• Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?

    Go here:

    Edit Account Details and Profile

USS Fitzgerald collision in C7F

HAL Pilot said:
LDOs are technical experts by way of experience, not a university. They have many USN schools on various pieces of equipment or systems but so does all the enlisted and officers.

So yes, technical expertise gained through training, not formal education.
Click to expand...
Actually, by definition, LDO’s are “Technical Managers” while Chief Warrant Officers are “Technical Experts.” CWO’s have their heritage all the way back to the age of sail when the Continental Navy didn’t have enough men who knew how to sail, make sails, etc. LDO’s were created in WW II with the advent of SONAR and RADAR to help bridge the gap between technology and traditional seamanship and the wardroom.
 
Actually, Warrants were part of the British Navy long before the Continental Navy. They were the Gunner, Sail Maker, Cooper, Bosun, Cook and Master. They were permanent ship's company and stayed with the ship even when it was paid off and laid up in ordinary. They had a lifetime appointment and they were allowed to have their wives and kids live on board when laid up and depending on the Captain, even when at sea. The Warrants could apply or be promoted into bigger ships but they could stay where they were if they were happy. They promoted from the lower deck after years of service.

The Continental Navy basically took the Royal Navy as it's starting point and for the most part did things the same way. A little less discipline but the same structure.
 
HAL Pilot said:
Actually, Warrants were part of the British Navy long before the Continental Navy. They were the Gunner, Sail Maker, Cooper, Bosun, Cook and Master. They were permanent ship's company and stayed with the ship even when it was paid off and laid up in ordinary. They had a lifetime appointment and they were allowed to have their wives and kids live on board when laid up and depending on the Captain, even when at sea. The Warrants could apply or be promoted into bigger ships but they could stay where they were if they were happy. They promoted from the lower deck after years of service.

The Continental Navy basically took the Royal Navy as it's starting point and for the most part did things the same way. A little less discipline but the same structure.
Click to expand...
Concur. My example was directed towards the USN, not the Royal Navy. But good history nonetheless . . .
 
HAL Pilot said:
Actually, Warrants were part of the British Navy long before the Continental Navy. They were the Gunner, Sail Maker, Cooper, Bosun, Cook and Master. They were permanent ship's company and stayed with the ship even when it was paid off and laid up in ordinary. They had a lifetime appointment and they were allowed to have their wives and kids live on board when laid up and depending on the Captain, even when at sea. The Warrants could apply or be promoted into bigger ships but they could stay where they were if they were happy. They promoted from the lower deck after years of service.

The Continental Navy basically took the Royal Navy as it's starting point and for the most part did things the same way. A little less discipline but the same structure.
Click to expand...
Well I’ll be a son of a gun.⚓️?
 
HAL Pilot said:
They were the Gunner, Sail Maker, Cooper, Bosun, Cook and Master
Click to expand...
Also Teacher. Routinely a school teacher of math who had no salary from Royal Navy but possessed all his money from young midshipmen who paid him for math and navigation lessons before Officer Commission board. Sometimes he substituted quartermaster or navigator for making a sea map plot.
 
Last edited:
It was the Captain’s responsibility to teach the midshipmen and if there was a teacher, he was hired by the Captain. Same with a clergyman, the Captain was responsible for administering Church of England religious services. Both the teacher and clergyman were treated as warrants and lived with the warrants but they held no official rank.

Most Captains who did not employee a teacher pushed the teaching of the midshipmen off to the Master for math and navigation, and to one of the Lieutenants for reading and writing.

The ship’s surgeon may or may not have been a physician and held a “warrant” from the medical board but was not a Warrant Officer per se. Depending on whether he was a physician/gentlemen he was treated as either a warrant or officer.

The Purser was a warrant but was a basically civilian businessman who received no pay but contracted (for lack of a better word) to supply the ship. He put up a bond and was expected I make his money as a middleman charging typically 5% if cost for his service. Many were crooks and charged more.

The Bosun, Master, Gunner, Sail Maker, Cook and Cooper were also called standing officers because they always “stood” with the ship whether it was in service or layer up.
 
Ok, but how many LDO/SWOs are holding the certain appointments on average 7F DDG nowadays? If they are "tech expertise backbone" there should be at least one such officer in every Dept of a destroyer, isn't it?
 
Max the Mad Russian said:
Ok, but how many LDO/SWOs are holding the certain appointments on average 7F DDG nowadays? If they are "tech expertise backbone" there should be at least one such officer in every Dept of a destroyer, isn't it?
Click to expand...

There are separate Surface LDO/CWO billet requirements for supervising what most navies would call Marine Engineering and Weapons/Combat Systems technicians.
 
Max the Mad Russian said:
In most navies the word "technician" is related to NCO.
Click to expand...

Uh...that’s why I said supervising.

It shouldn’t be this hard to understand. In Commonwealth navies, there are plenty of Engineering Officers who came up through the ranks as technicians first. It just isn’t a hard requirement for them like it is for USN LDOs and CWOs.
 
BigRed389 said:
It shouldn’t be this hard to understand
Click to expand...
From USN standpoint yes. From the cultural difference which exists it seems to be hadred since not all of Commonwealth navies are similar to RN and RAN which both maintain great respect to enlisted tech expertise. Royal Canadian Navy places notably greater responsibility to Commissioned Officers, for example. But OK, I'm far from neglecting USN practice since it works. Sporadic questions as to why there are so many SWO/SWO(N)/IP (former SWO) LDO/CWOs on a carriers and so few of them on DDGs remain (FFG-52 Carr which I visited in 2011 had no LDO/CWOs in ship's company at all), but maybe I wasn't lucky enough?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top