Correct. The XO will be on the Bridge with the CO.
A good reference for this might be MgT: Secgtor Fleet by MJD.
In particular (MgT Sector Fleet, p.74-75):
GQ, Line Crews, 1st String... Questions on Crews
- Thread starter Kilgs
- Start date
Correct. The XO will be on the Bridge with the CO.
A good reference for this might be MgT: Secgtor Fleet by MJD.
In particular (MgT Sector Fleet, p.74-75):
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Hmm, why on the bridge with the CO? In the US Navy during World War 2, some ships went with having the XO at the secondary con position to avoid loosing the two most senior officers to one hit. Once Combat Information Centers came in, the CO might be in the CIC while the XO was on the bridge with the con. In a night action, the CO or XO might be in the radar room, trying to figure out what is going on.
Certain large ships had separate XO and 1O; the 1O would be in the CIC, the CO on the bridge, and the XO either on the flying bridge or in the tower, or in an auxiliary control area. Generally, during combat, CO, 1O/XO and XO/OPS (depending on whether there's a separate XO from 1O; usually, there isn't anymore.) You simply do not risk the top end of the command staff at one location in hostile turf.
Heck, the regs actively discourage having the top 3 at the same time in the same compartment in hot zones, unless the compartment is the officers mess, the wardroom, or the mess hall for mass.
Good points. But I guess it would also depend upon the size of the ship in question. Obviously smaller vessels aren't going to have many of those extra operations-compartments.
For Traveller purposes, perhaps the best modern analog (at least for smaller vessels) is the submarine. How are GQ-stations handled aboard a WWII or modern Sub?
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CO at Conn, XO at CIC, Ops at Conn, from what I've read.
Mark317
SOC-2
Manning of ships
I am looking at the crew requirements and making better use of the span of control for determining crew numbers in ships used by players in MTU.
Naval ships are very over manned relative to merchant ships, one of the things I have been looking at is the giant crew requirements for larger ships. Think supertankers (not crewed with 1000s of men as an aircraft carrier would be)
First Span of control is 3-7 men and the navy follows this pretty close (because it works). The navy has ~ 9 levels of enlisted and same for officers. Math shows you can have a mighty big crew with just an O-6 running things.
Only the bottom 3 - 4 levels do real work in maintaining and running the ship, the rest if overhead (command from HG) So I am assuming the needed men (to a point) are related to the non command and I find the numbers are not far off.
Now for the manning of the ship, yes there are watches on a ship, and they are relative to the threat level and tasks the ship is performing. As an aside I was Electronic Warfare mostly on a Frigate (4 years of 6), so my rate was really just filler since if it was not under the water no one cared.
So there are jobs I was EW so staring in port in US we ran 4 sections, in Med we ran 2 or 4 depending on what was going on. This meant the ship in the US had at least 1/4 the crew across all divisions (more or less as some divisions were split different based on needs). And 1/4 of the crew was enough to get underway and function, some of the crew would do cross tasks as needed (Surface warfare some such qualification basically cross trained you in every aspect of the vessel)
I was also on the security detail in port, and the flight operations fire crew underway during helo operations. All navy personnel are trained in damage control basics. I also stood as PO of the deck in port when I (had duty) in port. Then there is the "work day" which is every day technically and even though your up for 4 hours at night for your watch ( I preferred roving patrol as you were moving rather than standing still). The work day for all divisions was painting, cleaning, and maintenance of the ship and the systems your responsible for. By far the bulk of our time was painting, waxing and painting, did I mention chipping and painting. Salt and metal!!
So for instance we had one system to monitor we had 4-5 EW4-5's and 1 EW1 and 1 CPO as well as on and off a O1 or shared with Operations O1 for EW stuff. So CPO did not work the equipment and was in and out mostly during the day, the EW1 me and the senior EW5 split 12 on 12 off and sat with 1 of the rest of the crew who were on a 3 section rotation. This was based on who was on the team at the time and would have changed as needed as new people joined left.
An other aside The ability of the young people (the bulk of the crew) to do so many things well has always stuck with me. The structure and discipline (often scoffed at and sometimes lax in appearance) were key to the running of this org.
Maintenance for all systems on the ship are centrally controlled and tracked on paper back then, and when in port there was plenty for all to do. The system had a card (4x5 or so) for every task that needed to be done, with what, when, by who. These were assigned and done, any issues were solved and parts were ordered and replaced as needed when they were made available (some came by mail (helo) other stuff had to wait and was done when along side tender or during yard periods)
So I have rambled for long time, but the basics are the crew is operationally broken up by sections as in HG Operations/Engineering/Flight/Weapons/Deck/Services. Another thing Services the numbers are much smaller than stated as the "crewmen" for the most part in services are drawn from the ratings from all the other divisions doing a round of service working with the cooks/laundry and such, not to say there were not cooks or storekeepers, just the extra hands came from the rest of the ship. We all worked together.
Some special teams
Services - Cooks and Storekeepers run things, workers are supplied again from the rest of the crew.
Police - We had one don't recall the rate (sergeant at arms or some such) who used selected team members to be sheriff when he was away, and worked with him to put drunks in bed etc..
Damage control parties - HT's the hull techs ran damage control, but again the fire parties were filled from all the crew as needed.
Underway replenishment - Deck ran these operations, but again the workers were pulled from the rest of the ship.
Security Alerts - Gunners Mates ran the armory and the teams were built from the crew again.
Flight operations - Air detachment ran this, but you guessed it the bodies they needed for safe operations were pulled from all depts.
