Harman Patil (Editor)

United States Navy officer rank insignia

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit

In the United States Navy, officers have various ranks. Equivalency between services is by pay grade. United States Navy commissioned officer ranks have two distinct sets of rank insignia: on dress uniform a series of stripes similar to Commonwealth naval ranks are worn, while on service khaki, working uniforms (Navy Working Uniform [NWU], and coveralls), and special uniform situations (combat utilities, flight suits, and USMC uniforms when worn by Navy officers assigned or attached to USMC units), the rank insignia are similar (there are subtle differences in the size, shape, and design of naval services insignia) to the equivalent rank in the US Army or US Air Force.

Contents

Rank categories

In the U.S. Navy, pay grades for officers are:

  • W-2 to W-5 for chief warrant officers. Chief warrant officers (CWO2–CWO5) are commissioned officers.

    • Note 1: The Navy does not currently use pay grade WO-1, Warrant Officer. A warrant officer (WO-1) is an officer, but not a commissioned officer. Warrant officers are "appointed" to their grade with a "warrant" in lieu of a commission. The Army and Marine Corps currently appoint warrant officers to this pay grade.

  • O-1 to O-10 for unrestricted line, restricted line, or staff corps officers:
  • O-1 through O-4 are junior officers: ensign, lieutenant (junior grade), lieutenant, and lieutenant commander. In practice, Lieutenant Commanders are not considered junior officers.
  • O-5 and O-6 are senior officers: commander and captain.
  • O-7 through O-10 are flag officers: rear admiral (lower half) (one star), rear admiral (two star), vice admiral (three star), and admiral (four star).
  • O-11 was the temporary flag officer rank of fleet admiral (five star). It was awarded to four officers during World War II, and has not been authorized since. However, the rank of Fleet Admiral of the United States Navy still remains listed on official rank insignia precedence charts and, if needed, this rank could be reestablished at the discretion of Congress and the President. All five-star officers are, technically, unable to retire from active duty. The last living Fleet Admiral of the United States Navy, Chester W. Nimitz, died in 1966.

    • Rank and promotion system

    In the event that officers demonstrate superior performance and prove themselves capable of performing at the next higher pay grade, they are given an increase in pay grade. The official term for this process is a promotion.

    Commissioned naval officers originate from the United States Naval Academy, the United States Merchant Marine Academy, other Service Academies (United States Military Academy or United States Air Force Academy), Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC), Officer Candidate School (OCS), the since-disestablished Aviation Officer Candidate School (AOCS), and a host of other commissioning programs such as the "Seaman to Admiral-21" program and the limited duty officer/chief warrant officer (LDO/CWO) selection program. There are also a small number of direct commissioned officers, primarily staff corps officers in the medical, dental, nurse, chaplain and judge advocate general career fields.

    Commissioned officers can generally be divided into line officers and staff corps:

  • Line officers (or officers of the line) derive their name from the 18th-century tactic of employing warships in a line of battle to take advantage of cannon on each side of the ship. These vessels were dubbed ships of the line and those who commanded them were likewise called "line officers." Today, all United States Navy unrestricted line and restricted line officers denote their status with a star located above their rank devices on the sleeves of their blue uniforms and shoulder boards of their white uniforms; metal rank insignia on both collar-points of khaki shirts/blouses; and cloth equivalents on both collar-points of NWUs. Officers of the staff corps replace the star (or the left collar-point on applicable shirts/blouses) with different insignias to indicate their field of specialty. Line officers can be categorized into unrestricted and restricted communities.
  • Unrestricted line officers (URL) the most visible and well-known, due to their role as the Navy's war-fighting command element. They receive training in tactics, strategy, command and control, and are considered unrestricted because they are authorized to command ships, aviation squadrons, and special operations units at sea, or combat aviation squadrons or special operations units deployed ashore.
  • Restricted line officers (RL) concentrate on non-combat related fields, which include marine engineering, aeronautical engineering, ship and aircraft maintenance, meteorology and oceanography, and naval intelligence. They are not qualified to command combat units, but can command organizations in their respective specialized career fields. In certain shipboard environments, many unrestricted line officers fill what might be considered restricted line duties, such as the officers in a ship's engineering department. Because they maintain their general shipboard duties, instead of completely specializing in one career area, they maintain their unrestricted line command career path.
  • Staff corps officers are specialists in fields that are themselves professional careers and not exclusive to the military, for example health care, law, civil engineering and religion. There are eight staff corps: Medical Corps, Dental Corps, Nurse Corps, Medical Service Corps, Chaplain Corps, Navy Supply Corps, Judge Advocate General's Corps, and Civil Engineer Corps. They exist to augment the line communities and are able to be assigned to both line and staff commands. (The exception to this is the case of Civil Engineer Corps officers, who serve as the officers for Seabee units. This requires them to serve in a command capacity for ground combatants when the Seabees are deployed to combat areas.)

    • Note 2: See also Commodore (United States) — today an honorific (but not a pay grade) for selected URL captains (O-6) in major command of multiple subordinate operational units, and formerly a rank (O-7).

    Note 3: The term "line officer of the naval service" includes line officers of both the Navy and the Marine Corps. All U.S. Marine Corps officers are considered "of the line," including Marine Corps limited duty officers, chief warrant officers, and warrant officers, regardless of grade or specialty.

    "Tombstone promotions"

    The Act of Congress of March 4, 1925, provided for Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard officers to be promoted one grade upon retirement, if they had been specially commended for performance of duty in actual combat. Combat citation promotions were sometimes called "tombstone promotions" by disgruntled officers who did not qualify for them but the term was not used by the recipients. These promotions conferred all the perks and prestige of the higher rank, including the loftier title, but no additional retirement pay. The Act of Congress of February 23, 1942, enabled promotions to three- and four-star grades. Tombstone promotions were subsequently restricted to citations issued before January 1, 1947, and finally eliminated altogether effective November 1, 1959. The practice was terminated in what was called an effort to encourage senior officer retirements prior to the effective date of the change to relieve an over-strength in the senior ranks.

    Any officer who served honorably in a grade while on active duty receives precedence on the retirement list over any "tombstone officer" holding the same retired grade. Tombstone officers rank among each other according to their dates of rank in their highest active duty grade.

    Officer specialty devices

    Navy officers serve either as a line officer or as a staff corps officer. Unrestricted Line (URL) and Restricted Line (RL) officers wear an embroidered gold star above their rank of the naval service dress uniform while staff corps officers, and chief warrant officers wear unique specialty devices.

    The chief warrant officer and staff corps devices are also worn on the left collar of uniforms.

    References

    United States Navy officer rank insignia Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA