Talk:Military ranks of the Swedish Armed Forces/Archive 1

Added education requirements

This is important part in quantifying the quality of an officer. I use math as a measure in problem solving skills and the ability to think abstract. These abilities are crucial for leaders of higher military formations.

Edited for content

Please don't try to revert your pages. I have edited it based on facts from the Swedish Armed Forces (culled from a number of sources, not least the fact that I work there). By your own admittance, you've now lived 17 years in Japan, and it has been 24 years since you served, leading me to question wether your knowledge of the SAF is particulalry current. Inventing your own rank strucutre and sending it to HKV is also slightly odd. I will ask for speedy arbitration in this matter, should the facts not be allowed to stand.

Reply "Edited for content"

I respect all the knowledge that you have gained through working at the Swedish armed forces, yet you have not stated any particular factual issues with the article. Also, you have deleted them without prior discussions. Senior officers at the head quarters (Colonel Frölstedt and Lieutenant Colonel Landström),Swedish armed forces have reviewed my pages and I have corrected them immediately based on their feedback. Those officers are very competent and are managing a very difficult task in establishing consensus wrt insignias, ranks and structures among highly diversified stake holders as well as numerous interests groups. Still, there are issues with how to deal with OR3, OR4, OR5 and OR6 ranks. OR7, OR8 and OR9 are fully aligned, but the naming in those senior ranks may change in a near future. I have had discussions with the HKV regarding junior OR ranks in general and OR5 and OR6 in particular. However, currently there is not a satisfactory solution as there is no rank between Sergeant and Staff Sergeant in the BA or elsewhere.

To submit proposals/suggestions (in this case regarding insignias of ranks and rank structures to the HKV) are highly encouraged by the Swedish Armed forces in particular and the society in general. The HKV has been very helpful in providing me with information and responded with accuracy to my questions. Furthermore, I have consensus with the HKV regarding the issues the armed forces are facing with regarding their personnel structures and the major discrepancies that have existed between Swedish armed forces and that of other nations. Among many other suggestions, I have proposed for the removal of Furir and reinstruction of Vicekorpral as ranks to conform better to the NATO. I am aware of the opinions and discussions that have taken place among/of officers, Officersforbundet as well as the board of tradition (consisting of reps from Historical museums, Riksantikvarieambetet and SAF) regarding proposed ranks and insignias.

True, I have been away from the Swedish armed forces for 24 years and I can understand your feelings really well since Swedish ranks, and perhaps your own too, are translated into ranks that are, on average, two levels higher than what they really represent globally. My intention is not to make your rank sound cheap; it is to describe how they relate wrt globally accepted benchmarks such as the BA and USMC: Löjtnant (Sweden) = deputy platoon leader = Staff Sergeant (BA). Sergeant (Sweden) = deputy team-leader (5-7 soldiers) = Lance Corporal (BA). In the emerging ranking structure the deputy platoon leader role is going to be the duty of an OR7 rank just in accordance with NATO standards and not as now by a Löjnant. According to LtCol Landströms mail, "there will not be enough officers to fill such positions". Currently 2/3 of Swedish professional officers are actually NCOs (underofficerare/underbefäl) and will also formally be declared as NCO(underofficerare/underbefäl) by the new system. Officers currently serving in NCO-like roles will be allowed to switch their career to Specialist Officerare.

Allow me invite you to further discussions on the subject and I would like to know more about your facts and what in particular your objections are! Also, I would recommend you to register yourself as user at wikipedia. --Malin Randstrom (talk) 07:53, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Restoring

I have restored comparing ranks. As agreed upon by the Försvarshögskolan, the most essential skill of an officer is to lead troops in battle and the correlation between ranks vs command in the BA or USMS is very high. Command levels is therefore primarily used as a base in relating different ranks. It is not my own research or synthesis of information as I simply pick a desciption of a command and its corresponding rank from a reference and put it in tabular form side by side without even implying anything.

If it is disputed that certain rank do not correspond to the responsibility/command as stated, then this should clearly be pointed out with appropriate references. --Malin Randstrom (talk) 01:22, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Errorous Information

This page need to be corrected.

It's not a matter of personal opinion that's up for discussion. There's an OFFICIAL system by jointly Försvarsmakten (Swedish Armed Forces) and NATO in which the Swedish ranks are translated to the NATO rank system (OR/OF).