Landing Parties - Gunners Mates again (we did not have any marines) and weapon trained personnel from other depts would fill this role.
Note: Lucky for us we did not need to fill this role as our weapons training was anemic at best and no ground pounding training at all. I brought far more skill than was offered as far as weapons goes. To qualify we had to hit the ocean from the fantail (rear of the ship). My Dad's level of training was much much higher requirements to just look at the guns.
Anyway the ship never had less than 1/4 of the crew on it, unless they were standing on pier handing supplies up the gangway.
I know long and clear as mud any thing I forgot just ask.
Mark.
In our situation I really don't recall what the XO did, but the CO was on the bridge and OPS was senior in CIC during General Quaters.
I am looking at the crew requirements and making better use of the span of control for determining crew numbers in ships used by players in MTU.
Naval ships are very over manned relative to merchant ships, one of the things I have been looking at is the giant crew requirements for larger ships. Think supertankers (not crewed with 1000s of men as an aircraft carrier would be)
First Span of control is 3-7 men and the navy follows this pretty close (because it works). The navy has ~ 9 levels of enlisted and same for officers. Math shows you can have a mighty big crew with just an O-6 running things.
Only the bottom 3 - 4 levels do real work in maintaining and running the ship, the rest if overhead (command from HG) So I am assuming the needed men (to a point) are related to the non command and I find the numbers are not far off.
Now for the manning of the ship, yes there are watches on a ship, and they are relative to the threat level and tasks the ship is performing. As an aside I was Electronic Warfare mostly on a Frigate (4 years of 6), so my rate was really just filler since if it was not under the water no one cared.
So there are jobs I was EW so staring in port in US we ran 4 sections, in Med we ran 2 or 4 depending on what was going on. This meant the ship in the US had at least 1/4 the crew across all divisions (more or less as some divisions were split different based on needs). And 1/4 of the crew was enough to get underway and function, some of the crew would do cross tasks as needed (Surface warfare some such qualification basically cross trained you in every aspect of the vessel)
I was also on the security detail in port, and the flight operations fire crew underway during helo operations. All navy personnel are trained in damage control basics. I also stood as PO of the deck in port when I (had duty) in port. Then there is the "work day" which is every day technically and even though your up for 4 hours at night for your watch ( I preferred roving patrol as you were moving rather than standing still). The work day for all divisions was painting, cleaning, and maintenance of the ship and the systems your responsible for. By far the bulk of our time was painting, waxing and painting, did I mention chipping and painting. Salt and metal!!
So for instance we had one system to monitor we had 4-5 EW4-5's and 1 EW1 and 1 CPO as well as on and off a O1 or shared with Operations O1 for EW stuff. So CPO did not work the equipment and was in and out mostly during the day, the EW1 me and the senior EW5 split 12 on 12 off and sat with 1 of the rest of the crew who were on a 3 section rotation. This was based on who was on the team at the time and would have changed as needed as new people joined left.
An other aside The ability of the young people (the bulk of the crew) to do so many things well has always stuck with me. The structure and discipline (often scoffed at and sometimes lax in appearance) were key to the running of this org.
Maintenance for all systems on the ship are centrally controlled and tracked on paper back then, and when in port there was plenty for all to do. The system had a card (4x5 or so) for every task that needed to be done, with what, when, by who. These were assigned and done, any issues were solved and parts were ordered and replaced as needed when they were made available (some came by mail (helo) other stuff had to wait and was done when along side tender or during yard periods)
So I have rambled for long time, but the basics are the crew is operationally broken up by sections as in HG Operations/Engineering/Flight/Weapons/Deck/Services. Another thing Services the numbers are much smaller than stated as the "crewmen" for the most part in services are drawn from the ratings from all the other divisions doing a round of service working with the cooks/laundry and such, not to say there were not cooks or storekeepers, just the extra hands came from the rest of the ship. We all worked together.
Some special teams
Services - Cooks and Storekeepers run things, workers are supplied again from the rest of the crew.
Police - We had one don't recall the rate (sergeant at arms or some such) who used selected team members to be sheriff when he was away, and worked with him to put drunks in bed etc..
Damage control parties - HT's the hull techs ran damage control, but again the fire parties were filled from all the crew as needed.
Underway replenishment - Deck ran these operations, but again the workers were pulled from the rest of the ship.
Security Alerts - Gunners Mates ran the armory and the teams were built from the crew again.
Flight operations - Air detachment ran this, but you guessed it the bodies they needed for safe operations were pulled from all depts.
Landing Parties - Gunners Mates again (we did not have any marines) and weapon trained personnel from other depts would fill this role.
Note: Lucky for us we did not need to fill this role as our weapons training was anemic at best and no ground pounding training at all. I brought far more skill than was offered as far as weapons goes. To qualify we had to hit the ocean from the fantail (rear of the ship). My Dad's level of training was much much higher requirements to just look at the guns.
Anyway the ship never had less than 1/4 of the crew on it, unless they were standing on pier handing supplies up the gangway.
I know long and clear as mud any thing I forgot just ask.
Mark.
In our situation I really don't recall what the XO did, but the CO was on the bridge and OPS was senior in CIC during General Quaters.
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salochin999
SOC-13
Useful info
Span of control is a good way of looking at it.
A similar element might be the ability of younger people to handle less sleep. Logically that might create a need for the older and more experienced people in the chain of command to have a surplus to keep up with the youngsters.
Yeah I wonder about this. A 5K dton ship that is 4K dtons of fuel and cargo space is only really 1K dtons of actual ship so I think freighters (as opposed to liners and naval ships) could have much smaller crews.
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