Rank , Command and Ship Size

[Elliot]

Before the standardisation of the English language into the London English of the printing presses, local northern and Scots dialect would have followed the more Scandinavian sounding pronounciation (i.e. Sch is Sk not Sshhhh)

Here is what the OED has:

Skipper - etym: Old Norse: Skipari, , Danish: Skipper, Swedish: Skeppare, Middle Dutch and Middle Low German: Schipper - from schip - i.e. Modern English: Ship.

Definition

1. The captain or master of ship, esp of a small merchant or trading vessel. A shipman.
In 15th and 16th Century: a term of mainly Scots use.

First recorded instance: 1390 The Earl of Derby's Expedition 'Hermann, skipper de Dansk'

Coxswain

from Cock - a ships boat and Swain
Def: The Helmsman of a boat; the person on board a ship having permanent charge of a boat, of which he has command unless a superior officer is present.

Examples start in the 15th century.

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by PBI:
It's naval tradition. There can be an unlimited number of captains on board, but only one Captain. All the others get acting/honorary promotions one step higher. Serves no real practical purpose, but it's nice flavour.

Not according to any Real World naval tradition that I've been able to track down. It appears in Jerry Pournelle's Co-dominium series and I suspect other SF authors who also use it got it from him.


Hans

 

[Hemdian]

Originally posted by Prospero:
In a military organization like the Imperial Navy, what rank is required to be the captain of a ship? Presumably it varies witht the size of the ship. Any thoughts?

There's some thoughts on StuffOnline.

Regards PLST

 

[aoehler]

Besides the tradition of referring to the officer in charge as "captain", I believe that the actual rank of the CO would be determined by the crew compliment and not the tonnage of the ship. A fuel tender might have a pretty small compliment but be huge in size.

 

[PBI]

Crew size isn't a great way of determining the rank of the captain of a ship, at least not exclusively. Say you have a 500K tanker; not a lot of crew compared to a combat vessel of similar size, but the cost of the ship and its importance within the fleet should also be taken into account.

 

[vermeylenhans]

Some considerations to add to the mess!

In the Belgian Navy, an officer in charge of a ship is called Captain, whatever his actual rank. NCOs are in charge of some smaller ships (tugs mostly)and they are called Skipper.

Besides, those tugs, no matter how small, are ships because they are organical units, with assigned crew complements, COs... While the zodiac boats carried aboard ships are boats, because they're not. When asked his unit, a sailor answers "I'm from BNS Primula", just like a ground pounder says "I'm from 4th Lancers". Nobody his attached to a specific boat: the crew of the boat his made of whoever, from the mother ship's complement, is needed for a given mission.

We also use coxwain and boatswain, but those two are NCO functions. The coxwain is the senior NCO of the ship, his tasks being maintaining discipline among the crew and handling most administrative mess. Much like a Company Sergeant-Major in the army. The boatswain is the NCO in charge of the deck gang.

 

[vermeylenhans]

In real world NATO wet navies, the rank needed to be CO of a given ship is determined with attention paid to three things:

1) Tonnage of the ship

2) Size of the crew

3) Role of the ship

The first one is fairly self-explaining. The second one too, but one tip I can give is to relate the crew of a ship to a army unit of approximately the same size to get an idea of the rank of her CO. The third one needs some explanation: the COS of two ship of identical tonnage and crewsize can have fairly different ranks if one ship is a first line battle unit while the other is a support ship. For exemple. In the NATO is ship is assigned to a given category: F for frigates, M for Minewarfare ships, A for support ships... Those categories are each assigned a coeficient by wich size of the ship is multiplied for purpose of hierarchic organisation. I don't know the actual numbers but for exemple: a Frigate (F) of a given tonnage would use her actual tonnage to compute the rank of her CO, while a support ship of similar tonnage would use only 0,8 times her tonnage.

Further, the tonnage of every ship of a given unit is summed up, with those category coeficients taken into account, to compute the rank of the CO of that unit. That's why some smaller national navies are in charge of O8s or 09s while bigger navies are under command of an 010.

One more remark. One must not mix up Captains with CTG or CTF. Every ship has it's own captain. When multiple ship are assembled in a single task group or task force, the group or force is given a CTG or CTF (Commander TG, Commander TF). This officer, often higher ranked than the ship's captains, take place aboard one of the ship and assume command of the whole group or force. He does not, however, replace the captain of the ship he's aboard. That captain retain full command of his ship, but he is, like every other captain of the group, under command of the CTG.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Hans Vermeylen:
In real world NATO wet navies, the rank needed to be CO of a given ship is determined with attention paid to three things:

1) Tonnage of the ship

2) Size of the crew

3) Role of the ship

Good point, though I think my crew size method works well enough for the game since the other two factors directly relate to the required crew.

 

[snrdg082102]

Evening Hans,

If I'm not mistaken, Robert Heinlein's book Starship Troopers was published prior to Jerry Pournelle's Co-dominium series. During Johnnie Rico's probationary officer period the Captain of the MI unit was bumped up a rank when dining with the Navy transport's skipper.

Originally posted by rancke:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by PBI:
It's naval tradition. There can be an unlimited number of captains on board, but only one Captain. All the others get acting/honorary promotions one step higher. Serves no real practical purpose, but it's nice flavour.

Not according to any Real World naval tradition that I've been able to track down. It appears in Jerry Pournelle's Co-dominium series and I suspect other SF authors who also use it got it from him.


Hans </font>[/QUOTE]

 

[aramis]

There are historical US Naval references to Marine Captains being called Lt as a convinience to the naval crew (IE, any marine officer in the ship's company was Lt), save for the head marine, who was addressed as major. This is from the early times of the USMC, tho... (age of sail).