Fänrik is OF-1 in Sweden (just as it is in Finland). Period. Consult the official information provided below.

http://www.mil.se/upload/dokumentfiler/Nyhetsdokument/Tabell_nya_grader_(OR).pdf http://www.mil.se/upload/dokumentfiler/Nyhetsdokument/Misssiv_utveckling_tvabefalssystem.pdf http://www.mil.se/upload/dokumentfiler/Nyhetsdokument/Bilaga1_utveckling_tvabefalssystem.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.85.88.226 (talk) 15:42, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

• There is no such joint system between Försvarsmakten (Swedish Armed Forces) and NATO. One of the principal issues with the everyone-is-an-officer style of system, which has been in effect until now, is that current roles assinged to Fänrik, Löjtnant and most Kapten do not at all correspond to OF levels of NATO, but rather to levels between OR4 and OR6. The previous system was a social experiment to let all personnel become officers, but obviously this does not mean that ALL military personnel of the Swedish armed forces corresponds to OF level according to NATO or it will be a utopia. Some of the personnel have to be soldiers, lance corporals, corporals, sergeants, platoon sergeants, drill sergeants etc. As a consequence, Fänrik, Löjtnant and most Kapten were trained for and filled those NCO roles with an emphasis on drilling conscripted recruits. There is a consensus within the armed forces that an officer’s main skill and duty is to command troops during battle as platoon leaders or higher. Swedish Fänrik, Löjtnant and most Kapten, however, are drill sergeants with almost no experience in commanding troops in battle or even simulated battle.

• That most Swedish officers don’t belong to the OF category is also evident when considering the plan Försvarsmakten has to convert 2/3 of the officer’s corps into a NCO corps to adjust its personnel to NATO standards. Why doing this? It's becaue most Swedish officers are indeed below the OF level of NATO. This include all roles that currently are held by Fänrik, Löjtnant and most roles held by Kapten. When the reform has met its objectives, Fänrik, Löjtnant and Kapten may again be regarded as corresponding NATO OF ranks, but this will not happen before year 2020. I have received above documents directly from the headquarters and also all the documents that have been used as base for those documents way ahead of their official release. Also, I have corresponded heavly with the authors of these documents as well as with implementor of the new system directly during the formation of the system.

• Finally, the OF and OR categories in above documents denote the new style of personnel that the Swedish defense force is going to consist of in the future. However, we are very far from there yet.

Regards, --Malin Randstrom (talk) 09:43, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

According to NATO STANAG 2116, that is an agreement between NATO and other armed forces an OR6 in the Swedish armed forces is the same as an OR6 in both the USMC and British army. There for this whole article is wrong. It’s just your personal thoughts in it! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Militaryguy (talk • contribs) 16:36, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

corrections

There are numerous spelling errors on this page as there are in all of your articles Malin, but before those are corrected other things must be addressed.

in the section "(2) Regarding differences to the classic definition of officer"

the first point

• In Sweden, officer is a collective term for personnel with military as profession and as of 1983, no one is made Commissioned Officer.

needs to be changed. You always focus too much on semantics and literal translation. It is not correct to say that there are no commissioned officers in Sweden just becasue they do no longer recieve a fullmakt. It would be just as silly to say that there are no cities or towns in Sweden since the classification was abolished in the 70's.

• Fullmakt = Comission ... Providing officers with a fullmakt was abolished prior 1983. To add 'commissioned' as a prefix to the term officer for Swedish officers does not make sense and is basically wrong.

• 2/3 of these are considered NCOs and, with the new ranking structure, will gradually become part of the NCOs corps.

this is also not true. They are not considered NCOs, they preform in some cases similar duties, but that is to be expected in a military which in 1983-2008 didn't have any nco ranks. Would you say that there isn't a single officer in the Norwegian armed forces since they have also abolished the nco corps?

• 2/3 of all the officers’ positions are classified as NCO equivalents. The NBO reform was merely cosmetic making every employed in uniform officer. NCO is the backbone of the miltiary, it is there and must be there regarless wheter you name all generals or not.

• Swedish officers lack a college degree.

They don't lack a college degree since the 3-year education at the Military Academy counts as one. If you mean that they do not have a degree eqv of B.A. in addition to the military training you should say so, but that would be better to mention of the wiki page for commissioned officer, where the similar situation for British and commonwealth, Israeli, Swiss etc officers are mentioned.

• High School level admission requirement to officers school is B out of a scale of (A,B,C,D,E) where A is the lowest and E represent a full high school education.

