Relinquishing command

Factual Questions
1

This question has come up in some Star Trek episodes and books. I wonder how real-world military rules, either U.S. or otherwise, in any branch of service, differ.

Let’s say that, on a warship, Capt. Adams, Lt. Barnes, Cmdr. Cooper and Ens. Dobbs are all line officers.

Hypothetical 1
Capt. Adams, the commanding officer, leaves the Bridge and tells Lt. Barnes she’s in charge. Adams leaves and doesn’t come back. The ship falls under attack and Adams can’t be found or contacted. Cmdr. Cooper, who was belowdecks earlier, rushes onto the Bridge and says, “I relieve you; I’m in command now.” May Barnes relinquish command to Cooper? Must she?

Hypothetical 2
Adams, Barnes and Cooper are all on the Bridge at the same time. Adams hates Cooper and doesn’t trust him. May Adams tell Barnes she’s in charge and then leave the Bridge, even though Cooper is right there and is ready, willing and able to take command?

Hypothetical 3
Adams leaves the Bridge and tells Barnes she’s in charge. The enemy attacks and Adams and Cooper are both killed belowdecks. The ship is badly damaged. Barnes has lost all hope but is still mentally sound; she decides to relinquish command to Ens. Dobbs, a callow young line officer who just happens to be standing there. May she do so?

2

The first two hypotheticals aren’t really relinquishing command. Adams is still in command, whether he’s on the bridge or on the shitter. Barnes is in charge until Adams, or someone higher in the chain of command than Barnes, returns to the bridge.

3

I’m just guessing that #3 would be equated and treated as simple cowardice, or abandonment of her post. Am I reading it right – the officer in charge is unharmed but simply decides she no longer wants to be in charge and tries to foist off the responsibility on the next guy down the chain?

4

Elendil’s Hair relinquishing command in military and naval parlance that I am aware of is when a person commanding a unit or formation is relieved by another officer. Not when somebody becomes the acting commander due to non availability of his commander. General Ridgeway did nit relinquish command of the 101st when he went to the US on conference before Bastonge. He was on leave. General Bradley DUI relinquish command of First Army when he took over 12 Army Group.

5

#1 The senior officer present in the chain of command may take command at any time. If an officer is not in the chain of command, he can’t take command at any time. I assume Commander Cooper, as a line officer, is in the chain of command, so his duty is to take command until the captain can be found. The captain will probably face a court martial for dereliction of duty, his vessel being then in a state of war.

#2 If the captain has a reason not to trust one of his officers, that officer should be relieved of duty. He can’t just skip him. If the captain does not have a reason, but just doesn’t like him because he’s Black, or Japanese, or whatever, he’ll have to get over it.

#3 " Barnes … is still mentally sound; she decides to relinquish command to Ens. Dobbs…" These two clauses do not belong together. If a lieutenant attempts to cede command to an ensign, it becomes the ensign’s duty to (a) refuse and remind the lieutenant of her duty, and failing that, (b) take command, and © have the lieutenant escorted to sick bay or the brig. If the ship’s surgeon finds that the lieutenant was medically unfit for command, she might even keep her commission.

6

Let’s assume US Navy ranks and procedures, here. BTW, you’ve unnecessarily confused the situation by having the people involved named ‘A,B,C,D’, but ranked in order ‘A,C,B,D’. I’ll do them by name.

1)‘B’ was made OOD (Officer Of the Deck), but not by the formal procedure that’s actually used. That isn’t “command”. ‘C’ is the next ‘in command’, and can take over any time he likes, in the absence of ‘A’, either leaving ‘B’ as OOD, or not. 'C’s choice. ‘C’ calls the shots the moment he shows up, and ‘B’ knows it. There wouldn’t really be any question in the mind of anyone present.

  1. Fuck No! That would never happen, because ‘A’ would have already gotten rid of ‘C’ by properly going up his own chain of command, or been told to suck it up and deal with ‘C’. ‘A’ is stuck with ‘C’ in this case, and can’t do anything about it. He should have dealt with the problem, earlier.

  2. Everyone else will take orders from ‘D’, knowing that ‘B’ has “lost it”, but ‘B’ is still ‘in command’, and if she survives, will definitely be in deep shit for tossing responsibility off onto ‘D’.

This sort of shit winds up in movies because person A sees X, and mistakenly understands it, and so presents it as Y to person B, who mistakenly presents it as Z to person C, who puts it into the movie he’s writing as Q.

7

No, he didn’t, considering that the commander of the 101st Airborne was Major General Maxwell D. Taylor.

8

I spent my Navy time as an airdale, but Nametag’s answer sounds like what I learned in OCS (holy crap - 35 years ago!!!)

9

Nametag’s answer seems like the correct answer to me, with the addition that in scenario 3, another officer ranking Dobbs may and probably will take over from them.

10

Part of the problem is that you’re conflating “being in charge on the bridge” with being “in command” They’re two different things. The Officer of the Deck (OOD) is delegated control of the ship’s safety and operations. OOD is a watch station that multiple qualified officers rotate through every day, regardless of their rank or position in the chain of command.

The CO does not live on the bridge, in fact he is generally there only during a special evolution or if he’s bored. During combat, he will be in the Combat Information Center (or whatever it may be called), where the ship’s sensors and weapons are controlled. Even when he is on the bridge, he is not in charge unless he relieves the OOD. He can tell the OOD what he wants to do, and the OOD will generally do it (under threat of relief), but it is still the OOD giving the orders.

In hypothetical 1 Barnes never had command, she had OOD. If Adams is missing, incapacitated, or dead then Cooper is in command, period.

In hypothetical 2 Adams can’t relinquish command, on the bridge or off.

In hypothetical 3 Barnes is the OOD, then OOD and CO. She can not relinquish command. Dobbs can take command (a la Caine Mutiny) if he thinks Barnes is incapacitated.

11

Here’s how it would have worked, functionally, on the submarine I served on (from 2004 to 2007):

As has been said before, being in charge day-to-day means being Officer of the Deck (OOD). The Captain generally won’t be on the Bridge (or when submerged, Control) unless something important is going on. So Barnes is OOD, and during her watch, if they’re attacked, the Captain (and every other senior officer) would rush to Control. If the Captain didn’t for some reason, the next most senior officer would be functionally “in command”, even though the OOD is still giving the Conn orders (i.e. “left 5 degrees rudder, steady course 322”).

It wouldn’t really work like this either- the Captain is always in command, but the OOD is functionally in charge of operating the ship while he/she is on duty. If the Captain (CO) did not trust the Executive Officer (XO), then the CO would probably not allow the XO to act as Command Duty Officer (CDO), which means acting as the CO temporarily (most commonly over night, while the CO is asleep). The OOD can’t just do anything- many operations (like, for a submarine any way, establishing radio communications) require the CO’s (or CDO’s) permission.

In situations like this, rules and regulations about the chain of the command become a bit less important than the main rule- do whatever it takes to fight the ship and survive. If Barnes is having a crisis of confidence, then someone else would have to take command- perhaps even a senior enlisted person. Barnes would probably be court-martialed and booted out of the Navy afterwards, but the rest of the crew isn’t going to just stand around and wonder if it’s “proper” for a broken-down officer to pass down his or her duty- they’re going to do their jobs, and some other officer or Chief Petty Officer (CPO) will functionally take charge.

12

This. Although for #2, in certain communities, the CO does have an option. For instance, CO of a squadron does not fully trust one of his pilots. He can decide not to give that pilot a certain designation (Mission Commander, PIC, that kind of thing). That pilot may eventually wind up before a board examining the possiblity of revoking flight status, but it does give that CO a little leeway aside from firing the officer.

And ‘in command’ is relative. The guy on the bridge is not ‘in command.’ He just has the watch and is acting as the CO’s rep or in lieu of the CO. Not acting AS the CO.

13

I received my first ever personal request to show up in a thread, so of course I had to (and I am sure you were all waiting for me :D). Here’s my take:

I am a currently serving officer in the Canadian Forces. I asked another officer (Armoured RECCE) for his opinion as well, here’s what we came up with (we had to try and remember how different the navy ranks are, so thanks for that!). These answers are based on our own experience:

Hypothetical 1
Capt. Adams, the commanding officer, leaves the Bridge and tells Lt. Barnes she’s in charge. Adams leaves and doesn’t come back. The ship falls under attack and Adams can’t be found or contacted. Cmdr. Cooper, who was below decks earlier, rushes onto the Bridge and says, “I relieve you; I’m in command now.” May Barnes relinquish command to Cooper? Must she?

Lt Barnes has essentially become the “duty officer”, which is common since no one can be in awake and in the TOC (Tactical Operations Centre) all the time. She would remain on duty until someone relieved her, at which time she would stay there to help run things and make sure whomever assumes command is in the “know”.

Hypothetical 2
Adams, Barnes and Cooper are all on the Bridge at the same time. Adams hates Cooper and doesn’t trust him. May Adams tell Barnes she’s in charge and then leave the Bridge, even though Cooper is right there and is ready, willing and able to take command?

*This one gets a little trickier – what position/appointment are these officers in? The reason I am asking is that there may be a senior-ranked officer that does not have the training necessary to defend effectively against an attack (for example, what if you had a visiting musician from the marching band that was a higher rank?), but can run day-to-day things until the Captain is back. Still – yes the Captain would be expected to hand command to the DCO and if not, that member would have grounds to file a grievance. If there is a severe reason that the CO doesn’t trust the DCO, then they should move to have them suspended and put an Acting DCO in their place. *

Hypothetical 3
Adams leaves the Bridge and tells Barnes she’s in charge. The enemy attacks and Adams and Cooper are both killed belowdecks. The ship is badly damaged. Barnes has lost all hope but is still mentally sound; she decides to relinquish command to Ens. Dobbs, a callow young line officer who just happens to be standing there. May she do so?

*If she can’t/won’t do it, she’d better hand off to someone! Also, if she does it because she is genuinely combat-incapable (or seriously inexperienced), then it’s actually the correct choice; however she would remain ultimately responsible for the outcome. If she has lost her nerve and shirks her responsibility, but has all the same/similar training, then she would be charged. *

14

Thanks, everyone, for your feedback. Interesting stuff.

15

In regards to situation #2, every book or show in the military fiction (or science fiction) genre I’ve encountered has expected that a captain and his/her executive officer have a trust and respect for each other, or, at worst, a trust in the officers training and experience when they haven’t worked together long enough to form an opinion.

16

Navy Captains can not turn over their command to anyone until they are formally relieved as directed by the Captain’s commanding officer. Captains also don’t go on “away teams”, with or without red shirts.

17

Cheshire Human (post 6), yoyodyne (post 10) and iiandyiiii (post 11) pretty much have it covered.

On a submarine under way, watches rotate every six hours. Usually the Navigator, the Weapons Officer and one or two other junior officers will stand OOD, while the Engineer and two or three other junior officers are back in the engine room as Engineering Officer of the Watch. (To maintain proficiency, the EOOWs who are qualified OOD will come forward to stand that watch once every couple months or so, and the OODs will go aft to stand one watch as EOOW.) The Captain will occasionally spend time on the bridge (surfaced) or in Control (submerged), but unless he specifically assumes the duty as OOD the on-watch OOD retains control of helm orders and other routine evolutions.

Not as familiar with the way officers do things on skimmers (“surface ships”), as I only did one three-year tour on one of those. One major difference is that watches are only four hours long (vice six), with the exception of one afternoon watch which is split into two two-hour watches. The same general rules apply, though, with the OOD in immediate charge of the bridge and, by extension, the whole ship.

The CO, of course, retains responsibility for everything that happens on board, even while he’s asleep.

18

All I know is that I would still be back aft, keeping the reactor running safely, and not getting into pissing contests about who had command. WAY above my paygrade.

There was the time our sub chanced upon a previously uncharted island that was sending out a distress call. Naturally, the Skipper had us drop anchor in the surrounding water long enough for him to get into a dinghy to investigate the situation, accompanied by the XO, the Hospital Corpsman, and three FNs from the torpedo room who had taken a small arms course on Ford Island the week before we left PH. He instructed the Engineer to assume control of the boat, and circle the island in his absence, maintaining constant radio contact, in case he (the Skipper) had to give an order to bombard the island with SUBROCs, and possibly scuttle the boat.

None of that was necessary, as it turned out. The “distress call” turned out to be some Hollywood guys making a television show.

19

I hope your CO at least got laid by a foreign woman while he was on the island.

20

Not everyone can be Jim Kirk.