Talk:Captain

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Contents 1 Captain Questions 2 History of "Captain" Army/Navy 3 Which nation ? 4 Military captain on board = brevet major? 5 Police and Fire Department Captains 6 Images 7 Starfleet? 8 Verification requested 9 NPOV. US users Beware. 10 Captains' commands and posts 11 Article Split

[edit] Captain Questions

What is the difference between nautical, naval? -- Tarquin 12:10 Jan 8, 2003 (UTC)

In general, "nautical" = all ships, "naval" = all ships of war. But note exceptions, such as "merchant navy" = all ships except warships. Tannin

OK, if an army captain is addressed as "Major" on board a ship, then how does one address a naval Captain who's not the captain of the ship?

I think the same idea applies: bump him up to the next higher rank and call him "commodore", but my memory may be faulty. Tannin

What about airplane pilots? Aren't they also "captains"? Michael Hardy 00:24 Jan 19, 2003 (UTC)

The term "captain" used for the pilot in command is a civil air term only. In the (US) military, that position is the "aircraft commander".

Here is the way I learned it... The capt. of a US Naval vessel if he is the rank of captain is called Captain or the "C.O." (Commanding Officer) If he is a commander, he is normally addressed as "Skipper" If there are more than one Capt (normally on an aircraft carrier, they ALWAYS have different titles) (1 Capt is the Capt of the boat... the C.O., the other maybe call Capt. (insert last name here) or the CAG (if he is an air group commander). That army thing about being called major is rubbish as well. Someone want to tidy up my notes and fix it? It would be greatly appreciated. Any other questions?

The thing about non-Navy captains being called something else aboard a Navy ship must be a myth. I've never heard of it. ---

, and the ability to officiate at a marriage.

This is not true and in some places it is illegal for a captain to officiate at a marriage. [1]

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What about police captains?

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Who made the saying of "the captain always sinks with his ship"?

[edit] History of "Captain" Army/Navy

I have a theory that the reason that the commander of a ship is called the same thing as a commander of a company of infantry is that 18th/19th century (and earlier) naval ships were much smaller than today and had crew (isn't the term ship's company correct?) that was usually no larger than an infantry company. Therefore an Army Captain and a Navy Captain both commanded about the same size force. That's my theory. Does that make sense?

[edit] Which nation ?

The article fails to indicate which sections are related to military of which nations. Categories seem to indicate GB and US, but captains exist in many other militaries as well. Mikkalai 21:28, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ahhh, but as usual Mikkalai, if it aint Yankee it dont count diddly squat!!! I'd personally question whether this whole article could be stamped NPOV on that basis

[edit] Military captain on board = brevet major?

There is a frequent assertion, on newsgroups elsewhere, that a marine captain (sometimes an army one too) on board a naval ship is promoted to major for the duration of the voyage, to prevent there being more than one 'captain' on board at a time: just as frequently this is derided as a myth, usually by ex-marines and others in a similar position to know. Both sides of the argument are alluded to above.

This story does seem to have some basis in fact. The Royal Navy has a dictionary of naval slang on its web site: the entry for SOLDIER says that at one time a Royal Marine captain was customarily addressed as 'Major'.

Also note that, until 1999, a Royal Marine captain onboard would, in certain circumstances, rank with an army major. Franey 17:27, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The usage of "major" in US naval practice, I have put under the US header. I am not conversant enough with the practice in other navies. Ellsworth 21:12, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Police and Fire Department Captains

These are as yet uncovered, and I don't know enough to do it myself. —wwoods 01:04, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Images

This is getting silly: they're all over the place. I'm moving them all to a discrete section.

Sorry. I forgot to sign that. It's done now. I've roughly sorted it into naval first, then military, as that's the order things are in the article. --Scott Wilson 22:12, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Yo-hoo. We seem to be having images creep into the main article again. I don't really mind what we do - images in the article versus images in a separate gallery - but can we please come to a degree of consensus and stick to it. Personally, I favour the gallery method as there's no chance of things degenerating into a mudslinging fest with arguments about which country's insignia are most significant and hence should be the one in the article itself - the only other alternative being the mess that it was earlier. --Scott Wilson 22:55, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Starfleet?

I see entries for many different types of Captain, but none for starfleet. Would it be consistent with wikipedia traditions to mark this as a stub until someone adds some information about starfleet? [unsigned comment by 66.124.249.38 at 19:20, 6 September 200

No, because that's not what stubs are for. A stub is not meant to denote an incomplete article (if so, almost every article on Wikipedia should be marked as a stub!), merely a short one that has not yet received enough attention from editors to be an article in it's own right. Nonetheless, you make a valid point about the inclusion of fictional uses of the rank. I don't know whether it'd be better to add a new fictional uses section, or put a comment into the naval section (as that's what it's an extension of), but it's certainly something that could be included - other rank pages note usage in fiction. -Scott Wilson 18:39, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Verification requested

In Medical units, Captain is the entry-level rank for Doctors and Registered Nurses. In Judge Advocate General units, Captain is the entry-level rank for Lawyers who already have their academic degree and are members of a Bar.