This doesn't make any sense to non-Swedes. If you must include this section, which imo is unnecessary, you must greatly expand it to explain the admission requirements for swedish university degrees.

• The admission requirement to officer’s school to have scored sufficiently high on aptitude tests for admission to conscript leadership or specialist training was removed 1983.

This is just weird. What does it have to do with the "classic definition of an officer"

The rank comparison to USMC needs to be removed or changed. The USMC is not some universal benchmark, it is enough to just list the roles of the rank but if you must compare to other forces include more than one branch in one nation. Also and more importantly, if you read the wiki pages on the different USMC ranks you would see that lance corporal is not a nco rank and is not in charge of anything. The normal rank for squad leader is sergeant and assistant squad leader corporal.

--Stulfsten (talk) 12:18, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Reply: corrections

There are numerous spelling errors on this page as there are in all of your articles Malin, but before those are corrected other things must be addressed.

• • I am sorry for that.

in the section "(2) Regarding differences to the classic definition of officer"

the first point

• In Sweden, officer is a collective term for personnel with military as profession and as of 1983, no one is made Commissioned Officer.

needs to be changed. You always focus too much on semantics and literal translation. It is not correct to say that there are no commissioned officers in Sweden just becasue they do no longer recieve a fullmakt. It would be just as silly to say that there are no cities or towns in Sweden since the classification was abolished in the 70's.

• • Officersfullmakt = Commission... The system of furnishing new officer with a commission (Officersfullmakt) was abolished prior 1983. Therefore, to add commissioned in front of the term officers for Swedish officers does not make sense and is not official. Let's stick to the official naming of those new personnel corps: Specilistofficer and Officer'. Inded, there are still some comissioned officers, but new officers since 1980 are not. Curretly, a person is hired by the military as an officer or specialistofficer just as any other employee. Why sould we stress that a Swedish officer is comissioned as an officer by the King or President when he/she is not?

• 2/3 of these are considered NCOs and, with the new ranking structure, will gradually become part of the NCOs corps.

this is also not true. They are not considered NCOs, they preform in some cases similar duties, but that is to be expected in a military which in 1983-2008 didn't have any nco ranks. Would you say that there isn't a single officer in the Norwegian armed forces since they have also abolished the nco corps?

• • 2/3 of all the officers’ positions are classified as NCO equivalents by the Swedish Defence Forces. The NBO reform was merely cosmetic making EVERY employed in uniform officer resulting in 10,000 officers with only about 800 contracted soldiers to command. Sounds utopic, but it is true. NCO is the backbone of the military and it is there regardless whether Sweden choose to name NCOs generals or not. I dont know about Norway, unfortunately.

• Swedish officers lack a college degree.

They don't lack a college degree since the 3-year education at the Military Academy counts as one. If you mean that they do not have a degree eqv of B.A. in addition to the military training you should say so, but that would be better to mention of the wiki page for commissioned officer, where the similar situation for British and commonwealth, Israeli, Swiss etc officers are mentioned.

• High School level admission requirement to officers school is B out of a scale of (A,B,C,D,E) where A is the lowest and E represent a full high school education.

This doesn't make any sense to non-Swedes. If you must include this section, which imo is unnecessary, you must greatly expand it to explain the admission requirements for swedish university degrees.

• • Current officers not only lack a college degree, but many also lack a full high school education as well. The new 3-year education has been granted college credits, that's true, and I have also heard that some courses in massage receive college credits in Sweden. Considering that the scholastic admission requirement for the 3-year programme are below high-school level (compared to Asian standards), I would not count that education as a college level education, but rather vocational. Level B math basically represent those who have serious difficulties in math, but could graduate despite of that. Those are now welcomed to spend 3-years in a school before becoming officers. I will do as you suggests and expand the admission part.

• The admission requirement to officer’s school to have scored sufficiently high on aptitude tests for admission to conscript leadership or specialist training was removed 1983.

This is just weird. What does it have to do with the "classic definition of an officer"

• • I could have written that line in a better way, I agree. Anyway, the classic definition of an officer is one with leadership and intelligence, but the requirements for admission to officers school to score sufficiently high on IQ, leadership and other related tests for leadership and specialists positions were removed with the implementation of NBO (1983). Furthermore, a person who did not qualify for leadership or specialist positions during their conscript training period could anyway enter officer’s school. This is indeed very different from the classic way of selecting officer candidates.

