Talk:Army ranks and insignia of the Russian Federation

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Contents 1 podpraporschik rank 2 Rank comparison problems 3 Problems 4 Rank comparison elimination 5 "VS" 6 Russian Major General equivalent 7 General rank comparisons

[edit] podpraporschik rank

There is no such rank as podpraporschik in russian military, look here: Talk:Russian military ranks#Podpraporshchik/Bootsman. --DimaY2K 16:03, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Rank comparison problems

The US rank equivalents need to be fixed for both the Army and the Air Force. There are only three US junior or company grade officers, not four as in the Russian Army. This will result in one of the Russian officer ranks having no US equivalent, but I'm not sure which would be the best Russian rank to skip. Also, the rank insignia of two gold bars does not exist in the US military. The proper title and insignia for US company grade officers are:

Captain: 2 silver bars

First Lieutanant: 1 sliver bar

Second Lieutenant: 1 gold bar

Nicholas F 05:37, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

I Agree with you. US Army dosen't have 2 gold bars insignia and dosen't have a rank of Lieutenant look here. Also russian rank of Major General should not be compared with US rank of Brigadier General. I have made the changes but they were reverted. --DimaY2K 07:54, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

I know the changes with the ranks as "First Lieutenant, Lieutenant, and Second Lieutenant" are wrong, but I did not do that. εγκυκλοπαίδεια* 00:12, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

What are two gold bars doing here, THEY ARE NOT APART OF THE U.S. MILITARY!! IT IS A NON EXISTANT RANK, I DID NOT DO THIS!!!! εγκυκλοπαίδεια* 22:00, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Problems

There seem to be two problems with the insignia that I believe was copied from http://www.uniforminsignia.net/index.php?p=state&id=123

First, the isnignia for a General of the Army actualy belongs to a militsiya officer, as the color of the shoulder board is grey. It's probably not much of a problem because officer insignia for MVD is very much similar to the army and Internal Troops one, but enlisted insignia differs substantially, not to mention that latter are technically the military while the militsiya is the police forces.

Then, the golden parade shoulder board of a Major has an all-forces emblem, which is not necessary at all (only used by medics and justice generals wear shoulder board insignia, because sleeve insignia has one same emblem for all generals). But the white shoulder board of a colonel has no emblem, which is not right because white/green shirts are missing sleeve insingia so the emblem moves to the shoulder boards. --DmitryKo 16:58, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Please make the notes under the pictures more accurate. --Nixer 10:07, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean? I tried to be as accurate as I could - if you think there are errors besides the above-mentioned ones, feel free to correct them... --DmitryKo 14:50, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

This sentence is outdated. Это касалось пространственного расположения, но теперь всё выглядит нормально.--Nixer 14:55, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rank comparison elimination

I think we should remove comperison between russian and american ranks since it is not the purpuse of this article, and if someone wants to do it they should create partucular article. --DimaY2K 10:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I also think so. Conscious 09:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Disagree; see discussion at the WPMILHIST Russian and Soviet task force discussion page. Buckshot06 00:44, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm also inclined to disagree. In fact I would suggest that the comparison is also expanded to the ranks of the UK/Commonwealth in order to give a broader base of comparison. Including the US and UK would pretty much cover the most significant military rank systems.

Xdamr^talk 23:07, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't object to the idea of comparison, but is it fair to cite only an American opinion on how the ranks equate? Perhaps a better way to compare is to point out likely positions (such as Army Commander) for each rank? --Kazuaki Shimazaki —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 06:43, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Do the 'Praporshchik' (Master Non-Commissioned Officer) ranks officially correspond with US Chief Warrant Officers who are commissioned by the US President and are classed as Officers? --LONDON 13:37, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with removing the comparison, which by the way, is a manner of showing how stupid Americans are. Everything has to be translated to their awkward fashion, why is that? While the rest of the world uses things like the metric system we still have to bother writing stuffs in feet, pounds and gallons... Come on, people, is it really necessary to be so obsequent with the empire in the 21st century? Jack Pier 04:04, 11 November 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.31.68.29 (talk)

[edit] "VS"

What does the "VS" stand for on the Other Ranks' insignia? 202.89.153.228 01:08, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

"ВС" ("VS") stands for Vooruzhonniye Sily which means armed forcess in russian --DimaY2K 04:44, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Russian Major General equivalent

Why did you edit the article Army ranks and insignia of the Russian Federation to say that the Russian rank Major General was equivalent to the US rank Major General, rather than the US rank Brigadier General? The article said that the Russian rank of Major General was equivalent to the US rank of Brigadier General, and it gave a source of Harriet Fast Scott and William F. Scott, The Armed Forces of the USSR, Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1979, Appendix B. - Shaheenjim 19:58, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

This is rather complicated. If you read through History of Russian military ranks, General ranks in the Russian Empire were actually fully equivalent to Western ranks up until 1798, with a Brigadier, a Major General, a Lieutenant General, a Full General (General-in-Chief) and a Field Marshal (a honorary rank). However, in 1798 the Brigadier rank was abolished and brigade-grade positions were filled by Colonels since then.

