What do those uniform colors mean, anyway?!

[J.T.B.]

Having deduced that red = engineering and blue = medical/science, I guess mustard is... line officer?

You wouldn't see any information to the contrary until February 1967.

Specifically "line officer" in the naval sense (as opposed to "staff officer"). Which, since that's defined as persons "trained and qualified to exercise military command", describing mustard as "command" makes sense, too. I guess that answers my question!

I find it interesting that, in "The Menagerie", Spock surrenders himself to McCoy as he's the senior ranking officer, but McCoy, as Medical Officer, is staff, not line. Is that how it would work in the contemporary wet navy, or would Spock surrender to Hansen (presumably the senior line officer at the time, though not necessarily -- he might simply have been OOD).

A couple of different things. A "staff officer" generally speaking is one who works on the staff of a senior officer, as opposed to commanding people in an operational unit. Officers rotate between operational and staff assignments (which are usually shore duty) over the course of their career. In this sense, a USN line officer can be a staff officer.

A "staff corps" officer is a USN thing. Staff corps officers are members of a specialized "corps," established by legislation. The staff corps are: Medical (physicians), Dental, Nurse, Medical Service (other medical specialties), Chaplain, Supply, Civil Engineer (Seabees) and JAG (lawyers). Extinct corps are Engineer (marine propulsion), Construction (naval architecture) and Professors of Mathematics. Through WW1, the staff corps (or "civil branches" in the Royal Navy) had their own specific officer titles, only in 1918 would they be called "lieutenant," "commander" etc.

A USN line officer was originally any officer who was qualified to take command, or succeed to command, of a vessel at sea. Now there are also "restricted line" officers, who can't take command at sea but also don't fall under any of the established staff corps. Examples are EDO (engineering duty only), HR, intelligence, oceanography, public relations, music. So sea-command officers are sometimes referred to as "unrestricted line."

Quartermasters, pursers, medical officers, chaplains -- those are explicitly staff officers in my 1944 Bluejacket's Manual. Gunnery and navigation had their own departments, and on Trek, their officers wear command colors. Would they have been line officers back in the day? What about engineers and damage control officers?

A quartermaster in the US Navy is a petty officer that specializes in navigation, steering and the like. A purser was the old name for a supply officer, early 1800s or before.

It depends how far you want to go back. Since 1899, when the Engineer Corps was abolished, a US Navy ship's engineering officers are line officers. The UK Royal Navy tried that in the early 1900s but in the '20s went back to a system where engineers were a separate branch and could not be in line to command a vessel. In 1955 they adopted a new system where "seaman," engineer and supply officers all wore the same insignia and were interchangeable for command on shore, but only seaman officers could command at sea.

For the USN the decks, hull and exterior were originally separate from the engineering department, and this came to include damage control. In WW2 this department was called the hull or C&R department (construction and repair) and was headed by an officer called, regardless of rank, the first lieutenant. In the '50s the damage control responsibility shifted to the engineering department.

As a rule, the only departments on a US Navy ship which are not headed by a line officer are supply and medical.

Do navy ships have their own armed guards, or do they usually employ marines for that duty?

It's all sailors, ships' marine detachments were eliminated about 25 years ago. And even then only the really big ships had them.

 

[BK613]

It's all sailors, ships' marine detachments were eliminated about 25 years ago. And even then only the really big ships had them.

Yep. Quarterdeck watchstanders were typically equipped with sidearms. There was a period in the 1980s where piracy was up in the Malacca Strait so they temporarily mounted 50cals on the bridge wings. PO2 and above received some live fire training on them. I think I have some pics of that setup somewhere; I'll see if I can find and post.

A ship can also have one or more Master-at-Arms billeted.

 

[Neopeius]

It's all sailors, ships' marine detachments were eliminated about 25 years ago. And even then only the really big ships had them.

What an excellent post! Thank you.

In '66, would it have been Marines on a ship of Enterprise size? (I guess it's a carrier in displacement and importance, but a destroyer in complement)

 

[BK613]

In '66, would it have been Marines on a ship of Enterprise size? (I guess it's a carrier in displacement and importance, but a destroyer in complement)

ETA: Mea culpa, I thought you were referring to CVN65, not NCC-1701....
Even in '86. In the TVH, we hear the CDO call the MARDET commanding officer to report the intruder in the number 4 Main Machinery Room. MARDET is Marine Detachment:

C.D.O.: Confirmed, Roger that. ...MARDET commanding officer! This is the Command Duty Officer, Commander Rodgerson. We have an intruder in the number four M.M.R. I say again. We have an intruder in the number four M.M.R.​

And it is the Marines that give chase when Chekov cuts and runs.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

MARDETs were still fairly common on carriers and any other "nuclear" surface ship through the 1980s, after that they were pretty rare as a standing assignments, although I imagine that it could and probably happen for specific operations on occasion although SEALs or even Navy VBSS teams drawn from the ship's complement might be the preferred option in most scenarios.