The rank comparison to USMC needs to be removed or changed. The USMC is not some universal benchmark, it is enough to just list the roles of the rank but if you must compare to other forces include more than one branch in one nation. Also and more importantly, if you read the wiki pages on the different USMC ranks you would see that lance corporal is not a nco rank and is not in charge of anything. The normal rank for squad leader is sergeant and assistant squad leader corporal.

• • USMC is indeed a universal benchmark because it is the one most visible and experienced. As a matter of fact, USMC has been used as a benchmark for students at the Försvarhögsolan in their thesis work regarding quantifying Swedish officers. I have been operating in Asia for 17 years and this is the military that dominates wherever you go and most countries model their military based on the USMC. Who knows about how Danish and Norwegian rank relate? I don’t!

I will add British Army ranks, which are reasonably known globally, to accommodate your request for more nations. Regards, --Malin Randstrom (talk) 06:43, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

reply

1. I (and the readers) would prefer it if you corrected it instead

2. No, let's not stick to Specilistofficer(sic) and officer. There are generally two types of officers and in English they are called commissioned and non-commissioned officers. In Sweden, the ranks fänrik to general correspond to the first category and sergeant to regementsförvaltare to the second. Therefore, the correct translation is indeed(your favourite word) commissioned officer and non-commissioned officer. If you are going to translate the Thai or Angolan word for captain you don't first check it he/she is employed by the king/president before you decide. If you translate the Swedish rank (eg) fanjunkare as specialist officer, an English speaking person would almost certainly misunderstand you and believe that he is a commissioned officer with some special knowledge. Similarly, if you translate a Swedish Major as non-commissioned officer simply because he has no fullmakt, then there will also be misunderstanding.

3. Malin, try to understand: different armies will organise differently. In 1983 to 2008 the Swedish army had no NCOs. That doesn't mean that you can simply state x% of the officer corps are really NCOs. Another example: some studies have shown that British doctors operate on patients up to 50% more than Swedish doctors. Would you say then that 33% of Swedish doctors are really nurses? What about engineers, in Sweden it is normal for an engineer to do their own paperwork etc that would in eg USA be handled by a secretary. Does this mean that 25% of Swedish engineers are really secretaries. Your ideas are absurd.

4. Malin, repeat after me: HIGH SCHOOL IS NOT EQUIVALENT TO SWEDISH HÖGSKOLA! The English word high school is in Swedish Gymnasieskola. To state that many officers lack high school education is simply absurd. I don't know what you are babbling about with the massage stuff and when you imply that a asian 13 or 14 year old have the same education as a Swedish 18 year old, well, that I do not agree with. You might have serious doubts regarding the competence of the entire Swedish university system but let be clear: your bizarre rants about it have no place on wikipedia. I don't know that much about Asian secondary school maths education (considering that several Asian countries are 3rd world countries I imagine the standard varies wildly) but to suggest that a person with "serious difficulties"(whatever that is) in maths can become a engineer, doctor or economist in Sweden, well, that's your opinion and have no place here. To use your logic we could say that no-one in Sweden have graduated high school(gymnasium) since the reform in the 1960's when the graduation exams were abolished.

5. Stop using indeed in every two or three sentences. Since you have not explained what these test were or what is today required to become an officer, this section still makes no sense.

6. I don't care for how long you have been "operating" in Asia, it is simply not true that most countries model their armed forces on the USMC. I don't see why you have to bring in the USMC at all. Why not just write that Förste sergeant is the squad leader and Sergeant is the assistant squad leader and the readers themselves can find out that this corresponds to Staff Sergeant(OR-6) in the US Army or Sergeant(OR-5)/Corporal(OR-4) in the USMC by reading the squad or sergeant wikipedia pages.

--Stulfsten (talk) 09:40, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

rank comparison

The rank comparison is still wrong. I have checked dictionaries and encyclopaedias(wikipedia and others) and nowhere does the word troop have the meaning you ascribe to it. A squad(or section, it's the same thing) consists of approx 10 men(varies in different armies) and in the US Army it is 8-10 men led by Staff Sergeant(E-6)(sometimes Sergeant(E-5)) and the USMC 12-14 men led by Sergeant(E-5)(sometimes Corporal(E-4)). In the British Army a section(8 men) is led by Corporal(OR-4) and section second in command is the Lance Corporal. The British Army is THE ONLY army where the OR-3 position have that kind of authority and also the ONLY army where is is standard practice to have an OR-4 command a squad/section. It is important to note that the US rank of Specialist(OR-4) is a non-competitive rank, i.e. everyone will get it if they do not screw up and stay in the army long enough. The other OR-4 rank Corporal is not automatic but then a US Army Corporal does not command a section. In the USMC the OR-3 rank is also automatic in contrast to the British OR-3 rank Lance Corporal. The USMC and British rank of Corporal is also NOT the same, British has more authority.

