NATO maintains a "standard rank scale" which is also known as a "standardized reference system" in an attempt to standardize NATO codes of rank for military personnel and indicated correspondence with nations ranks. NATO's standardized reference system is intended to be used "by nations when preparing personnel tables, requisitions, reports and returns destined for NATO nations, organizations and commands." The NATO codes assigned for each grade are based on the agreed corresponding army grades with the naval and air forces grades determined from them by "national regulations". The NATO rank reference code categories were established in
STANAG 2116 (formally titled
NATO Codes for Grades of Military Personnel). It is known for certain that STANAG 2116 was ratified by Denmark on 19 January 1971 and that the 3rd edition of STANAG 2116 was adopted no later than October 1975. The current- 7th - edition is just the cover, and the core of the standard is in set out in APersP-01 Ed. A.
Officers codes OF-10 – OF-1 (highest to lowest rank code) are used for
commissioned officers: • OF-10 – OF-6:
General officers • OF-5 – OF-3:
Senior officers • OF-2 – OF-1:
Junior officers According to the standard, OF-10 is a national title, so it is not found in most of the armed forces of NATO countries, including the
US Armed Forces. For example, in the
French Armed Forces OF-10 is not a rank but a title, which corresponds moreover to a high position in the state. There is no OF-10 in the British
Royal Marines; in the
British Army,
Royal Navy and
Royal Air Force, rank OF-10 is applicable in wartime only. The armed forces of
Albania,
Latvia and
Luxembourg also lack the OF-9 rank.
Other ranks codes OR-9 – OR-1 (highest to lowest rank code) are used for other ranks (
enlisted ranks and
non-commissioned officers (NCO)): • OR-9 – OR-5: Non-commissioned officers • OR-4 – OR-1: Other ranks/enlisted ranks For NATO purposes, NCOs are ranked OR-5 to OR-9. However, national rank structures might differentiate from this. In the
U.S. armed forces,
warrant officer is a separate and distinct category of officers. This officer rank and precedence is below those of officer personnel, but above that of non-officer personnel, and has a special group of codes (
W-1 – W-5). In the Commonwealth tradition (for NATO the
British Armed Forces and
Canadian Armed Forces)
warrant officers are the highest other ranks. In the British Armed Forces senior non-commissioned officers (e.g. sergeants) are in OR-5 to OR-7 and junior non-commissioned officers (e.g. corporals) are in OR-3 and OR-4. In the U.S. military OR-5 and above are non-commissioned officers for the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force but in the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy (both parts of the Department of the Navy), OR-4 and above are non-commissioned officers.
Comparison to US system The numbers in the system broadly correspond to the
U.S. uniformed services pay grades, with OR-x replacing E-x. The main difference is in the commissioned officer ranks, where the US system recognizes two grades at OF-1 level (O-1 and O-2), meaning that all O-x numbers after O-1 are one point higher on the US scale than they are on the NATO scale (e.g. a
major is OF-3 on the NATO scale and O-4 on the US scale). For warrant officers, NATO codes and
U.S. uniformed services pay grades are equivalent. == Officer rank code application ==