Personally, I've always headcanon'd the Connie as more of a "cruising vessel" (traditionally a frigate in the Age of Sail, a (heavy/battle/aviation) cruiser in the early to mid 20th, multi-role destroyer currently) that can do combat, especially against peers and lower, but mostly/often does other things, rather than a "ship of the line"/capital ship dedicated to combat, but YMMV.

 

[J.T.B.]

In '66, would it have been Marines on a ship of Enterprise size? (I guess it's a carrier in displacement and importance, but a destroyer in complement)

In WW2 there were marine detachments on battleships, cruisers (CA, CL, CB), and carriers (CV, CVL, CVB, not escort carriers). This continued to be the case after the war, but only included "real" cruisers, not the big destroyer line of development (DL, DLG, DLGN) that were later called cruisers. The old cruisers retired, so by the '80s there would be marine detachments on carriers, the Iowa class battleships when fully commissioned, and the nuclear cruiser Long Beach.

ETA:
So I looked a little further; in 1966 you would have zero battleships (New Jersey's Vietnam recommission came in '68), about 20 carriers and the cruisers Boston, Canberra, Columbus, Chicago, Saint Paul, Northampton, Albany, Newport News and Long Beach.

 

[Neopeius]

MARDETs were still fairly common on carriers and any other "nuclear" surface ship through the 1980s, after that they were pretty rare as a standing assignments, although I imagine that it could and probably happen for specific operations on occasion although SEALs or even Navy VBSS teams drawn from the ship's complement might be the preferred option in most scenarios.

Personally, I've always headcanon'd the Connie as more of a "cruising vessel" (traditionally a frigate in the Age of Sail, a (heavy/battle/aviation) cruiser in the early to mid 20th, multi-role destroyer currently) that can do combat, especially against peers and lower, but mostly/often does other things, rather than a "ship of the line"/capital ship dedicated to combat, but YMMV.

I think that's a thoroughly reasonable supposition. If I recall my Hornblower, there were Marine detachments on those ships, as well.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

I think that's a thoroughly reasonable supposition. If I recall my Hornblower, there were Marine detachments on those ships, as well.

All rated vessels during the Age-of-Sail had at least a nominal MARDET.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I no longer remember my initial thoughts on the color coding of the uniforms, as I was pretty young when I started watching the show in syndication in the 1970s. But I do remember that I initially thought that the "Big Three" of Star Trek were Kirk, Spock, and Scotty. I'm sure I thought this because they were each in a different primary color (yellow, blue, and red). And the omnipresent commercials for Mego's Star Trek action figures probably also led me to believe that Scotty was more important to the show than he was.

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[Neopeius]

You wouldn't see any information to the contrary until February 1967.

What happens next February, by the way?

 

[The Old Mixer]

What happens next February, by the way?

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Dunno what it has to do with Trek, tho.

 

[J.T.B.]

What happens next February, by the way?

In A Taste of Armageddon, McCoy speculates on what he might do if he were "an officer of the line." Which Scotty, in red, apparently is.

 

[BK613]

^^ That the uniform colors don't match up with career branches is also implied a couple of weeks earlier in Court Martial when red-wearing Stone says this (emphasis added):

Stop recording. Now, look, Jim. Not one man in a million could do what you and I have done. Command a starship. A hundred decisions a day, hundreds of lives staked on you making every one of them right.
​

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

I'm not agree.

Stone is saying that he has commanded a starship in the past, but that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with his current assignment which apparently warrants a red uniform, any more than we can assume that Krasnovsky, wearing blue, was inaccurately described as a "starship captain" in the same episode.

 

[J.T.B.]

Stone is saying that he has commanded a starship in the past, but that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with his current assignment which apparently warrants a red uniform, any more than we can assume that Krasnovsky, wearing blue, was inaccurately described as a "starship captain" in the same episode.

Isn't that the same as what he's saying? That it's more about current assignment than indicating something about career specialization?

 

[fireproof78]

^^ That the uniform colors don't match up with career branches is also implied a couple of weeks earlier in Court Martial when red-wearing Stone says this (emphasis added):

Stop recording. Now, look, Jim. Not one man in a million could do what you and I have done. Command a starship. A hundred decisions a day, hundreds of lives staked on you making every one of them right.
​

Does that mean his current billet is reflective of his whole career and uniform worn?

 

[Nerys Myk]

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Dunno what it has to do with Trek, tho.

Okay, Gold is Command
Blue is Science
Red is Operations
But what is Pink?

 

[The Old Mixer]

Percussion.

Y'know, George's always looked orange to me, but doing an image search, maybe it varies with lighting.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Percussion.

Y'know, George's always looked orange to me, but doing an image search, maybe it varies with lighting.

Yes it can go orange., but for my purposes it's red.
Similarly John's can appear green.

 

[BK613]

Does that mean his current billet is reflective of his whole career and uniform worn?

No.

Isn't that the same as what he's saying? That it's more about current assignment than indicating something about career specialization?

Yep, that's what I am saying. Uniform color != career track.