Wow! So many good passages! Cthia you rock!
MaxxQ, thanks for the science lesson!
Lots of good info. I knew there was legit reasoning behind the bomb-pumped lasers, it just
sounds like something cooked up by Doctor Evil.
dreamrider wrote:Dark,
If your XO didn't get "sufficient" rack time, then neither your senior Chief nor your captain was entirely doing his job.
Senior Master Chief. This is a title convention which varies from Service to Service. It happens to be what the RMN uses. I will submit that it is slightly less awkward than the equivalent rank U.S. Navy term Commander Master Chief Petty Officer, and perhaps slightly more awkward than the alternative same pay-grade term Fleet Master Chief Petty Officer. I find it is less ambiguous than either. (In point of fact, although the U.S. Navy does not use the "Senior Master" adjective combination in its rank structure, the U.S. Air Force does.)
In most cases, when a line troop or sailor or young officer encounters such an individual, they are wisest to simply not speak in any case. They couldn't possibly say anything that s/he doesn't already know. <grin>
The XO thing was mostly a joke but they
are the hardest working officer on the crew by a wide margin.
The title is actually "Command Master Chief" or CMC for short. It isn't a rank though, it is the billet for the most senior enlisted person on the ship (I think they call this the "bosun" in the Honorverse). Even if the billet happens to be filled by a Senior Chief, he/she could still be called CMC because that is the title of his/her billet (sort of like XO is always called XO no matter his actual rank). I know the Air Force uses the "Senior Master" nomenclature for one of their ranks, but in the Navy both "Senior Chief" and "Master Chief" are discreet ranks. To a sailor's ear, combining the two sounds rather silly.
Hutch wrote:I missed the references the first time I read it, but since then everytime I read it I chuckle a bit/
From Echos of Honor:
Citizen Lieutenant Commander Heathrow leaned back in his command chair and smiled as Lois, the sole inhabited planet of the Clarke System, fell away astern. He hadn't enjoyed dealing with Citizen Colonel White, the system's senior StateSec officer, but at least there were other people on Lois. More to the point, perhaps, Lois had some of the most glorious beaches in the entire People's Republic. He and his crew had been made welcome in traditional Navy style by Citizen Captain Olson, CO of the small PN patrol detachment, and his engineering staff had managed a little creative reporting to justify a full extra twenty-three-hour day of sun and sand.
Wonder if the moon is called Kal-El...
I totally missed that! Good call!
saber964 wrote:The reason why middies are saluted and called sir or ma'am is because the middies in question have already graduated from the naval academy and temporarily carry an officers warrant and are considered warrant officer in the chain of command, they don't get a commission until they complete their middy cruse.
That is well and good in
theory, but I can tell you from personal experience that any non-com caught saluting or sir-ing a middie would be in for the ribbing of his life! They would be the butt of jokes for weeks.
In the real Navy, middies aren't seen as "real officers". In fact, they are lower than the lowest enlisted person aboard any ship because at least that enlisted person is doing a job which is helping the ship meet its mission. Middies, on the other hand, are often given make-work or tasked with following crew members around to see how they do their jobs (and often getting underfoot and slowing them down in the bargain). I can just imagine what a Chief might say to any middie who thought he was due proper honors, or, God help them, actually think they could give out
orders!
