 21 May 2015 (UTC)


 * 2016 version http://www.puolustusvoimat.fi/wcm/1c1781004b675041a23ee7af5ad6ecca/Varusmiesopas+ENG+2016_v3.pdf?MOD=AJPERES — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaihsu (talk • contribs) 09:21, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

The English translation of matruusi is patently incorrect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.248.218.89 (talk) 11:21, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Nato equivalent?
Is there an informal Nato correspondence? Kaihsu (talk) 21:49, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

There are some problems about correspondence in the lieutenant ranks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaihsu (talk • contribs) 09:22, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Putting all lieutenants as OF-1 makes sense. What doesn't make sense is the rank-and-file equivalents. OR-1 should be recruit (alokas), OR-2 private (jääkäri), OR-3 lance corporal (korpraali), etc. Q-FUNK (talk) 17:05, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

september 2017
There more information about these ranks? and what exactly means a rank? rank for example like the Credit suisse rank report?. AlfaRocket (talk) 07:28, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * They seem to be military ranks. Military, like war and soldiers. Nothing to do with credit. :) &thinsp;&mdash; Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs)&thinsp; 14:25, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for your lovely reply, you are kind to me ,Indeed You have right! I'm new and maybe I don't know too much of Wiki.I'm trying to learn more :) . Have a nice day!. AlfaRocket (talk) 07:06, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Korpraali / Korpral in Wrong Equivalent NATO Code
Finnish Military Rank: Korpraali / Korpral should be in Nato Code OR-3.

Korpraali is right now in OR-2 and its wrong.

If someone could would fix this and add source to the article as well.

Page 12 Source: — Preceding unsigned comment added by Faktapohja (talk • contribs) 09:16, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Problem with NCO ranks
Corporal (Korpraali) single chevron rank is not an NCO rank, lowest NCO rank is Alikersantti (two chevron) or Corporal too in this case, id change it myself but have no clue how to, regarding the picture with "Junior NCO´s).

Amisderbi (talk) 15:54, 2 July 2022 (UTC)


 * yes some "korpraali" level ranks are mistakenly listed as "NCO" https://puolustusvoimat.fi/en/military-ranks use this for reference to fix them. 194.136.151.170 (talk) 22:31, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

English translation for the ranks
I recall there used to be English translations for all the ranks in this article & since FDF has created a list of official translations I think they should be included, I have personally had to explain the NATO rank code system to servicemen of NATO countries so it clearly isn't enough to have the ranks only in Finnish and Swedish. Ape89 (talk) 10:31, 7 August 2023 (UTC)