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Next Iteration of the Naval Warfare Officer Rebranding

Oldgateboatdriver

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So the RCN just announced the next phase of it's rebranding of the ol' MARS officer. To go along with the "Naval Warfare Officer", they are also redesigning the position of Combat Officer onboard ship. From now on they will be called "Senior Naval Officer - Warfare".

The RCN figures everybody will want that job with such title.

Go figure - I stopped trying a long time ago.
 
So the RCN just announced the next phase of it's rebranding of the ol' MARS officer. To go along with the "Naval Warfare Officer", they are also redesigning the position of Combat Officer onboard ship. From now on they will be called "Senior Naval Officer - Warfare".

The RCN figures everybody will want that job with such title.

Go figure - I stopped trying a long time ago.
Confused Larry David GIF
 
So the RCN just announced the next phase of it's rebranding of the ol' MARS officer. To go along with the "Naval Warfare Officer", they are also redesigning the position of Combat Officer onboard ship. From now on they will be called "Senior Naval Officer - Warfare".

The RCN figures everybody will want that job with such title.

Go figure - I stopped trying a long time ago.
And subordinate responsible for coordinating air effects will no doubt be the "Senior Naval Officer - Warfare - Flights, Landings, Attacks, Combat Knowledge".
 
So the RCN just announced the next phase of it's rebranding of the ol' MARS officer. To go along with the "Naval Warfare Officer", they are also redesigning the position of Combat Officer onboard ship. From now on they will be called "Senior Naval Officer - Warfare".

The RCN figures everybody will want that job with such title.

Go figure - I stopped trying a long time ago.
Please let this be a late April Fools joke?
 
So the RCN just announced the next phase of it's rebranding of the ol' MARS officer. To go along with the "Naval Warfare Officer", they are also redesigning the position of Combat Officer onboard ship. From now on they will be called "Senior Naval Officer - Warfare".

The RCN figures everybody will want that job with such title.

Go figure - I stopped trying a long time ago.

Why not? The RN had a SNOB.

In more ways than one, of course :)
 
It's probably a way to try and entice people to want to become OROs seeing as how the job is super thankless and almost nobody wants to do it.
 
It's probably a way to try and entice people to want to become OROs seeing as how the job is super thankless and almost nobody wants to do it.
It's probably an April Fool's joke, but if not...

How well (or not) are our allies retaining NWO-equivalent officers? Is not wanting to stay in the trade just an RCN thing, or is it prevalent throughout allied nations?
 
It's probably an April Fool's joke, but if not...

How well (or not) are our allies retaining NWO-equivalent officers? Is not wanting to stay in the trade just an RCN thing, or is it prevalent throughout allied nations?
I think it's a symptom of a larger problem in the Navy. The simple fact is, the job is very hard at times. It demands long hours, can be highly stressful and many people just don't have the resilience to cope with how demanding it can be. Expectations are high and many people just don't feel the juice is worth the squeeze.
 
I think it's a symptom of a larger problem in the Navy. The simple fact is, the job is very hard at times. It demands long hours, can be highly stressful and many people just don't have the resilience to cope with how demanding it can be. Expectations are high and many people just don't feel the juice is worth the squeeze.

I think you hit the nail on the head, for the RCN in general.
 
I think it's a symptom of a larger problem in the Navy. The simple fact is, the job is very hard at times. It demands long hours, can be highly stressful and many people just don't have the resilience to cope with how demanding it can be. Expectations are high and many people just don't feel the juice is worth the squeeze.
The job is hard because the stakes are incredibly high running the Operations Room of a modern warship (I know that you know this).

Dumbing down the ORO course by removing the Mega phase to make course more attractive (to increase the pool of OROs) did nothing to increase my confidence in the RCN.

I would rather see fewer, highly capable OROs than a larger pool of mediocre ones....
 
It's probably a way to try and entice people to want to become OROs seeing as how the job is super thankless and almost nobody wants to do it.

