Staffing a ship

Post by **Captain Seafort** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 9:57 am

Monroe wrote:The thing about Warrant Officers is its not a non-commission officer, in the real life army Warrant Officers are specalist in a certain job. They're kind of like an odd mix between an officer and a noncom and it was always kind of awkward for me to be around the rare one that I met because they have a mix of noncom and officer protocols on how to address them. Personally I wouldn't be surprised if they got rid of all 6 warrant ranks within the next fifty years like they got rid of technical sergeant way back when. With the higher technology the armed services are using it makes less and less sense to have warrant officers.

They are NCOs, by definition, since they have a warrent, not a commission. The description you gave was for US Warrent Officers. In British Armed Forces, Warrent Officers are simply the most senior NCOs, rather than specialists.

Monroe · Post by **Monroe** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 1:13 pm

Yeah all my current military info comes from the US Army. I don't know the British system.
The US Army just has different kinds of sergeants for the higher NCO roles.

Blackstar the Chakat · Thu Aug 02, 2007 4:59 pm

To be fair, if anyone notices the Galaxy-class was crewed by about 1000 people. Now with familys that could mean as much as a third could easily be civilians. And the Galaxy class is easily twice the size of a modern-day carrier. During a normal day, those that aren't carring out a normal duty like piloting, or mantinace, or some other daily task are likly using the ship's resources to work on other projects. After all it has been claimed to have many labs, and I'm sure they have been used near constiantly to justify the resorces nessesary to build it.

And the crew size changing from Kirk's ship having 400+ crew to Voyager having only 150 does show improvement in automation.

Bryan Moore · Post by **Bryan Moore** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 9:10 pm

ChakatBlackstar wrote:To be fair, if anyone notices the Galaxy-class was crewed by about 1000 people. Now with familys that could mean as much as a third could easily be civilians. And the Galaxy class is easily twice the size of a modern-day carrier. During a normal day, those that aren't carring out a normal duty like piloting, or mantinace, or some other daily task are likly using the ship's resources to work on other projects. After all it has been claimed to have many labs, and I'm sure they have been used near constiantly to justify the resorces nessesary to build it.

And the crew size changing from Kirk's ship having 400+ crew to Voyager having only 150 does show improvement in automation.

Yeah, this is what I was trying to go for originally, though you stated it far better than I did. Lets say 700 crewmembers, of which you've got people working 5 days a week, that essentially means that 500 different crewmembers working at any given day. Over 3 shifts, that's about 165 people per shift (That's NOT that many).

Post by **Teaos** » Fri Aug 03, 2007 3:41 am

Well honestly what is there to do. Once you tap in where you are going they seem to just sit there. Only the science crew would be up to something all the time.

Blackstar the Chakat · Fri Aug 03, 2007 2:52 pm

Well the engineers would often try to get that extra 1% efficiency or get that intermix ratio just right. The command crew are the ones who would be the most bored. And don't forget how much Starfleet loves those reports. And any extra time is probably spent playing games on their PADDs. It has been shown that people goof off as much as two hours a day at work surfing the net, checking e-mail, talking to people, and playing Solitaire. I'm sure things haven't changed that much by the 24th century.

Post by **Teaos** » Fri Aug 03, 2007 3:10 pm

it would probably be worse since there would probably be less to do. But then again the trek future is all about self betterment so they may always work hard to improve themselves.

PicardManuever · Post by **PicardManuever** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 2:29 am

I Am Spartacus wrote:
Bryan Moore wrote:

I don't know how they do it in the military, but I'd assume that during deployments you work every single day of the week. That would make 56 hour weeks, assuming each shift is 8 hours.

Civilians on the Enterprise always bothered me as well. I don't care if Starfleet's mission is equal parts exploration and defence, you still should never have civilians on such a ship. Certainly not little kids going to preschool.

When I was in the Navy on a carrier we worked 7 days a week 12 on 12 off during a 6 month deployment out at sea. Once in port and docked we usually worked about 5 hours Monday to Friday. Now after everyone leaves for the day there is a duty section on board the ship with the Command Duty Officer being the highest ranking officer on board (Usually a Department Head and a Commander and the department heads swap on a rotating basis) There are 10 Departments, (Admin, Deck, Navigation, Supply, Combat Systems, Engineering, Weapons, AIMD, Operations and Reactor) and each department has about 20 people for each duty section. So that's 180 (estimated) people on the ship after everyone else leaves. Now technically, and I have never seen this done, if there was an emergency and the ship had to leave dock in a hurry those 180 people could get the ship unmoored and moving out to sea and the rest of the crew would follow in helicopters or planes if needed.

I'm sure the reason that there were families on board is for morale reasons. But then again going off of my time in the Navy I do not know too many sailors who would want their wives around in some of the ports overseas and I'm sure after a hard day at work they would want to come to their room and have to listen to their wives nagging them.

Bryan Moore · Post by **Bryan Moore** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 11:52 am

Wow thanks for the info, Mr. Maneuver! (By the way, are you named after the combat maneuver, or his tunic tug, hehe)

I didn't realize military was quite like that. My buddy just got back from Iraq, and their conditions were often 12 on 12 off 7 a week and in some worse cases cases they'd do [16on, 12 off, 8 on, 12 off] in 3 cycles, with the 7th day essentially off. I just figure in space, with all the automation and the need for morale, a day or 2 off each week makes a lot of sense.

PicardManuever · Post by **PicardManuever** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 12:43 am

The tunic tug, hahaha I used to to do it all the time when I stood duty officer watch and my shirt would come untucked.

Jim · Post by **Jim** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 8:37 pm

I Am Spartacus wrote:Not in the future with endlessly redundant backup systems and automation technologies so advanced that we can't even comprehend them. There would be no need whatsoever to have 600 people sitting around with their thumbs up their asses waiting for things to go wrong, when a tiny number of people could solve any problem, assuming the ship couldn't fix itself.

The future must be union HA!