Quote:
Originally Posted by Sailor Steve
Where are you from? I ask because the system used in the KM is paralleled in the Royal Navy. In the sailing-ship days a gunner was considered something of a wizard, with magical abilities that separated him from real sailors; hence he was exempt from all regular sailor duties.
When steam came into common use the same thing happened. An engineer is not a real sailor, which means he is both more and less than the regular command structure. He isn't trained in anything to do with the running of the ship, and other officers aren't trained in engineering.
The reason I asked where you are from is that if you are American, none of that makes sense, because in the US navy officers aren't specialists. On my ship we had a Radio Officer; over him was a Comm officer, and over him was the XO. We also had an engineering officer, but these were all officers learning different jobs, and they all had pretty much the same career track, and barring stupid mistakes and bad luck they would all someday be an exec and then a captain.
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I'm from the US, I used to work on one a naval base as a contractor in the super computer center. Have got several friends on active duyt, or a couple that have just come back from their deployments, I think a better way to define it was not specialist but career path. From your logic, someone from JAG could get a command once their reach commander/captain. Some people are just not fit to command a ship when they've spent the last 20 years in a courtroom to get their rank.
I apologize for the mixup, I see that what I wanted to say came out very wrong and not what I was trying to say. As your example, the comm officer on the ship could very well get a command someday. What I was trying to get across is that there are several careers/jobs in which you will never step foot on a boat you 20 years. Once they get their proper rank, do you think it's wise/fair then to give the keys to a ship a who is a lawyer or nuclear engineer(the ones that design the cores, not the onboard ones that monitor the one on their ship?