Ministry of the River Fleet of USSR 1947-1954

[Luke2]

Dmitriy: Thank you for your excellent job with the cuff insignia.
What about more junior ranks? I believe this image is from the same period, but with three thin stripes. What about one and two thin stripes?

http://kamafleet.ipb.su/index.php?showtopic=468&st=30

[Dorward_Bis]

Luke, thanks a lot for such a high appreciation of my modest work))
Now, concerning your question.

According to the corresponding Regulation of 1947, cuff insignia were allowed to Riverine Fleet officers only, first of all, to the operational ship stuff. But they had shoulder straps as well.

Officers of all other Riverine services used shoulder straps only (according to regulations), but as it always appears in the life some of them neglected these Regulations and wore cuff insignia as well (because of their decorative appearance).

Officers shoulder straps resembled military ones, but stars were situated longitudinally in a manner of the Russian Imperial civil officers.

Enlisted and NCOs never had cuff insignias in this period of time, and they wore shoulder straps only - narrow with transverse silver or gold stripes as their ranks indication.

The picture of a uniformed lady in your message demonstrates the rank of a Captain (or Engineer Captain) 3rd Class, which is equivalent to army Major or Naval Lt Commander. There are two indications of this rank: shoulder straps with "rails" and one star (btw, there is a slang expression in Russian "получить рельсы" - "to gain rails", meaning to get a rank of a Major (Lt Colonel or Colonel). As you can guess, "rails" mean these two parallel longitudinal stripes on shoulder straps)) and cuff insignia with three MEDIUM (not NARROW) stripes. Actually, there were three stripe sizes for cuff insignia: narrow - 6 mm, medium - 13 mm and wide - 28 mm. The only rank with narrow (6 mm) stripes was a rank of a Junior Lieutenant (Technician Junior Lieutenant), who wore 4 narrow stripes. Before as the 1947 Regulations were approved, there were several variants of cuff insignias, but none of them contemplated cuff insignia for enlisted and NCOs. Therefore, the lowest officer's rank of a Junior Lieutenant meant 4 narrow stripes, and all other ranks used medium and wide stripes solely.

Regards))

[Luke2]

Thank you very much for your complete and thorough information. You know I'm very interested in Russian rank insignia, but my ability to read Russian is limited. It’s therefore difficult for me to comprehend the regulations I might find on the net.

In this case, I misread the size of the stripes, and did not study the shoulder boards careful enough. Having seen in later uniform regulations images of one, two and three narrow stripes, I believed that they also existed in the 1947 regulations.

You must admit, though, that four narrow stripes for Junior Lieutenant is somewhat odd or illogical, if there are not a set of fewer stripes for more junior ranks. Any idea where they got the system from? Did one, two and three narrow stripes exist in earlier uniform regulations?

/Luke

[Dorward_Bis]

According to previous versions of Regulations, there was a rank of капитан-лейтенант (Captain-Lieutenant), who was situated between a Senior Lieutenant and a Captain 3 Class. And in this version the cuff insignia for the lowest officer's rank - Junior Lieutenant - was as 3 narrow stripes. But in the final version of the Regulations, approved by the Presidium of Supreme Council of USSR on 1st September 1947, the Captain-Lieutenant was removed, and the Junior Lieutenant gained 4 narrow stripes. And there was no any rank in this period of time with 3 and less narrow stripes. Enlisted and NCOs, as I've mentioned in my previous post, wore narrow shoulder straps in the same period of time.

Well, the absence of 3, 2 and 1-striped ranks maybe sounds illogical, but there is plenty of examples of such approach to rank insignia systems formation. Absence of 1-star general in the French Army, peculiar rank insignia of ober- and staff-officers in the Russian Imperial Army before 1917 (I mean Captains, Lt Colonels and Colonels shoulder straps, and absence of 1-star General in this Army as well) etc. Well, the military logic is so non-comprehensive sometimes))