It's Getting Rank In Here

It's fascinating to see all the different types of rank insignia around here. Armies and Air Forces from around the world are remarkably diverse in the ways they adorn their shoulders.

I've seen pips, crowns, stars, swords, leaves, diamonds, birds, bars, stripes, wreaths and braids. In the German army, silver insignia means mid-level officers while gold insignia means a General... unless it's gold stripes - that's for enlisted personnel. In the US of course, gold and silver are reversed in precedence - a silver oak leaf means Lt Colonel, which outranks the gold oak leaf of a Major.

Here's a collection that shows some of the variety in NATO ranks -and most of the insignia with stars do not represent Generals (I mostly picked Lt Col ranks, except where other ranks looks a lot more interesting).

I love the one with the tank on it (that's a Czech General), and there's something about the Canadian maple leaves just strikes me as almost friendly - despite the sword.

The Bulgarian rank progression (on the left) is one of the few where higher ranks have less on their shoulders rather than more. Most of the time, the rule of thumb is that more stuff equals higher ranks.

And speaking of more, did you know a French four star general actually wears seven stars on each shoulder? Yup.

And now we come to Naval ranks, where some sort of conspiracy seems to be at work. Almost every Navy in NATO puts a stripe & loop rank like this on their officers:

I'd love to know the story behind this. Why are Army & Air Force rank insignia so different from country to country, while Navy ranks are almost identical? How did that even happen? It certainly looks like they all got together in a room one day and agreed that Naval officers should standardize. Kinda weird.