Talk:Royal Navy other rank insignia

Cleanup & Lack of Content
Fleet Chiefs were renamed 'Warrant Officer' in 1983. Both WO1 and WO2 are now addressed as 'Mr/Mrs/Miss' or 'Sir/Ma'am' in the RN.92.16.21.42 (talk) 20:06, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Has Fleet Chief disappeared now ? Has it been replaced by WO1 or is it just an alternate title. Always addressed them as "Fleet" when i served. Facius 12:58, 22 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes Fleet Chiefs are no more. --Phil1972 (talk) 07:16, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Table edits
Hi, I tried to make a table up for the different rates, but was having trouble with it (as you can see from the mess that's currently there!). Could someone who's better with wikipedia's code please sort this out! Also, can someone put up some pics of insignia that are all the same colour? And of the different insignia used in No. 1 uniforms (see http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/server/show/nav.3761 for details)?
 * OK! Table alignment is now good.  Anything more needed, or can we drop the cleanup tag? Tevildo 12:49, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * OK so now the code is OK, but I still think some of the content needs improving. Do WO2 and WO1 have the same insignia? Can the alternative sleeve insignia (as seen on the Royal Navy website) be included, along with some history and background? 129.234.4.10 02:13, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I've added the WO2 insignia. It appears that only CPOs have sleeve insignia that differ from their shoulder insignia; I've added that, as well.  History and background, I'm afraid that requires research. :) Tevildo 02:36, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Looking good guys! only problem now is that some of the entries don't quite align well with the NATO codes on the top row. I'd sort this out myself, but I'm not entirely sure which one is which since some rates overlap several code designations. Sharkbait784 21:26, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Realignment done. It's important to keep everything aligned to the "NATO Navy Blank" template, as that has to cover all the NATO pages. Tevildo 21:43, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Slight problem, we need to keep both insignia for CPO. Unfortunately I can't seem to get it to fit, since I don't really understand how to align the tables. However, there is a table on the page now without pictures that can act as a guide. Just for reference, it's AB (able rate - although AB is strangely enough an abbreviation for able bodied!) that has no insignia, and I think ordinary rate is a rate for trainees, although don't quote me on that one. 129.234.4.10 22:05, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Done. "Able Bodied" is in fact a backronym - why "AB", rather than "AS", was used as an abbreviation for "Able Seaman" in the old days is a question that may never be answered, but there it is. :)  And, yes, the old OR-1 "Junior Rate", the previous trainee grade, was abolished in 2004.  Tevildo 22:09, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Article name change
Changed the title of the article to *rank* insignia instead of *rate*. That really made no sense... ;o) Michael riber jorgensen 19:50, 24 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The original title is correct. See Naval rating. The current title is incorrect as the Royal Navy does not have 'other ranks'. 64.151.29.87 (talk) 02:24, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Reference
The reference to "Tif's" is out of date as the navy no longer recruits artificers. --Phil1972 (talk) 07:16, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Warrant Officer 2 rank
The Royal Navy does have a rank insignia for the Warrant Officer 2, it came out somewhere around 2003. This subsumed the engineering rank of Charge Chief. The Weapons Engineering Branch is not a sub category of the Marine Engineering Technician as suggested by the table, the WE branch is one of its own with ET(W), WEA and WEM, sadly the artificers were phased out and subsumed by the ET(W), ET(M) and AET specialisations. Each of the WEA and MEA categories could be subcategorised, ie for WE: Action Data (AD), Weapons Data (WD), Ordinance (OC) and Communications and Electronic Warfare (CEW). However as stated above the Artificers were disbanded.Wingnut80 (talk) 20:02, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Branch (Trade) Badges?
It might be worth adding pictures of the different branch badges as well, as there are many of these and they appear on all ratings uniforms, indicating the specific job of the individual. Sharkbait784 22:31, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Added a link to the Royal Navy webpage with Branch Badges - but are we entitled to put these images on Wikipedia since they are just insignia? And if so, can someone do that please, since there's a possibility I may not have access to the internet for a while... I also think the increasingly messy rating/branch title system (with its huge acronyms, such as CPO(AWW) for a chief!)is due for an overhaul (according to Navy News) in order to take it back to simpler times. If anyone knows about the details of this, could they let us know? Thanks. Sharkbait784 23:35, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
 * The RN website has a generic "commercial website" copyright page, which states quite clearly (, para 5) that downloading, let alone re-using, images from the site is prohibited. The rank insignia undoubtedly come under the general "Military Insignia" copyright exclusion, but I'm not sure about the legal status of the branch badges, hence my reluctance to upload them.  If someone who knows the law in this area could advise us? Tevildo 13:08, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Edit pictures from this link
http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/News-and-Events/Reference-Library/~/media/Files/Navy-PDFs/News-and-Events/Naval%20Publications/BR%203/br3book/an39e.pdf

and paste them to clean up and improve this article?

Phd8511 (talk) 20:52, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

BR3 not available
There are at present 15 reference entries cited as sources for information within the article. 13 of those are to official online sections of BR3 (Naval Personnel Management), which is classed as available for public viewing. I haven't edited the article to reflect that chiefly because of the time I don't have available. Perhaps somebody will take a look at it.Twistlethrop (talk) 06:20, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Each one of the 13 are bad links, pointing to a now-defunct web address.
 * The most recent edition of BR3 is dated June 2015. It is an Acrobat document which is intended to be accessible to the public via http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/reference-library.  However, the file that is linked to consists of a partially-assembled title page and nothing more.


 * BR3 is available here. With browsers such as Chrome the onward links don't work (as explained at the url you gave), but the links do work in Internet Explorer. With Chrome you probably need to get to the relevant chapter directly. I'll try to sort out the chapter links in the article. --David Biddulph (talk) 08:40, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Fore and aft?
Please explain how this term applies to historic RN uniform. The link shows info about sailing. 203.59.215.236 (talk) 21:29, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Chevrons on RN other ranks uniforms
Stripes? In a recent video of RN units marching in “Massed Bands of HM Royal Marines” dated 14/07/22 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI2o3MmE6jg), there are Petty Officers in coat and tie uniform with three gold chevrons, and what appear to be leading ratings in ‘crackerjacks’ with two or three gold chevrons. No chevrons are shown in these tables, but RN other ranks sure as heck are wearing them. And these are for sure RN, not Royal Marines. How do the chevrons fit into the RN OR insignia scheme? Ray Trygstad (talk) 04:45, 22 July 2022 (UTC)