Admiral's Shoulder Ranks

[Gino]

It was suggested to me that not all might be familiar with the change that was made to RN ranks in 2001. At that time they switched the number of stars for rear-admirals to two, vice-admirals three, and admirals four. Whether this was to bring them in line with the USN I am not certain, but it would be certainly very sad to think that was the motivation. The star arrangement for admirals as seen in the attached picture is odd, though.

The RAN did the same thing, but back in 1995. Interestingly, the star arrangement for admirals is more symmetrical. They also use an anchor instead of a crossed sword and baton for commodores. This hearkens back to the old RN commodore first class shoulder board of two small stars over an anchor.

The RNZN uses five pointed stars instead of the traditional eight pointed star. I'm uncertain when they made this change.

The RCN, as in so many things, goes its own way and uses maple leafs instead of stars, although they are sometimes colloquially referred to as stars. This goes back to 1968 when the three separate services were unified into the Canadian Armed Forces.