A friend who went through USMC basic recently (96) referenced that they were taught that, when shipboard, Captains as company co's were addressed as majors, staff captains were addressed as lt.

Which is what I was taught as a naval cadet. One captain per ship is a USN/USMC-ism.

Heinlein didn't invent the form, but it is a fairly isolated case; that it found its way into traveller, well...

In my home grown settings, captain is not even a rank...

 

[BetterThanLife]

I also remember seeing references to it as well, real world. Though most of it was historical. I thought I remembered reading it in Boyington's book about the Black Sheep. (Believe it or not Pappy Boyington could actually read and write.

) Isn't it in book 4 CT someplace as well?

Originally posted by Aramis:
There are historical US Naval references to Marine Captains being called Lt as a convinience to the naval crew (IE, any marine officer in the ship's company was Lt), save for the head marine, who was addressed as major. This is from the early times of the USMC, tho... (age of sail).

A friend who went through USMC basic recently (96) referenced that they were taught that, when shipboard, Captains as company co's were addressed as majors, staff captains were addressed as lt.

Which is what I was taught as a naval cadet. One captain per ship is a USN/USMC-ism.

Heinlein didn't invent the form, but it is a fairly isolated case; that it found its way into traveller, well...

In my home grown settings, captain is not even a rank...

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Aramis:
There are historical US Naval references to Marine Captains being called Lt as a convinience to the naval crew (IE, any marine officer in the ship's company was Lt), save for the head marine, who was addressed as major. This is from the early times of the USMC, tho... (age of sail).

A friend who went through USMC basic recently (96) referenced that they were taught that, when shipboard, Captains as company co's were addressed as majors, staff captains were addressed as lt.

Which is what I was taught as a naval cadet. One captain per ship is a USN/USMC-ism.

Heinlein didn't invent the form, but it is a fairly isolated case; that it found its way into traveller, well...

Well, all I can say is that I asked about it some years ago and several navy and marine types claimed they'd never heard of it and one said that he could find no reference (in Real Life) to the practice. It's far too long ago for me to supply any references.

But if it is a USN/USMC tradition then no doubt there are written information about the practice available?

As for the Age of Sail, my only 'reference' is at third hand. In Age of Sail novels written by people like C.S. Forester, Patrick O'Brian, Pope, Kent, and Parkinson, the marine captain is invariably addressed as 'captain'.


Hans

 

[bromdenlong]

I was in the US Navy, serving 3 years aboard USS Okinawa, a helicopter carrier that usually carried Marines or Navy minesweeping helicopters.

All Marine captains (O3s) were addressed as "Major" without fail by all sailors aboard. I heard a few marines forget to do this, but they were always upbraided by the "Major" in question or another marine.

This was in the mid-1980s.

 

[aramis]

There is a throwaway reference in LtCol Boyington's autobiography.

There is a reference to it in at least one of the Naval Science texts from USNA press; civilian availability might be an issue.

 

[snrdg082102]

Hello Aramis,

Thank-you for replying to my post about Robert Heinlein. I was not saying that Mr. Heinlein invented the use of bumping a Captain who is not in command of a vessel up 1 grade in title. My intent was to suggest that Mr. Heinlein's usage in a published work prior to Mr. Pournelle's usage in his published work or works.

Originally posted by Aramis:
There are historical US Naval references to Marine Captains being called Lt as a convinience to the naval crew (IE, any marine officer in the ship's company was Lt), save for the head marine, who was addressed as major. This is from the early times of the USMC, tho... (age of sail).

A friend who went through USMC basic recently (96) referenced that they were taught that, when shipboard, Captains as company co's were addressed as majors, staff captains were addressed as lt.

Which is what I was taught as a naval cadet. One captain per ship is a USN/USMC-ism.

Heinlein didn't invent the form, but it is a fairly isolated case; that it found its way into traveller, well...

In my home grown settings, captain is not even a rank...

 

[PBI]

In the Napoleonic Period, the British tended to address marine officers as "<RANK>" of Marines", especially when addressing a captain, if the naval officers in question were of the more traditional sort and/or had the time, something battles were notoriously short on

 

[Straybow]

In my home grown settings, captain is not even a rank...

Hmmmm? Do tell! What do you use?
____________________________________________

I've seen the Stuff Online page and also T5 going up to O10, but that falls rather short of the organizational structure needed for such a humongeous military.

I believe the 5-star ranks in the US Army and Navy were added in WW2, but maybe that is a misperception on my part. Certainly the 5-star ranks did not exist in the ACW era.

Traditionally a Brigadier General commanded... a Brigade. In the modern era a Brigade-sized unit (whatever the name given) is small beans; the Division is currently the fundamental large-scale unit under the command of a General. Above that are Corps and then Armies (or Theaters).

In addition there are many positions not attached to field units. There are scores of 1-star and 2-star positions whose holders scarcely step outside the Pentagon.

The massive bureaucracy of the IN would require more levels of command, not less. There would be crying need for more than one flag rank between Captain and Admiral, and paltry two ranks of functional Admirals is absurd.

Going by that log-base-7 rule of thumb you would probably need 6 levels of Admirals minimum, plus the ceremonial tippy-top.

 

[jasper]

IRC 5 stars are only open when the USA is at war. Declared War that is.

 

[Prospero]

Hey thanks for all the discussion. I've been out of town for a few days.

The log7+1 seems a reasonable and easy way to go.

NT

 

[flykiller]

Going by that log-base-7 rule of thumb you would probably need 6 levels of Admirals minimum, plus the ceremonial tippy-top.

if one assumes a minimum of three years time-in-grade for each rank, it would require an unblemished career of thirty six years (after college) to attain maximum admiral.