The situation in other NATO armies

Spain: squad 8 men, commanded by Sargento(OR-6) Cabo mayor(5) or Cabo primero(4)

France: squad 8 men, commanded by sergent(OR-5), assist caporal-chef(OR-4)

The Netherlands: squad 10 men, commanded by sergeant(OR-5)

Norway: squad 5 to 12, commanded by sersjant(OR-5)

Denmark: squad 6-10, commanded by sergent(OR-5) Germany: squad up to 12 men, commanded by Feldwebel(OR-6)

Italy: squad 7-13 men, commanded by sergente(OR-5) caporalmaggiore(4)

Portugal: squad 8 men, commanded by sagento (OR-5 or OR-6)

Canada: squad 8 men, commanded by sergeant (OR-6)

In Sweden the squad size is 10 men and they are commanded by a Förste Sergeant(OR-6). You try to paint it as if this is extraordinary, when it is in fact not.

--Stulfsten (talk) 10:04, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Reply

To prove your claim that Swedish officers are officers with a comisision(fullmakt); you must provide us readers with evidence that Swedish officers after 1983 in fact have received a commission fullmakt upon employment. Again, Sweden decided 1983 to stop providing officers with a commission and all salaried personnel in uniform are simply employees like everyone else. Before you provide evidences regarding your claim, further discussion on the topic is meaningless.

OHS has emphasized on producing drill sergeants and instructors rather than on producing commanding officers. The principal skill of an officer is to command troops, which most Swedish officers are less capable of due to the lack of experiences and schoolings. To use your hospital metaphor: Swedish officers are maids, clerks and at most nurses; who masquerade as doctors. Personnel with the rank of Major and above are clerks and as recent rsearch indicate desk officers. Those findings are not my own but extracted based on statements from the Goteborg University, Lund University as well as from the supreme commander himself. “Swedish officers are not fit for commanding troops”. Fänrik, Löjtnant and Kapten are coporals and sergeants with duties such as drilling recruits or assinged desk work. Sweden has about one standing battalion (1000 troops) and about 10,000 employed personnel in uniform. You want to call all those 10,000 for real commissioned officers despite of the fact that only 35 of them may be real troop commanders. Your claim is compleately out of proportion.

I disagree with you that Japan, Korea, India, Taiwan, China, Singapore are undeveloped countries.

As stated by the minister of education, Swedish education is one of the worst and in an international compression at the bottom. Level B (lower than C) is for those with major difficulties in math. Level D and E are for engineering candidates. You should not put officers on the same footings as engineers because officer’s school accepts those with major difficulties in math and engineering schools do not. All men at the age of 18 undergo tests before being selected for various training paths in the military. This test includes measuring IQ and leadership skills and if you score sufficiently high you are selected for leadership training at level 8, 7 or 6 where 6 is the highest. Out of the 7 and 6 levels officer candidates were selected prior 1983. After 1983 officers candidates were waived the requirement of having sufficiently high IQ levels and leadership skills. Also, for those who did not make leadership or specialist ranks during their military service were welcomed as officer’s candidates. I am surprised that you did not know about the existence of these tests called Mönstring in Swedish.

About college credits: There was a TV-program from Sweden about how you can earn college credits in Sweden by learning massage. My point is that Sweden is very generous in giving out college credits. Even if you earn 160 credits from the 3-year officer programme those do not count for much once you look for a job at the time of discharge. You are still a person with major difficulties in math and problem solving who did not necessarily score high on IQ or leadership tests. All these factors are important to measure the quality of Swedish officers and what a Swedish officer really represent.

USMC is indeed the most widely used as a benchmark globally, especially in the Middle East and Asia. Marines are everywhere and every time you turn on your TV you will see a marine. USMC officers are the most battle experienced personnel in the world. Not only do they have long experience in commanding platoons or companies, but also at battalion, brigade and division levels. Again, an officer’s main skill is to command troops and if you want to know what it takes to command a mechanized battalion or brigade today you better study USMC officers. This is exactly what the Natioal Defense College of Sweden "Försvarshögskolan" uses in their research as a base to quantify Swedish officers. You want us to compare with Norway and Denmark. Bear in mind that wikipedia is a global dictionary that is not limited to unknown small Scandinavian military units.

