Captains on board U.S. Naval Vessels
- Thread starter JDW63
- Start date
StevoJH
The Bunker Group
Yes.
I believe the CAG on a USN Aircraft Carrier is generally a Captain and an Admiral commanding the carrier group would likely have at least one captain on his staff just for starters.
Would the chief engineer on a nuclear carrier normally be a captain or commander?
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- #3
The Chief Engineer wouldn't.
The Reactor Officer (the Officer in charge of everything nuclear on the CVN) would be.
CHENG on a carrier only owns the non-nuclear auxiliaries and various other pieces of equipment; he or she is a pretty minor player overall, actually.
The RO, on the other hand, is usually the senior SWO onboard the carrier and an important bubba.
All the ROs I've ever heard were either senior CDRs (past their O-5 CMD tour) or already CAPTs.
LCDRs would still be doing PA tours.
Hunting around it seems like it might be possible to be a RO and be a O-6 (before moving on). But I guess it would depend on what and the how (how long they have been there?). Given that the RO is responsible for propulsion and steam for launches(?) I would imagine its a pretty senior role.
Here's the latest slides I could find on the open net; they are circa 2008 or so. More detail here, as well.
Short answer is a guy (or gal) serving RO has already successfully completed a CMDR command ride and is probably screened for Major (eg CAPT command). Used to be logic would put them in the seat as an O-5 and they'd most likely pick up O-6 in the seat as RO, but my understanding is that the CO/XO fleet-up construct (which isn't really reflected in the slides presented) ended up pushing that slightly to the right, leading to most of your ROs being O-6s when they get there (SWO promotion rates to O-6 helped, as well).
The move to making the RO an O-6 had nothing to do with the job per se as much as other bureaucratic warfare requirements.