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I'm helping a friend develop some background for a story. She has some questions that I don't have answers for, so I thought I'd toss it to the best and brightest military minds I know. They're not talking to me, so I'm asking you guys...

What are the typical ranks for:
Pilots
Engineers
Programmers
Mechanics
Medics
Cooks, Janitor types, MPs, etc.

I can answer everything here except for engineers. If someone could give a brief breakdown of what engineering career fields can hold what rank that'd be great. (Firstly, I assume that degreed engineers will generally be officers, but I don't think every engineering career field is degreed - but I could easily be wrong.)

CmdrWilkens is a Marine engineer with the rank of Corporal. If that helps.

CorSec wrote:I'm helping a friend develop some background for a story. She has some questions that I don't have answers for, so I thought I'd toss it to the best and brightest military minds I know. They're not talking to me, so I'm asking you guys...

What are the typical ranks for:
Pilots
Engineers
Programmers
Mechanics
Medics
Cooks, Janitor types, MPs, etc.

I can answer everything here except for engineers. If someone could give a brief breakdown of what engineering career fields can hold what rank that'd be great. (Firstly, I assume that degreed engineers will generally be officers, but I don't think every engineering career field is degreed - but I could easily be wrong.)

It depends on whether or not the Engineer is an actual engineer or just a technician. Most of the people that would call themselves "engineers" are actually just enlists that have had some specific training. So most of the techies will be enlist or NCO ranks where as the actual engineers (and there are precious few outside of the Army Core of Engineers) you will see the usual assortment of officer ranks (Captain, Major, Colonel, etc).

Thanks for your help, I appreciate it.

The short answer is that any rank can fill in any of those jobs, well except for pilots in the US. Basically with very few exceptions all job fields have both an enlisted and officer component with ranks that will go up and down the chart. Again pilots, in the US, are the exception as they have to be Officers.

This might help a little, or maybe not.


On USN Aircraft Carriers there is a Chief Engineer -- often nicknamed "the Cheng" or "Cheng". IIRC on my last ship that billet was filled by either a Commander or a Captain.

Now a lot of officers in the "Engineering" fields can stand Engineering Officer of the Watch or E-OW as a nickname (don't ever getting tricked into running a request chit to blow the E-OW. It's not the ships horn. )

In general in the Navy you can be an officer with any type of degree and that degree might not relect your job. Out of the division officers I had one had a degree in management, another in zoology and the guy he replaced had a degree in music. All rather fitting for the Electronic Warfare Officer wouldn't you think?

I'm pretty sure that a few pilots and rios might have degrees in aerospace engineering.

You might want to check with Ender about the officers who go through the Nuke program. I would think that at least some of them might have engineering degrees but he'd be the one around here to ask.

Nuke officers... This is a little weird here.

First off the lenght and amount of shit we get taught in our ~18 months of training almost works out to a degree on its own. If you can find a school that will accept everything you have, then enlisted will have an associates degree and the officers a bachelors degree, (I'm not sure if it is in engineering or in physics) after you get a couple arts and english credits. This is why you get a huge number of nuke enlisted who after prototype have an oficer package in and go straight to clooege, then come back and go through the pipeline agaqin after ~2 years. But like I said, that is contingent on finding a school that will take them all, which is none too likely.

As for officers in the Nuke program proper, the bulk of them I've met came from the Academy, so they had that standard education with some special extra courses to make them ready to be nuke officers. Not sure what their degree is in technically. For those who used seaman to admiral or something, the ones I've dealt with have a degree in mechanical engineering, materials science, or physics.

There is another kind of nuke officer though: The Power School instructors. These are civillians given a commission so we have to respect them, and their only qualification to teach is that they had a >3.6 average in college and accepted the deal the Navy offered them. they never go out to sea, they never go through OCS or boot camp, nothing. They don't even have to have a relevent background, there was one guy who taught Reactor Principles (probably the most complex and importnat topic there is) whos degree was in zooology. These people were for the most part, simply unqualified shitbags. I got in serious shit and had liberty stripped for 2 weeks because I didn't do an assignment one of them never told me about. They claimed they had written it on an assignment sheet, I proved that they hadn't, and the bitch just lied to the command anyhow to cover her ass because she was suppossed to have given it to me. I swear, out of the year I speant down there, I only encountered 2 of them I had any respect for, one was a former enlisted, the other worked in a civillian plant. My dealings with them are a fundamental reason why I had a large amount of contempt for oficers until i got up here and met people like ENS Milson, ENS Babick, and CPT Miller.

