It's difficult to see how additions could be justified even on an entirely superficial basis. There should be no impression of there being a deficiency in the correct versions. They're not the most modest-looking designs, especially the naval versions.

Yet it seems that navies are more susceptible to making this mistake than armies. Because the crown/emblem accompanies the naval sword and baton, the correct insignia of a flag rank resembles that of a general rank that is two ranks higher. Furthermore, when flag officers wear these designs they are always on gold backing whereas general officers' devices are generally smaller and are usually worn on plain cloth. This emphasises even more how unwarranted the recent additions are.

Rear Admiral: 8th rank

General: 10th rank

If any general or flag officer has a reason to feel deprived it's one who wears American-style, not British-style, insignia. Though the number of stars must not be the same, the total number of components can be equal to or, in the case of the navy version, exceed the number used in the American system. Also, the other individual components are more elaborate than stars. It's self-evident that a crown, national emblem or crossed sword and baton has a greater value than a star. It cannot be difficult to comprehend, for example, that a rank represented by a star with a crown and a crossed sword and baton is not lower than a rank that is represented by a star with nothing more than another star. The sword and baton device (with crown/national emblem in the navy version) can easily be perceived as, at the very least, a substitute for one American-style star.

Rather than pretend that correct British-style general/flag officer insignia under-represent ranks by one level, it would make more sense to say that American-style general/flag officer insignia under-represent ranks by six levels. For example, the American-style insignia arrangement for a major-general (8th officer rank) is the British-style insignia arrangement of a mere lieutenant (2nd officer rank).

American-style Major-General/Rear Admiral: 8th rank

Lieutenant (army): 2nd rank

Major-General: 8th rank

Rear Admiral: 8th rank

The close working relationship between services that use the British system and other services has been mentioned in connection with the extra stars. The notion that this can be cited as an adequate basis for such a change is plainly erroneous.

The RN has had a close relationship with American and other NATO services for many years, yet this change occurred only recently. And there are a number of NATO services that continue to have fewer or more stars than is typical for NATO general/flag ranks.

The RAN has had a close relationship with the USN since 1941. There have even been instances where Australian officers have worn USN-style uniforms, but, again, the change occurred only recently. Vice-Admiral Sir Hastings Harrington is pictured below wearing a distinctively USN-style light khaki uniform with RAN insignia, including RAN vice-admiral's shoulder boards (with two stars). From the Second World War to Korea to Vietnam to Desert Storm and beyond – no change. It took about another thirty-five years after this picture was taken – and more than one hundred and fifty years after the crown, sword and baton were added – before the Vice-Admiral design wrongly acquired a third star.

Vice-Admiral Sir Hastings Harrington

If the 'close relationship' argument had any credibility, these services would have have adopted a different system altogether, and they would have done so a lot sooner. Far from clarifying the positions of ranks, the recent alterations have only encouraged confusion. It is immediately apparent on seeing a sword and baton device that what you're looking at represents a general or flag rank in the context of the British system and that it therefore should be interpreted according to the formula of that system. If every service that used it did so correctly, there would be (unlike with American-style stars) almost no potential for misidentification of rank, not only in terms of seniority but the individual titles themselves. All anyone would have to do to identify any rank of any of these services is no more than comprehend the system (you wouldn't even need to know beforehand what a particular service's star or national emblem looked like).

Finally there is the matter of precedent. Consider the illustrious senior officers of the past, of many countries, who did not wear anything that the system did not entitle them to wear, even when working closely with members of services that used different systems. In a great many cases their responsibilities far outweighed those of their successors who insist on additional embellishments. How can a commander of 40 000 people in peace-time, for example, justify (on such a flimsy basis) having more stars than a previous officer of the same rank who commanded 200 000 people in a world war?

There is no way of contriving a justification for the additional stars. They are the product of a vain and inept attempt to conform to an obviously different system that is in fact less elaborate whilst making the designs more elaborate, resulting in an extravagent and misleading mess that conforms to neither. A service can choose whichever system it likes but, whichever one it chooses, it should be done right. Devising a suitable alternative system is not difficult in the least. In fact such a system can resemble the British one to a considerable extent without sacrificing simplicity, practicality or logic (click here for an example of a good alternative for army ranks).

An increasing number of people are unaware that such changes have even occurred, let alone comprehending that they are wrong. This has led to misconceptions about the correlation between ranks and insignia of officers of the past. For example, the photograph below was misdescribed on a Canadian naval web-site as a photograph of Admiral Sir Charles Kingsmill as a vice-admiral, which is conspicuously not the case.

Admiral Sir Charles Kingsmill

Not only do general officers of Cyprus and Luxembourg wear insignia of higher ranks, field officers do so as well. Majors have the insignia of lieutenant-colonels, lieutenant-colonels have the insignia of 'full' colonels and colonels have the insignia of brigadiers.

