Thanks for responding. It was always pretty cool interacting with other Navy personnel to get their perspective on life, but never had the opportunity to do a cross deck underway with the Russian Navy as some of my peers did.
Usually two to three months here, depending on the officers roster and availability of the escape ways. Say, in the same Comm Dept there are the officers who are under security protection from stand OOD watch as they have special watches within the crypto-protected rooms. Again, no engineers are eligible to stand OOD, it's a law - if your designator is marine engineering (either turbines, diesels, electricity, nuclear, DCFP special and so on, i.e. if you are in the guts of the ship), you are sort of Restricted Line in USN parlance. No bridge watches for them except for the EOOW on some ships where the main machinery dashboard is located on the bridge (up to frigate, but mostly corvettes). Again, the Dept Head always can screen some of his Divs from OOD watch if they have to deal with unreliable equipment. Say, on the Kirov-class CGNs the main AAW missile complex, S-300F "Fort" is served by two Divs and an engineer. The fire control system of that "Fort" is so whimsical that have those Divs let alone Eng standing the OOD watches they quite can be on hours off when the radar suddenly goes out of commission. All in all, not so many officers aboard even on a big ship are available to stand OOD, so one of the XO's main aims is to list the officers and held them to this watch.
So you may be double tapping your OOD types by having to choose between having your OODs man fundamental bridge watches or having them fix vital equipment?
Am I understanding that right?
Makes me pretty grateful we push the technician load to junior sailors instead.
On a cruisers we have the Deputy OOD which is uniting your Conning Officer and JOOD down and connected to the same reason - to introduce of the JO to making decisions on his own, but overall responsibility is on the scheduled OOD. In some cases they intended to hang the DOOD on some endless secondary inspections just to be free to do their job. There is neither habit nor the regulation about the mentorship in Russian Navy. On a smaller ships from DD down to corvette there is only one OOD, no deputy, no Conn, no JOOD. Sometimes the ship's NAV, if seasoned one, can enormously help the fresh OOD and usually does, but it is rather a tradition than regulation.
Huh. So, potential for a pretty steep learning curve without much mentoring. Ouch.
It is rather the "surviving under pressure" experience. If you fail to pass the CO/XO OOD exam twice, you're nailed to be off this ship the next year and your career chances are reduced to significant degree. Not a problem at all - you can go to another ship and try again or got yourself ashore and spend your "up to 20" there, but with sufficiently lower salary and you will never be the ship's XO/CO, period.
We give our guys a lot of time to get the qualification, but if they screw up, there are pretty much no appeals for a do over, and you're extremely unlikely to be allowed to continue in the Navy in any capacity.
Marine engineering - there are several occasions in which the OOD should personally direct the changes in the electrical commutations or machinery gears' setting. On some frigates the pitch of the propellers cannot be changed from the full spead ahead to the stop instantly, as it can damage the pitching gear on the shaft. If the remotely controlled switcher works properly, it is the EOOW's job but if not, the OOD by himself should know what he has to order to the conscript in the tiller/yoke room, where the manual drive of the pitching gear is installed, in step-by-step mode, as the EOOW sitting in his engineering spaces in the guts of the ship quite can has no real picture with understanding of the reason why the ship has to be stopped so quickly.
Seriously? Is the EOOW not an officer?
On our side, that'd be like having a Warrant Officer or LDO sitting as EOOW...and as JOOD, having to walk a junior sailor through their procedures.
For us, if the EOOW and OOD both know their jobs, the OOD shouldn't have to do anything other than to order up the changes he needs made with the EOOW not needing any extra kick or motivation to get the job done.
Weapon engineering is important to the OOD watch as there are constant troubles with loading/reloading of the big Soviet-type missile launchers at sea, which is extremely hard work. You should control along with the gunnery Dept Head the alternations of the connecting/disconnecting of the cables from the missile body, as any violation of that sequence can bring about a disaster with the missile's fuel fire and warhead explosion. Again, it is shared responsibility that makes the XO sure the things are doing in proper way.
Wait...what the what? What missiles do you reload at sea? Since you're talking about attaching cables, I'm assuming you're not referring to something like our Mk26, where the "reloads" are coming up from the onboard magazine.
I thought you guys had either VLS or those really big ass angled box missile launchers.
How the hell do you reload those at sea?
We gave up on reloading our VLS cells a while ago, and those things are small compared to some of the big ass missiles you have.
What's with the fuel fire hazard? Liquid rocket fuel/cruise missile jet fuel? Real hazard or procedural compliance?
We're extremely risk averse on fire hazards with our ordnance, to the point that we take precautions even when the probability is very minimal, but that's understandably the legacy of Forrestal.
My own experience as just relieved OOD, as I saw it from the wing of the bridge, smoking - on Russian warships usually the forecastle's gun is installed, roughly similar to common NATO 76-mm OTO Melara, automatical gun named AK-176. While the turret/gunhouse of that set is manned, the main mode of usage is remote control from the gunnery officer command post, where the gun is controlled by fire radar, usually one named MR-123. Once on anchor, the boatswain guys were working of the forecastle while the gunnery sailors maintained the gun, turned to the starboard beam. Fire control radar was switched OFF but there were two naval cadets on a summer practice aboard, from some NavColl, who were studying the radar as they were ordered to by XO and their college's case officer. Ad hoc, they asked the bridge for a permission to switch the MR-123 emitting high voltage on, just to have two or three antenna rotation circle to fit the target position indicator in a proper illumination mode, and then-current OOD gave that at once, and I've just nearly swallowed my cigarette but that had been done. The circuits of the AK-176 are routinely configured in the way that logic prescribes: at the moment when the high emitting of fire control radar is ON, the gun automatically turns to zero bearing and zero elevation, to be able to react to the new target from the most proper position. That was what happened - gun turned and the barrel had hit one of the guys throwing him overboard. Happily we were anchored and the seas were warm and calm. A cadets were right, too - they should ask the permission from OOD as was ordered, but that OOD was not of gunnery or radar designator, he was navigator, and his carelessness quite could turn him to accidental killer...
Huh. For us, the OOD bears similar responsibility, but I can't say that that kind of in depth systems knowledge, ie knowing the relation between switching on a radar on a trained gun would be, is a common expectation. That said, I think we also tend to design our equipment to "idiot proof" it against such occurrences.
But that said, your gun is operated from a remote station in the turret? Does this class not have a centralized CIC to control all weapons systems?
For that matter, do you have a TAO equivalent? And then how do you run a CIC (particularly on major combatants with multiple warfare areas) if your warfare officers are also double tapped to run up to the bridge to be OODs? With the Russian manning philosophy it would seem like you'd be hesitant to give control of major weapon/sensor systems to junior sailors.
