Officer (armed forces)


An officer is a person who holds a position of authority as a member of an armed force or uniformed service.
Broadly speaking, "officer" means a commissioned officer, a non-commissioned officer, or a warrant officer. However, absent contextual qualification, the term typically refers only to a force's commissioned officers, the more senior members who derive their authority from a commission from the head of state.

Numbers

The proportion of officers varies greatly. Commissioned officers typically make up between an eighth and a fifth of modern armed forces personnel. In 2013, officers were the senior 17% of the British armed forces, and the senior 13.7% of the French armed forces. In 2012, officers made up about 18% of the German armed forces, and about 16.4% of the United States armed forces.
Historically armed forces have generally had much lower proportions of officers. During the First World War, fewer than 5% of British soldiers were officers. In the early 20th century, the Spanish army had the highest proportion of officers of any European army, at 12.5%, which was at that time considered unreasonably high by many Spanish and foreign observers.
Within a nation's armed forces, armies tend to have a lower proportion of officers, but a higher total number of officers, while navies and air forces have higher proportions of officers, especially since military aircraft are flown by officers and naval ships and submarines are commanded by officers. For example, 13.9% of British Army personnel and 22.2% of the RAF personnel were officers in 2013, but the British Army had a larger total number of officers.

Commission sources and training

Commissioned officers generally receive training as generalists in leadership and in management, in addition to training relating to their specific military occupational specialty or function in the military.
Many militaries typically require university degrees as a prerequisite for commissioning, even when accessing candidates from the enlisted ranks.
Others, including the Australian Defence Force, the British Armed Forces, the Nepali Army, the Pakistan Armed Forces, the Swiss Armed Forces, the Singapore Armed Forces, the Israel Defense Forces, the Swedish Armed Forces, and the New Zealand Defence Force, are different in not requiring a university degree for commissioning, although a significant number of officers in these countries are graduates.
In the Israel Defense Forces, a university degree is a requirement for an officer to advance to the rank of lieutenant colonel and beyond. The IDF often sponsors the studies for its officers in the rank major, while aircrew and naval officers obtain academic degrees as a part of their training programmes.

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, there are three routes of entry for British Armed Forces officers.
The first, and primary route are those who receive their commission directly into the officer grades following completion at their relevant military academy. This is known as a Direct Entry officer scheme.File:BRNC-Dartmouth.jpg|thumb|The Royal Navy officer training academy Britannia Royal Naval College at Dartmouth
In the second method, individuals may gain a commission after first enlisting and serving in the junior ranks, and typically reaching one of the senior non-commissioned officer ranks, as what are known as Service Entry officers. Service personnel who complete this process at or above the age of 30 are known as Late Entry officers.
The third route is similar to the second, in that candidates convert from an enlisted rank to a commission; but these are only taken from the highest ranks of SNCOs. This route typically involves reduced training requirements in recognition of existing experience. Some examples of this scheme are the RAF's Commissioned Warrant Officer course or the Royal Navy's Warrant Officers Commissioning Programme.
In the British Army, commissioning for DE officers occurs after a 44-week course at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. The course comprises three 14 weeks terms, focussing on militarisation, leadership and exercises respectively. Army Reserve officers will attend the Army Reserve Commissioning Course, which consists of four two-week modules. The first two modules may be undertaken over a year for each module at an Officers' Training Corps; the last two must be undertaken at Sandhurst.
Royal Navy officer candidates must complete a 30-week Initial Navy Training course at Britannia Royal Naval College. This comprises 15 weeks militarisation training, followed by 15 weeks professional training, before the candidate commences marinisation.
Royal Air Force DE officer candidates must complete a 24-week Modular Initial Officer Training Course at RAF College Cranwell. This course is split into four 6-week modules covering: militarisation, leadership, management and assessment respectively.
RAF Reserve Officers undertake the Reserve Basic Recruit Training Course at RAF Halton prior to attending Officer specific training at RAF Cranwell College.
The RAF Reserve Officer Initial Training course at RAFCC is spread over a 4 month period and consists of pre-learning, a number of residential weekends, a 15 day intense and 5 day graduation period of residential activity at the College. A significant part of this training is done in collaboration with the Regular courses, often the Specialist Officer Initial Training course.
Royal Marines officers receive their training in the Command Wing of the Commando Training Centre Royal Marines during a 15-month course. The courses consist not only of tactical and combat training, but also of leadership, management, etiquette, and international-affairs training.
Until the Cardwell Reforms of 1871, commissions in the British Army were purchased by officers. The Royal Navy, however, operated on a more meritocratic, or at least socially mobile, basis.

United States

Types of officers

Commissioned officers exist in all eight uniformed services of the United States. All six armed forces of the United States have both commissioned officer and non-commissioned officer ranks, and all of them have warrant-officer ranks. The two noncombatant uniformed services, the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps, have only commissioned officers, with no warrant-officer or enlisted personnel.
Commissioned officers are considered commanding officers under presidential authority. A superior officer is an officer with a higher rank than another officer, who is a subordinate officer relative to the superior.
NCOs, including U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard petty officers and chief petty officers, in positions of authority can be said to have control or charge rather than command per se. These enlisted naval personnel with authority are officially referred to as 'officers-in-charge" rather than as "commanding officers".

Commissioning programs

Commissioned officers in the armed forces of the United States come from a variety of accessions sources:
Service academies
Graduates of the United States service academies attend their institutions for no less than four years and, with the exception of the USMMA, are granted active-duty regular commissions immediately upon completion of their training. They make up approximately 20% of the U.S. armed forces officer corps.
Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC)
Officers in the U.S. Armed Forces may also be commissioned through the Reserve Officers' Training Corps.
The ROTC is composed of small training programs at several hundred American colleges and universities. There is no Marine Corps ROTC program per se, but there exists a Marine Corps option for selected midshipmen in the Naval ROTC programs at civilian colleges and universities or at non-Federal military colleges such as The Citadel and the Virginia Military Institute.
The Coast Guard has no ROTC program, but does have a Direct Commission Selected School Program for military colleges such as The Citadel and VMI.
Army ROTC graduates of the United States' four junior military colleges can also be commissioned in the U.S. Army with only a two-year associate degree through its Early Commissioning Program, conditioned on subsequently completing a four-year bachelor's degree from an accredited four-year institution within a defined time.
Federal officer candidate schools
College-graduate candidates may also be commissioned in the U.S. uniformed services via an officer candidate school, officer training school, or other programs:
A smaller number of Marine Corps officers may be commissioned via the Marine Corps Platoon Leaders Class program during summers while attending college. PLC is a sub-element of Marine Corps OCS and college and university students enrolled in PLC undergo military training at Marine Corps Officer Candidate School in two segments: the first of six weeks between their sophomore and junior year and the second of seven weeks between their junior and senior year. There is no routine military training during the academic year for PLC students as is the case for ROTC cadets and midshipmen, but PLC students are routinely visited and their physical fitness periodically tested by Marine Corps officer-selection officers from the nearest Marine Corps officer-recruiting activity. PLC students are placed in one of three general tracks: PLC-Air for prospective marine naval aviators and marine naval flight officers; PLC-Ground for prospective marine infantry, armor, artillery and combat-support officers; and PLC-Law, for prospective Marine Corps judge advocate general officers. Upon graduation from college, PLC students are commissioned as active-duty second lieutenants in the U.S. Marine Corps.