Warship Bridge Communications
Warship Bridge Communications
While this article (and indeed this whole wiki) are about a fictional story universe with ships, sailors, Marines, and both land and space battles, part of this universe's 'canon' is that most early recruits were veterans of Earth's armed services. Further, since it is a NATO effort, all recruits must either understand English or be willing to learn, and most recruits come from English-speaking nations.
The Confederacy armed forces will use whatever works. However, until they learn what works, they have to start by using what worked back on Earth. Often, "The old way" remains as the standard long afterward, simply because it works and we have better things to do than mess with things that already work. Thus, almost all Navy and Marine procedures can be traced back to what the early recruits used to do in the US Navy, the British Royal Marines, the Australian Army, the Israeli Air Force and Armored Corps, Russian Spetsnaz, etc. Basically, recent experience trumps tradition but if no one has recent experience...
Communication Example: USN Submarine Control Room
This is from an E-mail by Zen Master. He is a US Navy veteran of the Submarine Service. It is a rewrite of someone else's scene to show the correct format for shipboard communications.
The US military does a lot of research on a lot of odd subjects. Basically, any facet of life that could possibly affect the warfighters, their equipment, or the battlespace is fodder for the think-tanks. Communications gets a LOT of research.
People have a bad tendency to not hear the beginning of a message. Asleep, zoned out, getting a nut, concentrating on a good book, actually doing their fucking job for once, there are lots of perfectly valid reasons why it takes people time to recognize that there is an incoming message, it's meant for them, and that they should pay attention. This is a constant problem, the need to get peoples' attention before talking to them.
Research has shown that the fastest way to get someone's attention is to say their name. I know, duh. But the US's DOD has research giving numbers on it.
Because of this, the US military has a standard methodology to communications. You start with the name, title, or station of the person the message is to. That clues in that person's subconscious that there's incoming, and they wake up. There is no information lost while the guy wakes up. The second item transmitted is the source ID, so that the recipient knows who is talking. Often, that is a critical part of the message, because some people can give you some orders while other people can give you other orders. Anything else or from anyone else isn't a valid order. It's just info or entertainment. Or, it's for someone else and you can ignore it. Only after those two, identifying who it's to and who it's from, are taken care of does the speaker give the actual message.
Of course, once you have a conversation going the IDs are usually dropped, but you always START with them. In an emergency, you can drop some of it but only if there is absolutely no question who you are speaking to. In the following realistic skit from the submarine world, the OOD, the COW, the Helmsman and the Lee Helmsman are all in the Control Room with several other men, maybe 6 feet apart. The "Sonar Girls" aren't much farther away but they are behind a closed door to cut down on noise (and retain their precious air conditioning); their communications are by intercom:
"Conn, Sonar, we have a fast-moving inbound at 043 degrees, appears to be a torpedo."
This is coming from the Sonar Shack, and it will come into the Control Room via the intercom system. It is from the Girls' watch supervisor letting the Control Room know that there's a problem.
"Lee Helm, ALL AHEAD FLANK! Helm, come left to incoming's reciprocal course. Sonar, Conn, understand torpedo inbound. We need closing speed ASAP."
This starts with an immediate response order. In a non-emergency, the OOD should acknowledge the info from the Girls before doing anything else, but in this case getting the ship to turn away from the torpedo and speed up takes precedence over anything else, so those orders go out first. The OOD doesn't bother telling the Lee Helmsman who he is, the LH is right there and knows who is giving the order, but the OOD does address the LH first, so that the LH who is half asleep and arguing with the Chief of the Watch about football knows there's something headed his way.
Next, the OOD tells the helmsman, the guy responsiible for which direction the ship is going, to make a turn directly away from the incoming torpedo. In a perfect world he would add 043 and 180 and tell the helmsman to turn to 223 degrees, but he's got too much going on in his head so he lets the helmsman figure it out. After all, the helmsman is staring at a round display that features, very prominently, a compass rose. Even if the helmsman isn't up to adding 043 and 180 in his head in an emergency, he can turn the ship until that '043' mark is pointed at the ship's stern.
After that, the OOD gives Sonar an acknowledgement of the emergency info, so that if there was a garble the guys in Sonar know that they need to start over again.
Last, he tells the Sonar Supervisor that the initial report didn't have all the info he needs to make the correct decisions to save the ship.
"Conn, Sonar, we're working on it."
Since the acknowledgement they received was what they expected, that part is done. So, the Girls reply to the OOD's quite reasonable demand for more info. Everyone knows that they don't have that info yet. They passed the tactical emergency info first, as soon as they had it. They will pass on more details as they become available.
"Lee Helm is set to All Ahead Flank. Turns are increasing."
The Lee Helmsman is responsible for engine orders. As soon as he gets that emergency order he rings up that bell, but he doesn't tell the OOD he has done so until the OOD is done talking with Sonar and has time for secondary actions like "listening for acknowledgements". Again, the LH doesn't bother addressing his report or announcing who is giving the report. He's talking to someone a few feet away who is expecting the report.
"All Ahead Flank, turns increasing, very well."
The OOD admits that he heard the Lee Helm's report. That keeps the Lee Helmsman from saying it again and again, louder each time, until the OOD _does_ acknowledge it.
"Helm is coming left to 223 degrees."
The Helmsman is responsible for the rudder. As soon as he gets his emergency order he starts turning the ship to the ordered heading. Again, he doesn't tell the OOD he has done so until the OOD is done talking and has time to listen to reports. By this time he's figured out what 043+180 equals. He figured that out AFTER he shifted the helm to start the turn.
"Helm coming left to 223 degrees, very well."