Could some please verify this? --Aking 04:54, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV. US users Beware.

I removed the US Captain insignia from the Top. again!

DragonWR12LB: (made size like other US rank pages)

This is NOT a US Rank page. Read the Article, The US Rank is there already for reference. If you Want go off and make up a Captain (U.S. Military) Page then go ahead. For the purposes of NPOV leave it as it is. There are 6.2 Billion people in the world who are not in the U.S.A.

Stabilo boss 10:41, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

OK. It's not actually POV to have a picture in an article. Since it would be ridiculous to have a medley of all possible captain-ish insignia mashed together, let's just pick a couple, doesn't matter what nationality, although apparently certain persons freak out at the sight of US-related stuff, so let's use other countries. It's just poor presentation to crowd them all at the end, doesn't anybody study graphic design?? Stan 13:48, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

It's not quite an issue of WP:NPOV, but I think it's going to be hard deciding on which countries are 'most meaningful' (for that is what it will be seen as, even if it's a random choice) and go in the article itself. Furthermore, putting them all at the bottom dissuades well-meaning users from 'me-too'-ing additional images into the article itself; something that was happening before, and looked even worse - take a look at the history. --Scott Wilson 17:07, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I've been watching this article for a long time - one of those where the endless tinkering makes it deteriorate rather than get better, sigh. One thing that people don't try enough is to a) make an adhoc policy, put it on the talk page at the top, and then enforce (one symbol per section, whatever), or b) add html comments explaining rationales, so well-meaning users can learn the logic used. An illustration alternative might be to have pictures of actual captains, perhap even a multinational or multiservice group, so the reader can see "captain-ness" in action. (Or reduce this to disambig and split into many, so nationalists' eyes don't have to be offended by seeing nonpartisan info about their enemies.) Stan 17:19, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Pictures of actual captains. Now that's an idea I like. Any suggestions as to who, though? Sea captains will probably not be too hard to find, but what about military ones? --Scott Wilson 20:07, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps NPOV is not what I mean!! Maybe a Captain (rank) page is a better Idea. It would bring it inline with military rank pages and this could be used as a disambig for Nautical, Naval, Military and Sports Captains? The Reson I removed the US Insignia from the top of the page is that on all Multinational rank pages the countries are listed alphabetically. The US insignia was already in the article and sticking a larger one at the top seemed to me at least to give prominence to the US military rank above all other forms of Captain. Stabilo boss 20:38, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Captains' commands and posts

This article's a little less clear than it could be about the posts people with rank of naval captain typically hold. My understanding is that in the USN, a captain can be the CO of a cruiser, or any of the four jobs below the flag officer on a carrier (the CO, XO, CAG, and deputy CAG). In the RN, I believe that even the aircraft carriers are run by Commanders, so I assume captains only sail desks of various kinds. I'm assuming that the Russian navy's cruisers are also commanded by the rank-equivalent of a NATO captain, but then again, their rank terminology is different in any case. Ditto the Kuznetsov. Are there any other navies that operate ships commanded by captains, in either a rank or terminological sense? Alai 17:02, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Not sure where you got that about the Royal Navy from. Most ships of frigate size and up are commanded by captains in the RN. A few frigates are under commanders, but not many these days. All larger ships are under captains. Subs are usually under commanders, however. But, in the RN there will only ever be one captain on a ship (except for admiral's staff) - the XO and department heads are always commanders or below, even on carriers. I believe that the chief engineer of a USN carrier is also usually a captain, incidentally, and the chief MO and chaplain can also be captains - that's a lot of captains! -- Necrothesp 17:16, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

On the British carriers, I plead extreme confusion induced by the RN's extremely confusing web site: their links from "Commanding Officer" on the pages for each of the carriers lead.. well, all over the place, to a Commander for the Ark Royal (seemingly actually the XO), a Commodore for the Illustrious, and doesn't even seem to exist for the Invincible. So I'm still not quite sure if it's the alleged norm for them to be commanded by commodores, or by captains, but that's a bit more logical than by a commander, at least. I've checked most of the type 42s, and a couple of type 23 frigates, and they do invariably seem to be commanded by commanders (if the RN's website is to be trusted, which there's every indication it should not); confirmed sightings of a full-fledged captain in charge of a destroyer or smaller would still be useful data, though. I'd not be entirely surprised if my estimate of four-captain-per-US-carrier was on the low side, but poking around the web at random seems to indicate that for example the Roosevelt's CE is a commander, for example. Alai 18:16, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