In the Red army, there were no personal ranks from 1917 to 1935, only positional ranks such as deputy platoon commander (abbreviated as pomkomvzvoda), platoon commander (komvzvoda or vzvodny), company commander (komroty or rotny), batallion commander (kombat), regimental commander (kompolka). This system DID have a brigade-grade positional rank, the brigade commander (kombrig), followed by division commander (komdiv or nachdiv), corps commander (komkor), army commander (komandarm), front commander (komfronta). In 1935 the top two were renamed komandarm 2nd rank and komandarm 1st rank and recreated as personal ranks; additionally, Marshal of the Soviet Union was created as the top rank. So by 1940, when Stalin decided to reintroduce General ranks, there were already no less than SIX general-grade ranks in the Red Army, at least one more than in most Western armies, all filled with officers on active duty. See http://www.uniforminsignia.net/index.php?p=state&id=134

Rather than cut some top officer rank, Stalin decided that brigade-grade officers would be examined for compliance and either promoted to division-grade rank or demoted to colonel. All other ranks were directly mapped to the new system: komdiv to Major General, komkor to Lieutenant General, komandarm 2nd rank to Colonel General (which is positioned where a Full General should be), komandarm 1st rank to General of the Army, and honorary Marshals of the Soviet Union were not renamed.

So in the end, the Soviet system had 5 general grades which miss a Brigade-grade rank, but does have both General of the Army and Marshal. Now if you please give me the reason why Russian division commander in the rank of Major General should equal to Western Brigadier/Brigadier General, and not to Western division commander in the rank of Major General (OTHER than the number of stars worn), I'd be very grateful. I'd rather have General of the Army and Marshal as the two top ranks, equivalent to Field Marshal. --Dmitry _{(talk •contibs )} 20:42, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't know whether the Russian rank of Major General is equivalent to the US rank of Brigadier General or the US rank of Major General. Harriet Fast Scott and William F. Scott, The Armed Forces of the USSR, Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1979, Appendix B says it should be equivalent to the US rank of Brigadier General, but that might be wrong. It sounds like you have good reason to think it's equivalent to the US rank of Major General.

But I want to be sure I understand what you're saying. Are you saying that in Russia, some Colonels command Regiments, and other Colonels command Brigades? It seems kind of strange that they'd have one rank command two different sizes of units. But I've seen people do stranger things than that. If that is true, then we should probably add that as a note, so that people understand why we're saying that Russian Colonels are equivalent to both US Colonels and US Brigadier Generals. - Shaheenjim 22:26, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes - and even more, some Colonels commanded divisions in WWII and were not promoted to Major Generals!

If you have the time to incorporate the necessary changes, I would only welcome that. I do have a desire to expand the History of Russian military ranks with a detailed section on 1917-1935 and WWII ranks, however all this User:Roitr thing just prevents me from doing anything productive in my spare time on Wikipedia... --Dmitry _{(talk •contibs )} 22:53, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] General rank comparisons

I think that rank comparisons ought to be avoided altogether. It is almost impossible to achieve perfect grade-for-grade equivalency at the best of times, let alone a comparison between systems that are so different. A better alternative is to show the ranks with their commensurate command appointments, but it's sufficient to just categorise rank groupings (Marshals & Generals, Field Officers, Company Officers, etc.) It is also questionable to use American ranks for comparison, because in this case the American way of doing something - as usual - is the exception, not the rule. The rank comparison article that is cited is WRONG. Rank comparisons must be determined according to function, rather than superficial nonsense like the number of stars, or how many grades there are between certain ranks. There is no Russian equivalent of Brig-Gen, and such a rank is unnecessary anyway. Japan, for example, does without it too. Brigade-size formations are commanded by colonels in both the Russian and American armies, and division-size formations are commanded by major-generals in both the Russian and American armies (there is no formation between brigade and division). Ergo, Russian and American major-generals are basically equivalent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.101.223.81 (talk) 14:55, 15 March 2008 (UTC)