So, in conclusion:

Nuke enlisted - almost an associates degree
Nuke EOW students - almost a bachelors degree on top of either an academy education of a scientific/engineering degree
Nuke LDOs - Unqualified as all hell. Senior enlisted much better.


Fun fact: While I was down there the name was changed from Dedicated Information Limited Duty Oficers to Limited Duty Officers. I liked the old one better. Much more accurate description.

Tsyroc wrote:This might help a little, or maybe not.


On USN Aircraft Carriers there is a Chief Engineer -- often nicknamed "the Cheng" or "Cheng". IIRC on my last ship that billet was filled by either a Commander or a Captain.

Now a lot of officers in the "Engineering" fields can stand Engineering Officer of the Watch or E-OW as a nickname (don't ever getting tricked into running a request chit to blow the E-OW. It's not the ships horn. )

In general in the Navy you can be an officer with any type of degree and that degree might not relect your job. Out of the division officers I had one had a degree in management, another in zoology and the guy he replaced had a degree in music. All rather fitting for the Electronic Warfare Officer wouldn't you think?

I'm pretty sure that a few pilots and rios might have degrees in aerospace engineering.

You might want to check with Ender about the officers who go through the Nuke program. I would think that at least some of them might have engineering degrees but he'd be the one around here to ask.

From what I have gathered, so far as the Navy is concerned for it's officers, degree means nothing. I know of an economics major flying P-3s.

I'm pretty sure all that matters is that you, first, have a degree, what your GPA was, your PRT scores, general aptitude/evulations, and stuff like that. You basically compete against all newly commissioned officers, from the Academy, NROTC, OCS, and whatever else is out there, for your job. AFAIK, your specific degree means nothing.

And the same seems to go for the nukes, as well. We were told the story by one of our LTs (A Nuke SWO) of the Nuke recruiter guy from Naval Reactors (I think that's it), and how he'll say, "No English Major has ever failed the course" or words to that effect.

And, from what I hear, engineering majors actually have a tougher time in the schools, especially nuke and flight, because it's harder for them to learn what the book is telling them to learn because of their prior knowledge (several pilots said that non-engineering guys tend to get better test scores than the engineers, because they're more able to "believe" what the book says, instead of seeing what little things may not be "perfectly right" in them and such).

RogueIce wrote:
From what I have gathered, so far as the Navy is concerned for it's officers, degree means nothing. I know of an economics major flying P-3s.

Compare the cost of some sonar buoys and one or two torpedoes to that of a modern SSK or SSN, its economics in action.

RogueIce wrote:And the same seems to go for the nukes, as well. We were told the story by one of our LTs (A Nuke SWO) of the Nuke recruiter guy from Naval Reactors (I think that's it), and how he'll say, "No English Major has ever failed the course" or words to that effect.

That's because they do their damndest to make sure no officer gets washed out. Admiral Bowman crawls up the captain's ass and lives there everytime there is an academic washout from the enlisted, I'd imagine it would be worse for an officer (Hell, I know it would be worse, after something like 1/3 of class 207 officers failed the comp, the Admiral came for a visit and there were some very large changes made)

And, from what I hear, engineering majors actually have a tougher time in the schools, especially nuke and flight, because it's harder for them to learn what the book is telling them to learn because of their prior knowledge (several pilots said that non-engineering guys tend to get better test scores than the engineers, because they're more able to "believe" what the book says, instead of seeing what little things may not be "perfectly right" in them and such).

I'd say that's accurate. I know of several times people got into argumethns with the instructors when they should have just pushed the "I believe" button.