Since the Webmaster reopened this thread, here is the pm I sent mike172 to try and explain things....
I probably could have been a little more diplomatic in the way I closed the thread. But after the rank/rate thing was explained to you, it was easy to see it was a bogus poll.
Officers have rank: Ensign, Lieutenant Junior Grade, Lieutenant, Lieutenant Commander, Commander, Captain, Rear Admiral (both 1 and 2 stars), Vice Admiral and Admiral
Enlisted have rank: Seaman (Airman), Petty Officer Third Class, Petty Officer Second Class, Petty Officer First Class, Chief Petty Officer, Senior Chief Petty Officer and Master Chief Petty Officer.
Enlisted also have rate: Yeoman, Aviation Ordnanceman, Boatswain's Mate, Aviation Electrician, etc. - there are way too many to list.
Usually an enlisted man's rank and rate are combined. For example: Aviation Ordnanceman Third Class Smith would have the rank of Petty Officer Third Class and the rate of Aviation Ordnanceman. When abbreviating it out it would look like AO3 Smith. Similarly Chief Yeoman Jones would be YNC Jones. The YN means his rate is Yeoman and the C means his rank is Chief Petty Officer.
To confuse the issue even more, for every rank there is an associated pay grade.
E1 is a Seaman (or Airman) Recruit
E2 is a Seaman (or Airman) Apprentice
E3 is a Seaman (or Airman)
E4 is a Petty Officer Third Class
etc.
O1 is an Ensign
O2 is a Lieutenant Junior Grade
O3 is a Lieutenant
etc.
Okay now it's time for more confusion. Officer have a designator instead of a rate to specify their specialty. It is in the form of a 4 digit number. For example, Naval Aviators (pilots) are 1310 and Naval Flight Officers are 1320. You will never see the designator with an officer's rank. It's more of an administrative thing.
Plus officers are also broken down into types;
Unrestricted Line (URL)
Restricted Line (RL)
Staff Corps
URLs are the pilots, NFOs, Surface Warfare (SWO), Submarine and SEAL officers. There are "eligible for Command at Sea" which means they command the ships, squadrons, Battle Groups, etc.
RL are things like Intel Officers, Engineering Duty Officers, Limited Duty Officers (former enlisted directly commissioned). They can only command within their specialty. For example, an Engineering Duty Officer might command a repair facility.
Staff Corp are the Doctors, Lawyers (JAG), Chaplains, Supply Officers, etc. Again, they can only command within their specialties.
If there are 2 officers in a boat or on a ship, the senior URL officer is in command. If only one is URL and he is junior to a RL or Staff officer who is also present, the junior URL officer is in command. For example, if you are a NFO Ensign in a liberty boat with a Supply Corp Captain - you are in change of that liberty boat and fully responsible for it and everyone in it. The only time the Supply Corp Captain would be in charge is when there were no URL officers in the boat.
Probably a bigger lesson then you wanted, but I figure I owe you for the snide comment when I closed your poll.