There are several services (mostly of Arab countries) in which the general officer's crown or national emblem is used to supplant just one star instead of two. This results in officers of and above the rank of Major-General (Liwa) being represented as holding ranks that are higher than the ones they actually hold. The source of this confusion may be the fact that Major-General and Lieutenant-General (Fariq) should have the same number of devices. However, it is not difficult to comprehend that a crown or national emblem is superior to a star. Nor is it difficult to comprehend that using a single crown/emblem for the same purpose as a single star is pointless.

Bizarrely, all RCAF general officers and RCN flag officers and commodores (who are effectively misnamed admirals) wear a crown and a crossed Mameluke sword and baton on their shoulders. Despite the fact that it obviously refers only to Lieutenant-General, and that this was recognised in the Canadian armed forces in the past, this design is no longer even relevant to identifying the rank of a Canadian air force or naval officer.

Ranks of such officers are now represented by a number of maple leaves worn below the Lieutenant-General design. The leaves are used as substitutes for American-style stars: one for Brigadier-General and Commodore up to four for General and Admiral.

So for the air force the arrangement is doubly misleading: a rank insignia design isn't used as rank insignia and an unrelated botanical display is.

For the navy it's triply misleading as the Lieutenant-General design is wrong for Commodore and all admiral ranks in any case.

The RCAF announced in 2014 that it would reintroduce distinctive arrangements of stripes for these rank levels whilst retaining the "lieutenant-general plus one or more leaves" designs for all general ranks. Not only will the latter be superfluous once each general rank has different insignia of the stripe variety, they contradict the Canadian Army's recently-corrected insignia for the same ranks, which of course includes the Lieutenant-General design only for lieutenant-generals.

In the context of British-style rank insignia the maple leaf should be used as a substitute for the crown in the event that Canada becomes a republic. To use it instead of stars not only causes ambiguity, it contributes to its already comical overuse.

If they're unwilling to get rid of the leaves, there's a very simple and obvious compromise: remove the traditional Lieutenant-General insignia. Then it's an entirely different rank insignia system and which rank level is being represented by which design will be clearer.

Not only does the South African Navy have too many stars for its admiral ranks, it also uses the national coat of arms instead of the national emblem. If a national emblem were used instead of the coat of arms, the insignia of each flag officer would represent a rank that is one rank higher than the one actually held (for example, a rear admiral would be wearing the insignia of a vice-admiral). As the coat of arms is superior to the national emblem, its use adds to the extravagance.

Each general rank in South Africa's Army and Military Health Service, and Cyprus's armed forces has the Mameluke sword and baton. But rather than it being on its own for Brigadier-General (as should be the case), this rank now has not only a star as well but also the national coat of arms. Each successively higher general rank has one more star than the rank below. If a national emblem were used instead of the coat of arms, the insignia of each general officer would represent a rank that is three ranks higher than the one actually held (for example, a brigadier-general would be wearing the insignia of a 'full' general). Again, the coat of arms instead of a national emblem makes these designs even more extravagant. Ghana's army recently adopted the same arrangement except that a national emblem (which, oddly, resembles a crown) is used instead of a coat of arms.

The arrangements worn by South African Air Force general officers are the same as for the Army except that (very strangely) a stripe supplants each star. SAAF lieutenant-generals, for example, appear to have the rank insignia of a warrant officer class I, a wing commander and a brigadier-general all at once!

General officer and field marshal insignia of the armed forces of Malaysia and Brunei encompass an even wider variety of problems.

The insignia of every one of these ranks includes the royal headdress and one or more stars. So of these devices Brigadier-General, for example, has what should be limited to General (three ranks higher).

Instead of a Mameluke sword and baton, general officers of Brunei's army have crossed swords on a wreath. Instead of a Mameluke sword and baton, air force general officers have a bird within a wreath. General officers of the Malaysian Army have what resembles a machete and a rolled umbrella (actually a keris) in a wreath. Consequently even a brigadier-general has more extravagent-looking rank insignia than a field marshal should have.

Malaysia's and Brunei's Field Marshal insignia are the same as for General but with an additional star, which suggests a general rank rather than a marshal rank (despite having, owing to the inclusion of the wreath and stars, what superficially suggests a rank that is five levels above Field Marshal).

The naval ranks above colonel-level of Malaysia and Brunei are represented on shoulder boards by the same arrangements (including too many stars) as for their respective army counterparts with the exception that an anchor is within the wreath. As the royal headdress above an anchor in a wreath is the correct design for Chief Petty Officer, these designs are more suggestive of variations of this far lowlier rank than flag ranks.

In 2006 the Pakistan Air Force replaced correct air force officer rank insignia (which it had used since its founding) with army-style rank insignia though it retains RAF-style officer ranks. Pilot officers are now misrepresented as second lieutenants, flying officers as lieutenants, and so on.

