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Vice admiral

NATO rank code of OF-8

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJan 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ214443
Source-derived summary

Vice admiral is a senior naval flag officer rank, usually equivalent to lieutenant general and air marshal. A vice admiral is typically senior to a rear admiral and junior to an admiral.

Australia

In the Royal Australian Navy, the rank of vice admiral is held by the Chief of Navy and, when the positions are held by navy officers, by the Vice Chief of the Defence Force, the Chief of Joint Operations, and/or the Chief of Capability Development Group.

Vice admiral is the equivalent of air marshal in the Royal Australian Air Force and lieutenant general in the Australian Army.

Canada

In the Royal Canadian Navy, the rank of vice-admiral (VAdm) (vice-amiral or Vam in French) is equivalent to lieutenant-general of the Canadian Army and Royal Canadian Air Force. A vice-admiral is a flag officer, the naval equivalent of a general officer. A vice-admiral is senior to a rear-admiral and major general, and junior to an admiral and general.

The rank insignia of a Canadian vice-admiral is as follows:

On the navy blue mess dress jacket and the navy blue service dress tunic: the cuff insignia is one wide gold braid below two standard size gold braids, the superior one includes the executive curl.

On tropical white mess dress and tropical white service dress tunic: three silver maple leaves, beneath silver crossed sword and baton, all surmounted by a St. Edward's Crown located on gold shoulder boards.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Vice admiral” is nATO rank code of OF-8. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Vice, admiral and NATO, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current 237-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Vice, admiral and NATO is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “nATO rank code of OF-8” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q214443. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Vice admiral”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Vice admiral primary sources, Vice admiral archive and Vice research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Vice admiral”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Vice admiral” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.