Modern NATO grades offer a rough analogy for the colour hierarchy's internal steps. A rear admiral could be imagined as entering at OF-7, with blue, white and red functioning like successive levels within that grade before the same pattern repeated for vice admirals and admirals. The period already used commodore for a senior captain exercising wider command, so that role did not remove the need to distinguish among flag officers. Fine-grained seniority helped the Navy decide who should command at sea, who should hold administrative posts and who took precedence when forces met. The modern Royal Navy is too small to need so many subdivisions, but they made sense when the service operated hundreds of ships.
Notable Point · 19:56-21:56
Colour ranks, commodores and modern command grades
Mapping the colour system onto modern NATO grades shows how a very large navy could create fine distinctions of authority without inventing wholly new ranks.