I have included Brition upon your request, but you are still complaining and want to include tiny unimportant armies as well. For now, I think the inclusion of British and USMC ranks are sufficient for readers around the globe to understand Swedish ranks. You may complete the list with more senior British officer’s ranks so as to improve the article further.

Lets avoid the term troop, squad, section, group, team and focus on the number of soldiers under command instead.

5-7 soldiers in a Swedish section. A mechanized rifle section (strf90) consists of 7 soldiers. 13 soldiers in a USMC squad. An USMC squad is thus twice as large as a Swedish section.

• 1. Leader of 13 men (USMC) = Sergeant
• 2. Deputy leader of 13 men (USMC) = Corporal
• 2 Leader of 8 men (BA) = Corporal
• 2. Leader of 7 men (Sweden) = First Sergeant
• 3. Leader of 4 men (USMC) = Corporal
• 3. Deputy leader of 8 men (BA) = Lance Corporal
• 3. Leader of 3-4 men and deputy leader of 7 men (Sweden) = Sergeant

Your claim that a First Sergeant is in charge of 10 men must be your belief that a First Sergeant is in charge of an entire strf90. The person in charge of a strf90 has traditionally been assigned to a Fänrik, Löjtnant or Kapten. A sergeant (First Sergeant) has been in charge of the mounted rifle team of 7 soldiers and its deputy has been a Furir(Sergeant). This may change but so far any changes have not yet been announced.

As I have stated before, most Fänrik, Löjntnant and Kapten will return to the specialist officers corps (under officers), yet the change of their rank names to sergeants will be volunteer based. In the future the one in charge of a strf90 will most likely be a First Sergeant or Fanjunkare, still, let’s not state things before they are realized, if they realize.

I don’t have any biases and I am pedantic when it comes to correctness in my articles. I am accommodating your requests and I try to reach consensus.

This is not an advertising site to create a fancy façade of the Swedish Armed Forces, it is a site to help readers understand what ranks really represent. The information provided by the Armed forces is scarce and has been under substantial criticism by respectable researchers on the matter. My statements and facts are not my own, but originates from research papers and public available information.

I am changing from unit names to actual headcount to avoid misunderstandings as well as working towards consensus with you and others.

Regards, --Malin Randstrom (talk) 05:33, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

reply2

Really Malin, you think someone who describes Swedish education as one of the worst in the world is not biased??

1. Read my point 2 under Reply and the text regarding commission under the corrections post. I'm talking about what is the most suitable translation of the Swedish words specialistofficer and officer, you are talking about something else. in 1983 to 2008 Sweden was one of very few nations without a salaried NCO corps. When the tasks that are normally done by NCOs in say, UK or Germany are done by officers there are going to be differences. The best way to explain these differences is to translate the officer ranks to the normal (eg)American officer ranks but include a comment or explanation of the Swedish system so that a reader familiar with the US Army will understand the differences. Translating a Swedish Kapten to Gunnery Sergeant is not correct and it is a translation found NOWHERE ELSE but on these pages edited by you.

2. I note that you continue to twist the truth. You said that the entry requirements of Swedish officers put them on par with Asian schoolchildren on a pre-high school level. I'm not an expert on Asian education, but high school (or lycee, secondary school, gymnasium) is generally for pupils of 15/16 to 17/18 years of age. That is, you said that a Swedish officer cadet has the same education as an Asian 14 year old. You said Asian, not Japanese or South Korean or even from the most prosperous parts of Asia. You said only Asia which includes many extremely poor third world nations. I never said or even implied that those countries which you mention are third world, I only said that in Asia there are many third world nations and thus the education standard will vary wildly, i.e. in the rich countries such as Japan it will be high but in poor countries such as Nepal it will be low. Get it?

3. In all countries there is debate and critique of education(much like health care). I do not know of this "international compression" of which you speak. Your opinions that the Swedish university system is very poor and that educations approved by the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education are worthless is just that, your opinions, and do not belong here. Your statement that those who finish Swedish high school in level A and B have "major difficulties" in maths is also only your opinion.

