Upcoming surplus of junior officers

Don't forget there are other assignments beyond front line warship where middies can still gain valuable training.

Say we have a prospective Middie who is good at fire controll/EW/Point defense tasks but is thoroughly mediocre at navigation/astrogation. We could put her on a standard ship where she struggles or we could assign her as a middie on a fortress at the juction or one of the terminals. She may never become eligible for command of a ship but she can still serve well for the duration of the war.

Silverwall wrote:Don't forget there are other assignments beyond front line warship where middies can still gain valuable training.

Say we have a prospective Middie who is good at fire controll/EW/Point defense tasks but is thoroughly mediocre at navigation/astrogation. We could put her on a standard ship where she struggles or we could assign her as a middie on a fortress at the juction or one of the terminals. She may never become eligible for command of a ship but she can still serve well for the duration of the war.

So, abandon the Snotty cruise as the thesis defense, the year long trial to commissioning? By formula: [100(# of slots available)/middies in graduating class)= class ranking of graduates to go to first tier career], the rest permanent dirtside career posting?

That is the implication. Of course, the actual slotting could be tweaked for character or leadership qualities, or some other intangible. Even tweak the formula by (-5%)to allow for that subjective evaluation.

IIRC about all officers get rotation into groundside and shipboard duties with exceptions (Adm.s Cortez & Kumhalo et al) for exceptional skill considered more beneficial to the Corps.

Silverwall wrote:Don't forget there are other assignments beyond front line warship where middies can still gain valuable training.

Say we have a prospective Middie who is good at fire controll/EW/Point defense tasks but is thoroughly mediocre at navigation/astrogation. We could put her on a standard ship where she struggles or we could assign her as a middie on a fortress at the juction or one of the terminals. She may never become eligible for command of a ship but she can still serve well for the duration of the war.

Fundamentally, an officers job is leadership and management. Completely mediocre skill at the technical level is just fine if they are good at motivating and managing people and time.

Fundamentally I think the fact that all the headline characters (Honor, Abby, Helen) are hardcore tactical track has given us a somewhat skewed idea what kind of graduates Saganimi island produces. I remember one of Helen's? fellow middies (the Soccer player) being described as engineering track and that they didn't have many classes together as a result.

Also I am fairly sure that the RMN would consider postings to forts and similar space based combat units as equivalent of a traditional "Ship" deployment for purposes of a middy "Cruise".

kzt wrote:

Silverwall wrote:Don't forget there are other assignments beyond front line warship where middies can still gain valuable training.

Say we have a prospective Middie who is good at fire controll/EW/Point defense tasks but is thoroughly mediocre at navigation/astrogation. We could put her on a standard ship where she struggles or we could assign her as a middie on a fortress at the juction or one of the terminals. She may never become eligible for command of a ship but she can still serve well for the duration of the war.

Fundamentally, an officers job is leadership and management. Completely mediocre skill at the technical level is just fine if they are good at motivating and managing people and time.

Thats as maybe but everything in the cannon suggest that the middy cruise is about techincal skill, none of the Middy scenes ever show man management as a key component of the cruise, all the action is focussed on technical proficiency in tactical, engineering, navigation tasks.

It seems to me that the RMN treats the Ensign position once graduated as the place where they test the former middies management and leadership potential.

Which of course is silly, as there is a fairly long dedicated training course to produce engineering offers who know the systems inside and out. So nobody three years into a generalist school like the academy is going to have the technical knowledge needed to do anything useful unless they happen to have been an enlisted engineering tech (which also has a multi-year technical training pipeline).

Oops - I had isn't for is.

Fox2! wrote:

saber964 wrote:

Yep we got bigger guns.

I'll see your Tomahawk and raise a Mimuteman III. Pre-SALT II.

See your Minutman III and raise you a Trident D-5 SLBM.

kzt wrote:Which of course is silly, as there is a fairly long dedicated training course to produce engineering offers who know the systems inside and out. So nobody three years into a generalist school like the academy isn't going to have the technical knowledge needed to do anything useful unless they happen to have been an enlisted engineering tech (which also has a multi-year technical training pipeline).

And which Middy got hauled before the captain during our Miss Hearns' Snotty cruise after being reported by the MCPOs for being a little tin dictator?

Yes leadership skills are important as a Middy. The Navy is primarily a navy which implies its main focus is deployment. Any Officer, even the Engineering ones with no snotty cruise will be permanent yard dogs. Not that their job isn't critical to the navy's mission, but it is a definite deterrant to promotion opportunities, especially battlefield ones.

Just reiterating, you are creating two classes of officers.

Unless the academy is graduating 12,000 or more midshipmen a year there should be absolutely no shortage of positions.

saber964 wrote:

Fox2! wrote:

I'll see your Tomahawk and raise a Mimuteman III. Pre-SALT II.

See your Minutman III and raise you a Trident D-5 SLBM.

Which forces me to see your Trident and raise a Peacekeeper.