Subordinate officer
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A subordinate officer, in many navies (and sometimes other services) in the English-speaking world, is an officer who has not finished their initial training. Such officers are not commissioned, but are treated for most intents and purposes as commissioned officers.
[edit] Canada
In the Canadian Forces, subordinate officers (French: officiers subordonnés) as a group consist of the Army and Air Force ranks of Officer Cadet (OCdt) and the Navy's Naval Cadet (NCdt); the French language equivalents are Élève-officier (élof) and Aspirant de marine (aspm), respectively.
The subordinate officer's rank insignia is a single narrow strip of gold braid worn on the cuff of the Service Dress tunic, or on slip-ons on the shoulders of other uniforms.
Subordinate officers are addressed as "Sir" or "Ma'am" by non-commissioned members, and by rank and name by superior officers. As they do not hold commissions they are not saluted. They may however hold positions of authority, either in an acting capacity or for training purposes, such as second-in-command of a platoon, under the close supervision of a superior officer.
[edit] United Kingdom
In the Royal Navy and the Royal Naval Reserve, there are three ranks of subordinate officer, who hold their ranks by Admiralty Board orders:
Since the abolition of the rank of Acting Sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Navy in c.1993, officers still undergoing Initial Training, who formerly would have been Acting Sub-Lieutenants, are now Sub-Lieutenants. These officers do not receive their commission parchments until they join the trained strength (usually several years after passing out of Britannia Royal Naval College), but their commissions are backdated to the date when they were initially appointed Sub-Lieutenants, just as they were formerly backdated to the date when the officer was appointed an Acting Sub-Lieutenant. It appears that the Royal Navy now considers Sub-Lieutenants, unlike their Acting Sub-Lieutenant predecessors, to be commissioned officers even before their commissions have been signed.
Subordinate officers are officers for the purposes of the Naval Discipline Act 1957 and the Queen's Regulations for the Royal Navy, and are entitled to be saluted and to be addressed as "Sir" or "Ma'am".
