Talk:Royal Navy ranks

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Revision as of 21:24, 25 June 2007

All roads lead to here?

Do we want to use this as the page for all things that link lieutenant, and post captain, and master and commander etc, or did we want to leave those as separate articles? --LadyShelley 00:54, 15 June 2007 (BST)

Yes......... actually I did it as a starting point for all the ranks to be gathered with a short note about each as the more detailed articles don't yet exist. I didn't put in links to any of the ranks but that could be done. There is nothing to stop someone with a burning desire to write a scholarly article on the role of the Carpenter making a separate article which could be linked to directly from other articles and from here. Aquinas 01:44, 15 June 2007 (BST)

Period v. Modern

"By the time of Jack Aubrey they were established and only minor changes have been made since." This line surprises me, considering that the modern Royal Navy has several officers' ranks not included here [1], and an entirely different setup for the ratings[2]. Further, I query whether Purser, Bosun, etc. were properly ranks or positions.Czrisher 18:47, 23 June 2007 (BST)

"Minor" changes is arguable, perhaps. I meant that the overall set-up of commissioned officers and warrant officers of various types and ranks has really not changed much.There have been some new ones added with the new technology and old out dated ones removed. The boatswain was a warrant officer, I am not quite so sure about the purser, but he did mess with the wardroom. To be pedantic midshipmen were neither fish nor fowl and were not really commissioned or warrant officers so should probably not be included here either. Aquinas 03:46, 25 June 2007 (BST)

Is not this the very place to be pedantic, for all love?Czrisher 21:32, 25 June 2007 (BST)

How would the midshipmen and Master's mates (passed lieutenants but without a commission or warrant) be classified then?Aquinas 21:41, 25 June 2007 (BST)

This is hardly my field, but I'll take a crack at answering. We should follow something along the line of "First, do no harm". If we don't know where else to put 'em, keep them on this page and have a bit that explains, precisely what you described in your first reply. To leave the reefers under "Commissioned Officers", even with an explanation therein that they were not such, exposes us to charges of self-contradiction, if not, indeed, much worse. Especially while we are still ramping up our pool of editors, it seems important to avoid even the whiff of mis-information or error. Better far to have too little than "too much".

Similarly, I remain less than content with calling Bosun etc. a rank. Without explication, at least, this suggests that those were steps through which one passed, as modern ranks are. Perhaps we must accept that the breakdown of officers, warrant and otherwise, of the period doesn't lend itself to tables, however handsome these are. The hierarchy simply had too many orphans and bastards. Whatever the solution may be, however, I deprecate the inclusion of incorrect material as part of our half-measures. Czrisher 22:24, 25 June 2007 (BST)