Warship Manning
Background
With the advent of AIs that can handle almost every defined task better than a 'wetware' sentient, all vehicles that are expensive enough and complicated enough will be built with an AI to do all the mundane tasks. The only reason for a human or alien to be on a freighter is to make overall decisions like "Okay, let's see if the next system has any Unobtanium for sale". Thus, non-military vessels, in principle, could have one being on board, called the "Captain". In practice, people are social animals and will be more stable when they have company. Most vessels capable of extended travel will carry several people, the number varying with race and culture.
The _only_ relevant difference is in the usage intent. A civil vessel is not destructive by intended use. A military vessel exists to impose the will of the operators on others, by threat of violence if persuasion does not work. All other differences stem from that simple concept, that the military vessel may be called upon to do violence on someone/something.
However, in the Swarm Cycle universe, the ship's AI will not participate in the violence. Thus, any piece of equipment that might cause harm to another sentient must be "manned" by a sentient capable of taking responsibility for that action. Next, if a piece of equipment is critical to operation, safety, or combat, then it cannot be abandoned just because the operator is tired or wants lunch. Ergo, for most operator stations on a warship, there must be more than one operator assigned to it. Because combat and other dangerous evolutions can happen at any time of day or night and even _all_ day and night, a prudent operator will ensure that a minimum of three personnel are assigned for every critical station.
A warship may also need immediate repair because an enemy warship has done violence to it. Someone has to be available do that, someone who isn't already doing something more important. Next, if the possibility exists of a critical crewmember becoming disabled -#3 Missile launcher's crew just got shot to shit but it appears that the launcher itself is still useable- then additional trained crew should be carried to enable rapid replacement. Last, some types of warfare often require one ship to provide an emergency crew or assistance to another ship.
Because of all these factors, a military craft will have absurdly large crews compared to a civil craft. Even so, one of a Captain's responsibilities in combat is often to make judgement calls on limited information about whether it is better to leave the surviving crew working on THIS important device or to move some of them to repair and operate THAT other more important device.
CO, XO, Nav, Tac/Nav, Comm/SensO, SuppO, ChEng - Most officer titles are lifted wholesale from US Navy use.
The ship's crew has, at the top, a "Commanding Officer", a "CO" or "Skipper". After the rank "regularization" scam got shoved through the Fleet, his official title is "Captain", a term which is no longer used as a rank designator. Anyone with the rank of "Captain" became labeled "Colonel". His second in command is his "Executive Officer" or XO.
Various senior officers are referred to by the titles of the departments they run. Note that on small ships these overall responsibility areas are often combined to give you a Tac/Nav, Weps/Ops, Comm/Nav, or Comm/SensO officer.
- The head of the Navigation Department will be called the "Navigator" or just "Nav".
- The department with offensive equipment -the guns, missiles, and various launchers- will be called "Weps" for "Weapons Department" for warships or "Tac" for "Tactical Operations Department" on non-combatant vessels. On smaller ships, this department will also have defensive equipment. On larger ships, there may be a separate "Countermeasures Department".
- A ship's maintenance effort, housekeeping, and other unrelated items are often gathered into a catch-all "Operations Department" with a department head called "Ops".
- A large ship's small craft are often run by a "Small Craft" shop, with their head referred to as "Boats". If a ship has small craft delivery as its reason for existence, as in an aircraft carrier or a troopship, the Boat Ops department will be huge, headed by the Boat Boss. Once launched, however, their actions will be dictated by the "Flight Ops" department, which is manned from the embarked small-craft formation, not the ship's core crew; they know how to get the most out of their fighters, bombers, troop landers, ground support, and other special-purpose intel and control craft. Flight Ops is headed by the "Flight Boss", although Marine close-support vessels still occasionally use the original term "Air Boss".
- A ship's sensors or information-gathering instruments will be managed by the Sensor Department headed by the SensO, a term pulled from aviation rather than wet-navy ships.
- A ship's major machinery and utility services are watched over by the "Chief Engineer", often shortened to "ChEng" which rhymes with 'rang' in US Navy-descended operators. UK Royal Navy-descended operators call this man the "Chief".
- A ship's ability to communicate with others is the responsibility of the "Communication Department", headed by the "Comm" officer.
- The "Logistics" or "Supply" effort is headed by the "SuppO" or informally the "Chop" or "Head Thief".
Staffing Levels
A Warship is crewed according to the basic needs of the ship, allowing that personnel cannot be expected to remain on duty indefinitely and require relief. While an AI can manage many aspects of ship operations, many tasks must be performed by humans, including weapons system operation. Typically humans will operate machinery in the engine spaces, perform navigation, man sensors and communications equipment, act as medical staff and of course lead the teams that perform these functions.
Commentary from Reluctant Sir: On US Naval ships, at least on aircraft carriers, men are designated to man fire stations (Hoses, fire retardant systems etc), medical and and aide stations, men with additional training that muster at lockers containing specialized equipment like material to shore up bulkheads or patch holes. There are plenty of jobs available for all hands! People often have more than one station depending on the reason for the General Quarters or as a result of events that occur before and after the General Quarters is sounded. We were airdales, it was our job to muster in our working compartments initially for orders. If there was a deck fire, for instance, we had fire stations to man. If there was battle damage, we had other priorities and other stations to man.
Commentary from Kenn Ghannon: Just because something is described a certain way in one story doesn’t mean it is ‘gospel’. Regs change (and can be quite fluid). Also, ship’s captains are given enough leeway to make their own ‘rules’ (within the boundaries of the over-arching command). On my ship, at the time I was in the Navy, our captain’s rules for general quarters were different depending on if you were scheduled to be On Duty or not. On Duty – you were to report immediately to your station for assignment. Off Duty – you were to report anywhere which was NOT an official station – such as bunks, cafeteria and so on. In other words, if you were off duty you better stay the heck out of the way. If GQ lasted to shift change, you were to report to your station 15 minutes before for assignment (relief, etc.). The movie GQ with horns blasting and everyone in the god-forsaken ship running everywhere doesn’t happen – or if it does, it’s only for the briefest of moments. Unless you were going to your duty station, you were to get the hell out of the halls as soon as the horn blasted to make way for those who were heading to save the ship. After a few seconds (basically when the halls cleared of people heading to duty stations), you were free to travel to someplace where you would either be “useful or not bother someone trying to be useful”.
Commentary from Omachuck: In some stories, concubines perform duties normally associated with enlisted - some cleaning, nursing, even damage control. In other stories nanites perform repairs. Several stories have nanites performing clean up by absorbing spills, etc through the floor. Laundry? - toss it in the recycler and pull out a new uniform from the replicator.
(Someday this will be a navigation template. It will provide a bar across the bottom of each article with useful navigation links. Until then, this is just a placeholder to get rid of all the red "broken link" indicators. -ZM User (talk) 10:00, 3 May 2024 (PDT))