4. You have not included Brition(sic) on my request, in the template ranks2009 it says "Actual BA(NATO) equivalents". I have pointed out that this is wrong, yet you have not changed it. It should say "British Army equivalents", i.e. NATO and Actual should be removed. As I have shown, it is not standard NATO practice to have an OR-4 command a section/squad, only the British uses that standard. Why should we avoid words section, team etc. It makes no sense! It is normal to speak about group names not numbers because everyone knows that squad size can and will vary. No one speaks of an American SSG "he leads x men" or an USMC SGT "he leads Y men" No, one says of both "they lead a squad" That the USMC squad is larger does not enter into it. Swedish wikipedia, NE and other dictionaries and internet sites claim that a Swedish squad(grupp) consists of 10 men and that the squad leader(gruppchef) is 1serg.

5. I don't want to compare only to Denmark and Norway. I want to compare to MANY NATO armies, including the US Army, which is the largest army in NATO. (But for some reason, you always ignore it) If we use your definitions of what a "real" NCO commands, then MOST NATO NCO are not "real". You might think that all armies except the British Army and the American Marine corps are "tiny and unimportant" but I can assure you that you are pretty alone in that opinion. In other articles about the Swedish Army written by you, you often mention NATO standards so obviously you think it is important. But now you want to exclude all NATO armies(including the largest one) except two? Can't you see how absurd your definition is? Even more absurd is your claim that the Swedish General ranks compare to American Lt Col. If we are to use your definition of a general officer, almost all(in some cases all) general officers in most NATO armies are not real generals. Or do you think that the general officers of Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Norway, Italy, Spain etc etc all go around commanding thousands of troops in battle? Even in the largest NATO armies, e.g. the British and French, there are certainly MANY general officers whose tasks are very similar to the Swedish general officers. The question here is, do you or do NATO HQ in Belgium know better what the meaning of a NATO general is? Hint: it's not you.

6. The only thing I agree with you on is that as long as the Swedish system change is a work in progress, it would be a good idea to include a mention of this in the start of the article. For example, it is my understanding that in the future the instruction tasks previously handled by Fk and Lt will now be the responsibility of Förste Sergeant and Fanjunkare. In your table, one gets the impression that this is not the case and that it is planned that in the future the officers will still handle the training.

--Stulfsten (talk) 14:14, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Reply to "Reply 2"

First, a Swedish rifle section and scouts section have since 1970 consisted of 8 men and 6 men respectively (Infantry Brigade 66, Infantry brigade 77, Pansarbrigad and Norrlandsbriad) not 10. With the introduction of STRF90, the section was reduced to 7. During Karl 11 and Karl 12 time the section consisted of 24 men with a korpral as its commander, but that is very long time ago. When you mention 10 men, are you talking about a unit that existed after 1700 and before 1960? Hmmm ?

I agree, we should stop stating NATO eqvilalent and do as you say alwasy refer to BA or USMC w/o includig NATO. STANG describes NATO but not really what those ranks really repreent -- my misstake and I have correced this.

Level B math does not reach up to derivation and integration, which means that it does not even reach up to Högstadie level in major Asian countries. Thus, there are almost no admission requirements for the 3 year officer’s prgramme. I expect officers to at least be able to solve partial differential equations, deal with complex numbers and trigonometry, etc. Not that they need this on the battlefield, what is required it is the ability to think abstract and to make quality decisions quickly based om complex information.

Including USMC and the British Army is good enough for now and I have as far as possible tried to adjust according to your view to reach consensus. I agree with your view that the US Army is a significant organization and if you think it is necessary to add them then add them, but would recommend you to keep the number of baseline ranks to a minimum. As you might recall from studying statistics theory, adding more degrees of freedom variables to describe a population may appear clarifying but instead you introduce complexity and errors. It is very hard, unfortunately.

Since Swedish officers do not command units nor have experience in at or above battalion level, competency does not reach above the level of a corresponding USMC Major (infantry) as such Majors typically act as executive officer (XO) of a battalion.　

I would be more than happy if you could expand the article by adding more facts and correcting misstakes. Would you, for example, help with adding exaclty what British officers ranks represent wrt command?

Btw, Home Defense has recently announced the OR6 as "Sergeant 1 klass", which confuses me. Do you have any info regarding this?

Regards, --Malin Randstrom (talk) 11:32, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

• Amendment: Amphibious rifle section consists of 8 men, so the number of men in a Swedish section varies between 5 and 8. --Malin Randstrom (talk) 13:38, 17 January 2009 (UTC)