This is for my NaNoWriMo thing, so while accuracy isn’t necessary I am a little curious. So let’s say Joe Blow wants to join the Navy. He goes to the Naval Academy and finishes in good standing- lets say the top 25% of his class. He leaves with a science or engineering degree, and gets a commission as (I assume) an ensign. If his big career ambition was to become the commanding officer of a major vessel, let’s say something equivalent to a modern-day aircraft carrier, what would his career from ensign-CO look like? Are there major benchmarks along the way, or is it just a matter of slowly learning new skills and gradually taking on more and more responsibilities while making political connections and hoping that you’re lucky and well-positioned enough to take advantage of whatever posts open up?
Until Robby or another officer shows up I will give it a whack.
You essentially have it right.
While at the academy, middies do summers on ships [middy cruises] where they get a look at life onboard a sea command. I think it gives them some idea of what they want their career to go like.
Once graduated and commissioned, they go wherever they are told - much like enlisted personnel. I believe that they are allowed to list several options they are interested in though there is no guarantee that they will get it.
Their first command, they are given a very low posting, since you are interested in aircraft carrier, it might be something as low as working as one of the lesser officers in the facilities section - they could be the laundry officer and have a small crew of various enlisted that run the laundry area. They could be in an administrative office, with a small staff of people keeping track of the personnel records. They would have had several schools to attend to teach them how to work with the various departments and enlisteds. They would be part of the staffing of higher level officers. As they get experience, and time passes, they would be moved around to different divisions to get experience in those as well.
On carriers, the command staff come up from the pilots, as I recall. To be the ultimate commander of a carrier you have to have been a pilot though I am not sure if it is only planes or if helicopters are included.
I do know that a friend of mine went up through the levels of on a carrier, then shore then back to sea on of all things an oiler, and ended up as officer in charge of Mt Moffat on Adak before he retired to go back to school [he was a Texas Aggie and studied oceanography] so you may not stay on a single type of boat, and would do diverse stuff at land commands. You flip back and forth between sea and shore, and different types of vessels as well. I do not think that without a bit of tweaking that you could spend your entire career on nothing but shore commands and carriers, or just carriers.
Thanks for the response! That’s exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to learn…
Wow, really? I definitely didn’t know this- I had assumed that the pilots were fairly insular and removed from the workings of the overall ship, and that they would’ve picked captains from the officers who had spent most of their careers working various jobs on the ship proper, and who consequently had more time to master the workings of internal departments than the pilots.
It’s been a while since I’ve been involved with surface Navy but if I remember right it goes pretty much like this:
Ens. Blow would start as a division officer (the divo) running a work center (really the chief is running it). He spends almost all of his time qualifying for his surface warfare officer (SWO) pin and officer of the deck, amongst other qualifications. He does this for a few years. Then Blow would probably do a shore tour for two years. If he continues to do well now Lt. Blow will be selected for a department head tour. The department head manages several divisions. He’ll have some more qualifications to complete. This lasts for a few more years. Next he goes back to a shore command, probably a major Fleet component, and learns how things work. If he’s punched all of his tickets he’ll be selected for ship’s command. The now LCdr. Blow will report to the ship as executive officer (XO) for a few years and then the now Cdr. Blow will move into the commanding officer slot when it opens.
This is a pretty generic roadmap and obviously it’s not going to work that way for all officers or ship types. Hopefully I didn’t forget a major component!
Oh that’s perfect, thanks! 
IME, it isn’t common (at least in peacetime) for a ship’s XO to assume command of that ship, barring incapacitation of the CO. Much more normal would be another shore posting followed by orders to command a different ship (probably of the same or similar type).
Actually, this can make for some interesting career and training scenarios for senior pilots.
When I was at prototype training, the final phase of nuclear power training, we had a Captain (O-6) going through the program in our associated officer class, as well as the usual Lieutenants J.G. and Ensigns. He was a fully qualified pilot, and on a short list for carrier command, but to qualify for command of the ship, he had to first qualify on the reactor operations. Which is about a year-long training process.
If you want the necessary details, you’d first have to consider whether you want to talk about a carrier or a smaller ship. Because as others have pointed out, only aviators (pilots or NFOs) are going to command a carrier, and only a Surface Warfare Officer is going to command a smaller ship, and aviators and surface guys have completely different backgrounds. I can talk about an aviation background; robby can talk about a surface background (and probably an aviation background as well).
Point of information: robby was a bubblehead, not a skimmer (aka target), sailor. Which is yet another career track.
IANASailor, but I do know that you need to keep the distinction of captain as a rank, i.e. and captain as an assignment. As an official rank, “captain” is a very high one, just below rear admiral. It’s equivalent to a colonel in the army.
The CO of a smaller ship, say a destroyer or its equivalent, is often a lower ranking officer, such as a commander or lieutenant commander. He can be referred to as the ship’s captain, and, IIRC be addressed as Captain on board the ship, but this refers to his command assignment, and not his formal rank.
Indeed, pretty much always. It would be strange if a 4-striper (officer with the rank of Captain) were CO of a ship that size.
Again, essentially always would be, and would be addressed by all aboard as “Captain”.
And why did I say “he”? What is this, 1950? :smack: