What's the advantage of having commissioned vs. noncommissioned officers?

Factual Questions
1

AIUI, all commissioned officers outrank all NCOs, such that even a ‘butter-bar’ commissioned lieutenant technically outranks the Command Sergeant Major.

What I am trying to understand is what the advantage lies in having such a system. Doesn’t it often generate situations where a commissioned officer is young and inexperienced but outranks NCOs who are far older and know far more?

Suppose that a military operated on an entirely non-commissioned officer basis; all officers were NCOs; even people who graduated from West Point or Annapolis would still be NCOs. What effect would that have?

2

I think it has to do with legal authority and responsibility more than anything. Commissioned officers have a literal commissioning document from the government (in the US, from the President) that basically says that they are charged with commanding military people, who have an obligation to obey them, and that they have the obligation to obey such orders that they are given from superior officers.

NCOs on the other hand, are not commissioned in such a manner; they’re enlisted people put in a position of charge, without necessarily being responsible for it. In other words, an officer may place an NCO in charge of a work detail to accomplish some task, but if that task is done poorly, or not at all, the officer is still responsible, as he has the legal authority and responsibility for the task.

In practice, I think it’s more of a parallel track sort of thing; a Ensign is trained to do totally different stuff than a Master Chief Petty Officer is for example.

3

I served over ten years as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy, and later went to work as an engineer for a public utility.

The personnel structure is actually very similar between the two, and a lot of it boils down to education.

Commissioned officers are required to have a college degree. They also have to be accepted into a competitive officer-training program, such as a military academy, ROTC, or OCS. After training, they are put in charge of small groups of people (typically with an NCO reporting directly to them), and over the course of their career move up in responsibility and authority.

NCOs, on the other hand, are enlisted personnel who work their way up from the bottom of the enlisted ranks. They typically enlist in the military right out of high school. To become an NCO, they have to demonstrate leadership and competence, but usually do not have the educational background of your typical college graduate. (Though they do typically have much more practical knowledge.)

Together, a junior officer (JO) and an experienced NCO often make a good team. The JO interacts with more senior commissioned officers, and the NCO assists with the JO’s interactions with the more junior enlisted personnel who do the actual work. A smart JO can learn a lot from an experienced NCO, but the working relationship can also be strained, especially when the JO is brand-new and doesn’t know what they don’t know.

I was the Electrical Officer on a submarine. I did a lot of paperwork and filed reports. I prepared personnel evaluations. I recommended exceptional personnel for recognition. My Chief Petty Officer (an NCO), however, had the expertise and supervisory ability to make sure a broken motor generator set got repaired in a timely manner by our trained electricians. Meanwhile, it was my job to keep my boss (the Chief Engineering Officer) apprised of the repair status, and to coordinate with the Supply Department for repair parts.

As a civilian engineer many years later, I see a very similar situation at the public utility I now work at. The engineers all have college degrees, and most of their work (and mine) is paperwork. I work with foremen and supervisors, though, who typically don’t have college degrees and worked their way up in the industry and our organization from various skilled technician (and even unskilled laborer) positions. They make sure the real hands-on work gets done quickly and well, just like the NCOs I used to work with.

4

Can’t resist: my dad had a post-war story.

Landing craft tied up to the side of the aircraft carrier, rather than anchoring separate. Captain of the aircraft carrier (a big wheel) requested the presence of the Landing craft ‘captain’ – a small cog. Instead, they got an enlisted man. “What”, they asked him, “are you doing in officer territory?” ‘You asked for LCnnn. That’s me.’. His officer had been sent home, and as senior, he had taken over. He’d lost his anchoring gear, for reasons, and hadn’t been able to replace it. They told him he wasn’t in trouble, and he asked for an officer – to handle supply requests.

Happy ending: they told him that he’d demonstrated that he didn’t have an immediate need for an officer, and that he should refer any supply problems to the aircraft carrier captain.

5

My (ignorant, in the sense that I don’t have military experience) impression is that this is largely an artifact of classism (which obviously still exists, but was a lot more intense and stratified in the past). Lots of the basic structure of the military predates modern principles of governance and egalitarianism. Commissioned officers were the aristocrats. Everyone below them are commoners. It’s still very present. COs get called “sir”. NCOs take offense. They work for a living.

Culture is a powerful force, and military culture is very strongly ingrained.

6

I have read a story about the Singaporean Army - not sure if true or not - but apparently some young guy became a commissioned officer and promptly found his old drill sergeant, an NCO, whom he hated - and ordered him to drop and give him 20 pushups. As the tale goes, the drill sergeant did in fact oblige, but the officer swiftly lost his commission.

7

Calling or not calling an NCO sir is a very recent (think 20th century) thing. Have you ever watched one of those USMC basic training videos? One of the first things they teach the recruits is that the Drill Instructors (NCOs) are to be addressed as sir. It is my understanding that prior to the mid to late 20th century all NCOs were addressed as sir.

8

“Sir” as a form of address was a lot more common in the past, too, so it could just be that as it faded from common usage it reemerged as a signal of the aristocracy/commoner division.

9

Well, in the past, officers were more likely to be wealthy. But in today’s US military, to be an officer requires a college degree, and a commissioned officer’s authority is considered to be intrinsic to their rank and derived from the constitution where as an NCO has no authority that isn’t derived from the officers in the chain of command. The title of NCO is, at its core, a title of seniority and experience, nothing more.

10

All businesses, but especially big ones, have senior managers, junior managers, foremen, and workers. Whether the work is in a factory, a mine, or entirely in an office. The specific terms used for the various roles vary by industry and how office-y it is. But the concepts remain constant.

As a general rule in most businesses, foremen get promoted from worker based on skill and experience at doing the work.

Junior managers come out of school as managers. They may understand the rudiments of the work, but they don’t do it; they facilitate it being done. Such junior managers eventually may be promoted to middle or senior management based on skill and experience is organizing the work and managing the groups of people doing it.

In the military, “workers” are junior enlisted E-1 to E-3, “foremen” are NCOs E-4 to E-9, junior managers are newbie officers (Lts & Ensigns) AKA “company grade officers” AKA O-1 to O-3. Middle managers are “field grade officers” O-4 to O-6, and senior managers are the generals & admirals O-7 to O-10.

Not so weird when you look at it that way.

Also, the term NCO encompasses a very wide range of experience and expertise and responsibility. A newly minted E-4 is learning how to be a leader of a small crew. Like a shift supervisor at a small business. By the time someone is an E-7 a better civilian term is “superintendent”, not “foreman”. That’s a person who leads not workers, but foremen. Often many foreman. But it’s still ultimately about doing the work and how to do the work, but not about deciding what work is to be done. That latter topic is manager / officer work.

LSLGuy
Captain, USAF (separated)
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Multi-time business founder / owner / partner
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Shop foreman / shift lead / superintendent

11

In the United States, the types of officer for the military are divided as follows:

Non-Commissioned Officer (E-4~E-9, but US Army Specialist (E-4) is not an NCO, nor is the Air Force/Space Force E4 (Senior Airman))
Warrant Officer (W1)
Chief Warrant Officer (W2~W5), who are actually commissioned
Commissioned Officer (O1-O11) (There are also paygrades O1E~O3E for those commissioned officers with more than four years prior Enlisted/Warrant service)

The Air Force and Space Force do not currently have Warrant Officers or Chief Warrant Officers, although the Air Force did historically. The non-military Uniformed Services, while authorized to have Warrant/Chief Warrant Officers do not have them either. The Navy recently restored Warrant Officer (W1) for one field (Cyber).

In the Navy and the Marine Corps, there are Limited Duty Officers (aka LDO) who are commissioned, but cannot command a unit unless it is connected with their designator (specialty). Also for the Navy and Marines, neither Warrant/Chief Warrant nor LDO is required to have a college degree; however, one would likely not be ver competitive for that position without such.

What is the advantage of this system? As a former US Army Specialist (SPC5) and then Sergeant, and finally a retired USN Petty Officer First Class, I see some advantage and disadvantages. One of the disadvantages I see is, IMHO, the stupidity of having some E-4 as NCO and others as not. To me that is ridiculous. Evidently the Navy and Marines agree with me on that and the Air Force came around to that way of thinking around 1992 and decided that NCO would be E5~E9. I think a few posters have mentioned that one disadvantage may be the senior ranking person (the commissioned officer) would have less experience than the junior ranking person (the NCO). To me that is not actually a disadvantage.

The advantages are that the NCO is a leader for a smaller group of people and for a narrower scope than the CO. The WO/CWO is more of a technician than the NCO and is thus more valuable. Another advantage is that the commissioned officer is responsible for more of “the big picture”. Think of it as they’re the strategist while the NCO is the tactician. The commissioned offier will take the tasking from their immediate superior in command and then entrust the NCO with how to get that tasking done. Of course, the world being what it is and any large organization operates mostly on paperwork and more paperwork, from the lowest ranking NCO to the highest ranking commissioned officer, there will be reports, reports, and more reports. The key differences between the reports done by NCOs and commissioned offiers are the type and scope of those reports.

The authority an NCO has is derived from Congress just as the authority a commissioned officer ultimately has is also derived from Congress, as in being set in law. The source of entry into those ranks is different though. A junior enlisted member can still be prosecuted and incarcerated or discharged from the military for disrespect and/or disobedience to an NCO senior to that member.

I think I covered it all there. Feel free to ask questions for something I was not clear about or did not cover.

12

I read a good analogy- it’s like the difference between a MD and a nurse. The nurse is going to actually be able to make a lot of health care decisions and may even be entrusted to make those decisions. And they may be in charge of a patient’s care.

But the MD is the only one who has the actual legal authority to diagnose a patient’s ailment and prescribe medication or order procedures for them.

Officers and enlisted are kind of similar, in that officers can COMMAND, while NCOs basically carry out the commands.

13

This anecdote illustrates the difference and why: Cadets at Sandhurst are given a final exam. On it is one essay question “You have a rifle company, two light machine guns, and a Sgt Major. On a hill are some insurrectionists, they number about 50 and have various arms, but no heavy weapons. What orders do you give?” Most cadets answer something about setting up the guns for enfilading fire, sending one platoon to the rear, one of a flank, a diversion to the other flank, etc, etc…"

On cadet got a perfect score: “Sgt Major- take that hill!”

14

Nitpick, an NCOs command authority is not derived from congress, that authority is delegated authority dependant on what the NCO’s job is(delegated from his commanding officer). A commisioned officer has command authority granted by the commission from the President. General Military authority(not the same thing as command authority) is derived from the constitution for both officers and enlisted, and is generally the same for all ranks, though an officer and more senior enlisted ranks will have an easier time exercising general military authority. Cite here for NCO authority and here is a cite for the authority of an officer

15

Right, but - by this analogy, why can’t all doctors be former nurses, now promoted? (militarily speaking)

16

What would be the civilian equivalent of a US warrant officer?

Could E-7 also be considered a chief of staff? If not, what would be the military equivalent of a chief of staff at various levels?

17

In the Navy a radar teck does not know how to drive a ship, but the officer incharge of the radar systems should. A Chief Machinest Mate also does not need to know how to drive a ship, but the Chidf Engineer had better know how to drive the ship. Training is a big part of the differance. An enlisted man will go to an A school to learn in detail the area where he will be working. The Officer depends on the different trained ratings serving under him but will only have a small understanding of the fine points of each rating.

18

Great explanation, @LSLGuy.

19

That lone guy in IT or something who is specialized and head of his own dept.

I knew a Army Chopper pilot who worked up to WO4. He said no one under the rank of major gave him shit.

20

Following on from @LSLGuy’s excellent post. The advantage is that officers are trained to lead / manage people while NCOs are trained to do stuff. When a young commissioned officer is put in charge of an experienced NCO they ask the NCO for advice and then make a decision based on that advice and any other factors the officer may be aware of.