Because bribing them with a bigger paycheque, kind of like 'PARA pay' or 'flight pay' for in role OROs, would be impossible I guess?
 
The job is hard because the stakes are incredibly high running the Operations Room of a modern warship (I know that you know this).

Dumbing down the ORO course by removing the Mega phase to make course more attractive (to increase the pool of OROs) did nothing to increase my confidence in the RCN.

I would rather see fewer, highly capable OROs than a larger pool of mediocre ones....
Couldn't agree more, that being said, I think OROs also need to be paid more and should probably be bumped up a rank as the complexity of the job really isn't reflected in their compensation rate.
 
Couldn't agree more, that being said, I think OROs also need to be paid more and should probably be bumped up a rank as the complexity of the job really isn't reflected in their compensation rate.
Are OROs not LCdrs?
 
Dumbing down the ORO course by removing the Mega phase to make course more attractive (to increase the pool of OROs) did nothing to increase my confidence in the RCN.

The removal of the Mega was one of the changes that the Naval Personnel Training Group made as part of their "modernization" of naval training. It was not about dumbing down the course, but that they decided that it was difficult to objectively assess a student when the majority of the Ops team for their watch were also students with varying performance levels.

Do you fail an ORO student who had a rough run, but a couple of their key support personnel torpedoed them through poor performance and/or not providing critical information? The answer to that question was essentially up the whims of the assessor, but was often yes.

The rumour mill tells me that the Mega is returning, but understandably it will take some time to re-sync 5+ individual training courses that are currently running independently.

In the interim though, a Mega-style assessment of similar duration and intensity still exists for the ORO course. The remainder of the other Ops Rm positions are just filled by qualified members within the Fleet. This is a double-edged sword, as certain specific positions are hard to find these days, and a random CFTPO who's not being assessed may not have as much skin in the game.

As an aside, I do think there are circumstances where more objectivity in assessments is certainly a good thing. Take for example the NOPQ Board. Every candidate going to one of those boards has already been deemed competent by their CO and is running the Bridge at sea. I know of a few cases where a strong candidate failed the board simply because the Board Chair decided that they didn't meet a subjective standard of boardsmanship or "Command Presence", and the candidate is thus delayed promotion to Lt(N) and career progression for 6 months.

I would rather see fewer, highly capable OROs than a larger pool of mediocre ones....

The bigger issue here in my mind is that the RCN considers the ORO course and tour to be a prerequisite for promotion to LCdr and most staff billets held by NWOs. While selection for the course is merit-based, time in rank is a contributing factor and quite frequently NWOs across the Navy who do not have the specific competencies or desire to do the job or to assume Command in the future are selected for the course. They then often go to a low-tempo ship and count their days until they can get promoted and go ashore forever. This also clogs up the pipeline for competent personnel behind them who want to do the job, but need to wait their turn for the machine to turn up their number.

IMO, the NWO community needs to publicly admit to itself that a) the ORO/XO/CO job sucks a lot of the time, and b) that there are lots of NWOs out there who are net contributors to the organization but who may not have either the very specific competencies to succeed as OROs/XOs/COs or for a variety of personal or family reasons may not want to go down that road.

I suspect that one of the reasons we may not have gotten there yet is that if promotion criteria to LCdr was independent of an ORO tour, and the community was able to be upfront with the Career Managers about their career aspirations, it may bring up some unfortunate truths about how few actually want to go down that road. This is just my suspicion though, with no data to support it.
 
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Are OROs not LCdrs?

Nope, it's a Lt(N) billet. I believe that the CbtO billet only on the 280s was designated for a LCdr (i.e., not the other 2 OROs), but that died with the class.

You'll often see LCdrs on the ships, but they're at the end of their tours. AFAIK a LCdr in the billet needs to be posted off within 6 months IAW CMP policies about being over ranked for your current billet. Not unlike other HODs who you often see get made at the end of their tours or shortly thereafter.

The earliest you'll see someone hit the Fleet as an ORO is probably Lt(N) IPC 6 I would say, and much more commonly it will be IPC 7+.
 
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