In theTatmadaw (the armed forces ofMyanmar) there are two different ranks, one higher than another, but both designated asfour-star ranks.
| Seniority inArmed Forces | Burmese title | English title | Rank insignia | Golden strap [1][2] | Rank medal [1][2][3] | Car insignia | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| forArmy andAir Force | forNavy | |||||||
| 2. | ဒုတိယဗိုလ်ချုပ်မှူးကြီး | Vice-senior general |  |  |  |  | ||
| 3. | ဗိုလ်ချုပ်ကြီး | General | Admiral |  |  |  | ||
"Vice-senior general" (Burmese:ဒုတိယဗိုလ်ချုပ်မှူးကြီး,romanized: dautaiya bauilaʻ khayupaʻ mahūʺkarīʺ) is the second highestrank inMyanmar Armed Forces. It is held by the person appointed to bothDeputy Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services andCommander-in-Chief (Army). Since 2012, it can also be held by theCommander-in-Chief of Defence Services if he has not yet been promoted toSenior general.
It is between the five-star rank ofSenior general and the four-star rank ofGeneral or Admiral, thus being a unique rank existing only inMyanmar Armed Forces. The rank medals of both Vice-Senior general and General/Admiral have the same obverse; both with golden logo of Armed Forces and four golden stars overheading it, but the rank medal of Senior general has a green stripe in addition to that of General/Admiral. Thus, it can be assumed as a higher variant of four-star rank. The flag ofDeputy Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services also confirms that.
| Burmese title | English title | Rank insignia | Golden strap [1] | Rank medal [1][3] | Flag[4] | Car insignia | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ဒုတိယဗိုလ်ချုပ်မှူးကြီး | Vice-senior general | | | | .svg) | | |
| Insignia on regular uniform | ofMyanmar Army | ofMyanmar Navy [5] | ofMyanmar Air Force |
|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
When the five-star rankSenior general was created above the four-star rankGeneral, there was no Vice-senior general or similar rank between them. In 1990, GeneralSaw Maung promoted himself directly to Senior general,[6][7] his deputy: Lieutenant GeneralThan Shwe to General,[7] and Brigadier GeneralMaung Aye to Major general.[8] In 1993, General Than Shwe was promoted directly to Senior general,[7] and Major General Maung Aye was promoted to Lieutenant general and became deputy of Than Shwe.[8]
Lieutenant General Maung Aye was promoted to General in 1994, and then Vice-senior general in 2002. Thus, he became the first person to hold the rank of Vice-senior general.
| No. | Photo | Name | Date of promotion from previous rank | Date of promotion to next rank or retirement | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  | Maung Aye | 2002 | 30 March 2011 | Promoted fromGeneral. Retired. |
| 2. |  | Min Aung Hlaing | March 2012[9] | March 2013[10][11] | Promoted fromGeneral. Promoted toSenior general. |
| 3. |  | Soe Win | March 2013 | – | Promoted fromGeneral. Incumbent. |
'General' or 'Admiral' (Burmese:ဗိုလ်ချုပ်ကြီး,romanized: bauilaʻ khayupaʻ karīʺ) is the third highestrank inMyanmar Armed Forces, and traditionally the highest rank that a personnel fromMyanmar Navy andMyanmar Air Force can get. It is afour-star general rank.
The rank's Burmese title and insignia is the same for all branches. But Myanmar Navy uses different English translation, to be harmonized with the naval terms. "ဗိုလ်ချုပ်ကြီး" is translated as "General" for army and air force, and as "Admiral" for navy.
Since 2011, the rank "ဗိုလ်ချုပ်ကြီး" is designated to be held by the persons in following appointments.
| Appointment | Service branch | Number of posts |
|---|---|---|
| Chief of General Staff (Army, Navy and Air Force) |    (can be promoted from any of the three branches) | 1 |
| Commander-in-Chief (Navy) | Navy | 1 |
| Commander-in-Chief (Air Force) | Air Force | 1 |
Beside these appointments, the Armed Forces personnels appointed as Union Ministers in the government can also hold this rank. Currently, the Union Ministers of theMinistry of Defence[12] and theMinistry of Transport and Communications[13] are General and Admiral respectively.
| Service branch | Burmese title | English title | Rank insignia | Golden strap | Rank medal | Car insignia |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Myanmar Army and Myanmar Air Force | ဗိုလ်ချုပ်ကြီး | General | | | | |
| Myanmar Navy | Admiral |
| Insignia on regular uniform | ofMyanmar Army | ofMyanmar Navy | ofMyanmar Air Force [14] |
|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