Creating even more ambiguity and unnecessary effort in determining who has what rank, air rank officers have too many stars, the national emblem is supplanted by Field Marshal insignia without batons, and the general officer device is supplanted by Field Marshal insignia with swords instead of batons.

It is the only service that has RAF-style officer ranks without RAF-style officer rank insignia. The correct insignia represent these ranks with a degree of clarity that cannot be exceeded. You can determine immediately and accurately both how senior a rank is and its name. So any change would have been blatantly nonsensical, let alone change as misconceived as these new designs.

Some services have taken to using stars on their own for representing ranks above Colonel-level in the American style whilst continuing to use the British system as well despite the fact that the two systems are incompatible. In other words the most senior officer ranks are being represented as the most junior army officer ranks. As well as uniforms this error afflicts rank flags, car plates and other things.

Uniform items include gorget patches that display stars instead of the traditional gorget patch embellishments (which represent rank classes). These are worn in the armies of India, Bangladesh and Kenya, the air forces of India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and the navy of Bangladesh. They are especially ridiculous and there are a number of reasons why this is so.

First and foremost there is the contradiction and ambiguity resulting from the fact that they display the insignia of the most junior, rather than most senior, officer ranks. Air force and naval versions not only represent ranks as being considerably lower than they are, they are represented as ranks of a different service. Air Commodore is represented as Second Lieutenant, Air Vice-Marshal as Lieutenant, and so on. Some services confuse the matter even further by including other embellishments with the stars. Gorget patches of Bangladesh include the national emblem, which makes a rear admiral's gorget patch insignia, for example, look like the shoulder insignia of a colonel.

Brigadiers have been given gorget patches that are the same as those of major-generals minus a star. There's nothing in the design that distinguishes brigadiers from general officers. Actually, a gorget patch embellishment of any metallic appearance suggests general officer/field marshal status, as demonstrated by the fact that gold leaves, braid and cord have all been used to represent general ranks in Commonwealth armies.

A brigadier has three stars and a crown or national emblem. Why should he or she want a single second lieutenant's star? Why would someone who has become a general officer or air force marshal after three decades of service want to wear a lieutenant's insignia? (Imagine an American or Indonesian general, for example, wanting to wear lieutenants' bars.)

Traditional rank insignia are still worn on the same garments as the gorget patch stars. How many different ways does a single rank need to be represented on a single garment? The answer – obviously – is one. Using more than one insignia system creates superfluity and the potential to cause confusion, even if they weren't contradictory. As if to emphasise the superfluity, the gorget patch stars are worn just a few inches away from the traditional shoulder insignia.

Gorget patches of any kind are inconsistent with traditions concerning naval and RAF-style ranks and insignia. They are blatantly redundant with naval and RAF-style insignia because rank stripes (especially the sleeve versions) are more than adequately large and conspicuous, as are other indications of senior officer status.

Nothing can represent RAF-style officer ranks more clearly than the RAF-style system of black and blue bands. This makes the stars worse than redundant because unless they have no effect at all they can only confuse the matter of which rank a person holds.

Furthermore, they look ridiculous generally – there's a strong sense of comedic banana republic dicator about them. The same can be said for the IAF's sleeve stars and other such innovations. Consequently they are injurious to the dignity of those who wear them and the services to which they belong.

Given the obvious reasons why American-style stars shouldn't be used in addition to the traditional methods of representing rank, the question remains, why were they adopted? The fact that the British-style star system has been so idiotically distorted in a number of ways may have contributed to their introduction in services that have army ranks as a means of clarifying which rank a person holds. However, American-style stars are not a sensible choice for this purpose. Stars on their own can mean just about anything. If clarification were the goal, logically the navy/air force stripe pattern would have been used for this purpose as there is much less potential for misidentifying the position of a rank. Of course the real solution is for all services that use British-style rank insignia to get it right.

Appointment (as opposed to rank) flags need not and should not represent specific rank. The position of head of the armed forces (Chief of the Defence Staff, Chief of the Defence Force, Chairman of the COSC, etc.) is the only position for which a joint appointment flag/pennant is necessary. Other senior officers can be represented by single-service rank or command flags/pennants (regardless of whether they hold single-service or joint positions).

RAF rank flags/pennants can be used in any air force that has RAF-style ranks. RN-style rank flags/pennants can be used in other navies for the same ranks. If the presence of two intersecting stripes (i.e. a cross) is contentious on religious grounds, the vertical parts can be omitted. Rank flags/pennants are not traditional in Commonwealth armies but could be created by adapting the designs of army command flags and pennants. Flags/pennants depicting the correct rank devices for uniforms could be used. It's even possible that entirely different designs be adopted. So there is no reason to resort to using an incompatible system for representing ranks on flags and pennants (or car plates and other similar things).

Distinctions between different ranks at Brigadier-level are covered in greater detail on page 5.

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