One thing to bear in mind when comparing numbers of captains on carriers is that the US Navy's ones are simply a lot bigger than most other countries' - especially the British ones - and hence have greater numbers of higher ranking officers. --Scott Wilson 18:44, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Clearly so; the UK carriers might be regarded as cruisers with a few planes on top, as it were. It does seem a little curious to have such a "flat" structure of senior officers in terms of rank, not corresponding to the actual chain of command. One thing I'm unclear on, though: does the CAG report to the CO of the carrier, or directly to the flag office? Alai 19:04, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Although even when we had full-size carriers and battleships they only ever had one captain. Admittedly smaller than the big American carriers, but still pretty big. The American forces do seem to have rather a proliferation of senior people - e.g. most soldiers effectively at corporal rank, corporal meaning very little, and even sergeants ten a penny. In general, Britain has kept a policy of rank, however lowly, meaning rank and not having too many people at senior level. -- Necrothesp 19:36, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Bloody hell, that website is confusing isn't it. "The Commander" is always how the XO is referred to on an RN capital ship. The term "Executive Officer" used to be very rarely heard, although I believe it's now more common. I've never heard of a Commodore in command of an RN ship before - that must be a new development. I notice, however, that Cdre Cooling is also described as "Carrier Strike Group Commander" - I wonder whether he combines that role with CO of Illustrious or whether there is a captain as well and the public relations flunkie responsible for the website got confused! Invincible is presumably presently refitting and therefore doesn't have a captain. You are right that most frigates seem to be under commanders - this appears to be a reversal of the trend in recent years. Frigates used to be under commanders, then the majority were taken over by captains (probably because opportunities for captains in the RN were fast disappearing). I'm extremely surprised, however, that most destroyers now seem to be under commanders as well - captains took over destroyers years ago, since modern destroyers are essentially light cruisers (always under captains). So your surmise does appear to be largely correct - captains do seem to have largely disappeared from the fleet. However, as I said, this is a very recent (and rather odd) development. Must be an MOD policy change (probably to avoid paying too many captains, in line with the increasingly extreme stinginess of the Labour government towards anything that doesn't benefit them politically!). The only ships that seem to be under captains now are the three assault ships (although I'm assuming that Ark Royal is too and is just currently between captains). -- Necrothesp 19:34, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I didn't know that about the XO terminology, but presumably in every such case the officer would have that as actual (or at least acting/brevet) rank too. That's exactly what I wondered about Cooling; whether he was some sort of "mini-flag officer", in the way the admiral in charge of a US carrier force works (whatever that is, exactly...). But Commodores seem to be (back to being) more like a "senior captain" rank, so it wouldn't be unreasonable for him to be acting as such, whether or not captains per such can or do command such vessels. Being CO-less was my conclusion about Invicible too, though in other cases refitting vessels do seem to have notional COs. Cmdrs in charger of destroyers and frigates seems to be pretty logical to me; it would certainly have been in line with WW2 era practice, and up until the last of the cruisers went, as well as with US practice; presumably there's some logic to intra-NATO consistency. (Though the idea of the CO of the Illustrious outranking the skipper of the Roosevelt flies totally against that, as well as being mildly hilarious.) I'd no idea that the commanders of the assault ships were captains; indeed, one of them appears to actually be a commodore, though he's not titled as such on the web page, nor does he bear the insignia. *head explodey* Alai 23:20, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

The XO of a capital ship is always a Commander, hence the title. Until recently, the RN didn't use the term Executive Officer for the second-in-command of a smaller ship like a destroyer or a frigate - he was the First Lieutenant, even if he was actually a Lieutenant-Commander (which he usually was), and was therefore known as "Number One" (larger vessels have an XO and a First Lieutenant, but smaller ships don't in the RN - or didn't, at least). Note that the Senior Naval Officer of the Invincible is an engineer, which would be appropriate for the officer in charge while she was refitting. Yes, commander is the logical rank for a destroyer or frigate CO, although with the size of destroyers these days it wouldn't be surprising for it to be a captain's command; I always thought a captain was a bit senior to command a frigate though. Until after WWII, many destroyers and most frigates (the latter introduced during WWII largely as convoy protection vessels) were under lieutenant-commanders, or sometimes even lieutenants. Captain Snow of the Ocean is a bit of an enigma - as you say, the article says he was promoted Commodore four years ago (now a substantive rank, so he couldn't have reverted to captain as he once could have), yet here he is described as a captain and pictured wearing a captain's insignia. Aaaggghhhh!!! Also note it says he commanded HMS Coventry, a frigate, when he was a captain (presumably before the change to frigate/destroyer command rank that seems to have occurred recently). Now I'm totally confused as well! -- Necrothesp 00:08, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

The COs of other ships in refit seem to be engineers of some stripe too, I'm just entirely confused (yet again) by the different terminology. In one case, a commander (in rank) seemed to be CO of several different ships undergoing refitting, that would normally be commanded by a commander, rather than the other case of a "senior naval officer" of lower rank, for a single vessel. (I was forgetting the Coventry was a frigate, and not a destroyer: showing my age.) In both cases with Snow, it could be the case that he's commanding ships he has "rank in hand" for, but that custom is he only "uses" the normally required rank for the post, but

I had no idea that (or indeed if) the RN employed such a practice. Either that, or the RN's webmaster's psychoanalyist's on danger money. Alai 01:23, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article Split

I'm trying to divide the artice a bit so it is not so massive. But then, I dont want to break it down too much. Inputs would be welcome. -Husnock