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Author Topic: Ships complement?  (Read 2784 times)

Martin (Admin)

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Ships complement?
« on: November 04, 2010, 10:43:40 pm »


Just thinking this through this evening...

Taking a smallish naval ship, say a WWII Corvette, she would have a crew compliment of 90, can anyone help defining all the roles?
How many officers?
Who reports to who?
How many in the engine room?
How many on the depth charge racks?

( One of those modern company management pyramid structure charts would be useful ! )
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sailorboy61

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Re: Ships complement?
« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2010, 11:08:23 am »

The large complements on a warship etc of course allow for a large degree of 'redundancy' (death!!!) of operators in each required role..... typically 2/3 x, so while a large number, its a much simpler hierarchical tree.
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iron99

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Re: Ships complement?
« Reply #2 on: November 16, 2010, 03:47:05 pm »

Maybe I can help a bit. I was in the Canadian Navy from '68 to '73, long time ago now...... The St. Laurent types that we had then were steamers - two boilers and two main turbines. One boiler room watch would consist of two burner tenders, one water tender and the Petty Officer of the watch. The Engine room watch was a roundsman for outside machinery (steering gear, shaft bearings and stern glands, etc),an inside roundsman, throttle watchkeeper, and the Chief of the watch. Each Chief of the watch reported to the Chief ERA, who reported to the Engineer Officer, who reported to the Captain. There were other ratings in the department who were usually day workers - Upper Deck Stoker (responsible for fuel, ballast, domestic water, pumping systems), Evaporator watchkeeper, Engineer's writer, and usually two outside machinery people to lok after HVAC, refrigeration, emergency generators, and assist anywhere they were needed.
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boatmadman

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Re: Ships complement?
« Reply #3 on: November 16, 2010, 03:57:09 pm »

wow, many hands make light work springs to mind!

Way back when I was in UK merchant Navy,(1976), we had a Chief Engineer, 2nd,3rd &4th engineer each of whom were a senior watch engineer, and 3 junior engineers and sometimes an electrcian - thats it!

Occasionally there would be an extra engineer getting some steam/motor time in.

This was typical manning on newer tankers up to 300,000 tonnes, older ships sometimes had a boiler man.

Ian
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iron99

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Re: Ships complement?
« Reply #4 on: November 17, 2010, 01:23:45 pm »

Quote
wow, many hands make light work springs to mind!

The work wasn't always light though, there was no automation to run 6 burners on each boiler. If the ship was maneuvering the burner tenders could be up and down the boiler fronts like manic monkeys. In the engine room the inside roundsman would be on one throttle and the watchkeeper would be on the other. Even on a regular point to point passage there could be lots of action, especially when junior bridge officers were put through their paces.
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Yarpie

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Re: Ships complement?
« Reply #5 on: December 19, 2010, 08:07:14 pm »

Given your notional example in post #1 Martin, the breakdown of crew duties would generally be thus:

The crew would be required to steam/navigate/drive the ship 24 hours per day, requiring a three-watch system to maintain this. In wartime, whilst in defence watches (a two-watch system) ALL crew would be at their stations for however long it took.

During Action Stations every man jack of the crew was required. For instance, the bridge would be fully manned by CO, 1st Lieutenant, Officer of the Watch, Yeoman of Signals, lookouts and runners. The operations Room would be fully manned by all the specialist Executive specialists. The Watch on deck comprising of a Seaman Petty Officer, Leading Hand and up to half a dozen seamen. The Supply and Secretariat branch would have their stewards, writers, cooks etc closed up as ammunition monkeys, stretcher bearers and first aiders. The electrical Department woud have all of their switchboards manned. Damage Control Parties (drawn from the Technical Departments) would be closed up forward and aft. Guns crews, Torpedo and AntiSubmarine crews would be at their stations. The Engine room Department would be carrying out their duties as has been described so ably earlier in the thread. Even the Canteen Manager (NAAFI civilian) had an action station.

The need for an extended wartime crew was not only to be able to make up the numbers of crew killed or injured in action, but to be able to successfully fight the ship for long periods and then to be able to subsequently rest a proportion of the crew .

Hope this goes some way to answering your hypothecal question.

And apologies if I have left anybodies particlar branch out. :D
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