That relationship is easier if the XO is an aviator.
That's understandable enough, for sure. Time and again it makes me wonder, though, how the aviators can cope with such a huge and, eventually, surface ship, from the standpoint of a risk theory. I have a pair of suppositions, and they are:
1. Special training, mandatory for all the NAs and NFOs assigned to ship's company, as it have been noted in this thread by Mr. Flash earlier. I'm OK with it, but the time frame supposed for this training to be sufficient enough seems to be about a year for command posts and at least six months for some department heads. I surmise these numbers by my own experience as a staff officer in Russian Navy - to be appointed as the Dept Head of a surface ship which is commanded by the Captain (carrier, cruiser, DDG), the officer should complete a year of training in special installation chosen by his designator: same for the staff officer of the frigate brigade (roughly similar to DesDiv in USN), for example. As Dept Head of the Russian cruiser is the senior OOD by his main watch, the Communication Officer of the cruiser (Dept Head 4) who spent his previous time on duty mostly in the radio rooms or op center of the ship should possess much more knowledges and skills to run the ship properly while SOOD (good CO and XO can pay almost no attention to the good SOOD actions - all will be done brilliantly). This is very rough analogy but it's the most I can draw from what I know. Same things - NA or NFO has to learn something new to run the carrier. The problem is that if he doesn't know or forget something important, there should be someone who knows and can remind it. And if that is concerning the aviation realm, carrier CO has in his hand 15 or so NA/NFO Commanders who can and have to support him. But in the seamanship or, worse, engineering realms - or, the worst, damage control and fire protection one - he has only one or two SWO Cdrs/LCdrs. That is the point where the speculative (uncertain) risk of the carrier survivability becomes the straight one, a spot of the thinnest ice on the river;
2. Chiefs. The only kind of a personnell of the carrier ship's company who are not in hurry to change the assignment (divs, depts, ships, fleets etc) every couple of years are Chiefs. And maybe Chief Warrants. They are free from the flying tasks, and they, as I can imagine, form the skeleton's bones that allows the carrier to be alive and feel good. With the good Chiefs the carrier CO and most part of his officers can come from NASA, for example - an aviation installation, too - and all will be fine, either;-)
Theres a few hybrids (such as Mt Whitney and the ASFB's) that have an URL Officer commanding, but the deck and engineering departments are all Merchant Mariners.
Same thing here. On the fleet oilers or T-AKE equivalent, the CO and XO are Navy officers, all the other are civilian mariners. I was just amazed by the fact that the Command Ship (that should have the highest security clearance for all the crewmembers, in Russian habit) is populated by merchant mariners, an opposite side of James Bond image. Don't pay an attention, it's just common Russian mental legacy after decades of total control (yet not finished while notably softer now).