The OOD admits that he heard the Helmsman's report, too.
Okay, in every case, if there is any possibility of confusion or inattention, the message goes Target-Source-Message. Again, this recognizes that people are actually doing things, not just standing there waiting for orders. You MUST get people's attention before you try to tell them something. If you decide that you are too important to do this, your message gets ignored like all the other bullshit announcements about when the ship's laundry will be open.
Also, note that in all cases the recipient of an order, a report, or important info repeats it back to the sender. The repeat-back should be done immediately, but in some cases there are more important things going on. The watchstander takes the responsibility for deciding, in an emergency, that obeying the order immediately comes first. By the time the OOD has time to listen to the repeat-back, there's no point in it. Instead, the watchstander simply tells the OOD what he has done. If 'what was done' matches 'what was ordered', this gives the OOD a warm fuzzy feeling. There's no possibility of an incorrect order or report causing confusion. If what the OOD hears doesn't match what he thinks should be happening, he will issue new orders.
As I say, this is a pet peeve of mine. No one who has ever actually served on a warship would screw this up. People who only know of warships from Star Trek get it wrong all the time.
Communication Example: Confederacy Ship Management in Combat
Back on the subject at hand. Your people are active crewmen on a warship. They are doing things. Their attention wanders. If you make a long announcement, people start responding to the first part and lose track of the rest. Again, humans need a little bit of warning before important messages. In this case, the announcement would include a couple of preparatory words that I am emphasizing here just to make sure you see what I'm talking about:
"Battle stations! Battle stations! THIS IS NOT a drill. Prepare for hyperspace emergence in fifteen minutes," Flag Captain Müller ordered.
Once you say "Battle Stations" (twice, because no one really processes the first one, they were asleep or busy) people start moving. Everyone has an assigned task during Battle Stations. Some of them run to man some piece of critical equipment. Others gather in the crew's mess to serve as runners, watch reliefs, or damage control workers. And, we've been doing this "BS" drill at least once a day for four months now. Usually, once everyone reports that they are ready, the CO secures from Battlestations and you can go back to your Parcheesi game. And, since some of the preps cause trouble or are dangerous in and of themselves, we don't always do everything. We simulate. We don't actually open the weapons locker and load every gun we can pull out. We don't actually turn the ice cream machine off.
Without that preparatory fluff "This is...." people will probably miss the next part, which is important. This isn't a drill. Go ahead and actually do the things that we don't normally do when we're just practicing.
Don't run past the power distribution panels and wave your hands dramatically like you usually do for the drills. This time, actually lock the power breakers for the ship's shields shut. Come hell or high water, those breakers will remain shut and the shields will remain online until we stand down from Battle Stations and someone comes by and unlocks them.
Go ahead and actually open the breaker for the ice cream machine. You can't just turn it off, because someone will decide they want some ice cream and turn it back on again. Go to the source breaker in the messdecks power room and open all the circuit breakers with black paint on the handles. Lock CLOSED all the breakers with red paint on the handles. When you're done with all your assigned actions, go to the messdecks and help load all the guns. When that's done, pass out all the ice cream in the machine to all the other people sitting around before it melts.
"Navigation, how are we doing?" Captain Müller asked.
This is exactly right. There are several people on the Bridge (?? If the CO is not in CIC, it must be because there _isn't_ one. Ergo, this is a pretty small ship, but that's a different discussion) and the CO has to let people know who he wants a report from. He doesn't, however, have to tell anyone on the Bridge who he is. Everyone on the Bridge (or CIC, or wherever) should know who the Skipper is.
(Update 4/14/2017: There is another possibility. Müller is introduced as the 'Flag Captain', which means that he is the senior ship-commander in the group (Fleet? Task Force? Squadron?) of ships, and the one pre-selected to assume command of the group if anything happens to his boss. It's likely that he is also the commander of the biggest, most powerful ship in the group. His ship is also the one most likely to survive any problems as well as the one most likely to have dedicated space for the group's commander (an admiral, commodore, or at least a senior captain). The flag spaces will include a "Flag Bridge", a space outfitted with various equipment intended to help the admiral control his ships.
So, it's possible that Müller wasn't on the ship's Bridge but rather on the flagship's Flag Bridge. It's not where he belongs; he should be in CIC, but he could have been in the Flag Spaces talking to his admiral. He could have gone to CIC before giving that order, but if he thought that time was short he could give the order from the Flag Bridge and then gone to CIC to assume direct command of the ship as the ship's Battle Stations OOD. So, maybe the author was right, he really was on the Bridge. The author merely forgot to type the word 'Flag' first. -ZM)
Indicating Relative Bearing
When considering something outside of the ship (another ship? a destination?) its direction is identified by its their relative direction from the ship and its distance. Several methodologies have been used to describe a relative direction in 3D space. Which one is used will depend upon when and who, since standards change over time and one group may use a different standard than another group:
- (X-angle 0-359 degrees) "MARK" (Y-angle) used in The Chuck Hole by Thinking Horndog
- (X-angle 0-359 degrees) "up/down" (Y-angle 0-90) used in Victoria Per Scientiam by SGTStoner
- with "0 up 0" being directly in front of the ship
- "180 up 0" being directly behind the ship
- "0 down 90" being directly below, and
- "0 up 90" being directly above
Note that, in an aircraft or a spaceship, the easiest way to change these relative bearings is often to rotate through the "Z" axis, which extends from the bow of your ship through it and out the stern. If an enemy is at 090 degrees (to the right) and 23 degrees up", and your right-side weapons have been damaged, you can turn the ship but it may well be faster to simply rotate the ship to the right until your left-side weapons can bear.
(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))
