Was Kirk supposed to be a Lt. Commander?

Problem with that is the Enterprise (a supposed corvette) is not much smaller than the dreadnought you mentioned, and is larger than a destroyer.

 

Antares log, stardate 6609.15:

 

Which suggests it's a cruiser, which also fits it's role, and would fit with the idea that Kirk is a 'second rank' captain by rank (Commander in most Anglophone naval forces, Captain 2nd Class or similar in many non-Anglophone navies. In-universe, appears to be the rank of most pre-UFP Vulcan ship commanders).

 

How would that work? If the stripes go by half steps, ensign is zero stripes and captain is 2.5, that makes it the sixth officer rank, the same as real-world. That also fits with "Tomorrow is Yesterday," when USAF Captain Christopher (O-3) was given the insignia of a Starfleet lieutenant.

 

Six officer ranks from Ensign to Captain are fairly common in the real world, however five or seven aren't unheard of and most navies assign ship commands to two to three different ranks and Anglophone countries are unusual in not assigning these to variations on "Captain". The French, Germans, Russians have three, the Chinese four (like the RN, they rank Commodores and Colonel-Commandants/Brigadiers as field/line ranks not flag ranks) and the translation for the pre-MSDF naval ranks is uncertain but there is a clear division (senior officers end in -sa, but juniors end -i).

In universe, Kirk was also a "Captain" when he wore only two stripes (Pike's one is clearly and error, Kirk's two-stripe less so) and at least one example of a "Commodore" acting a solo Captain.

As I've previously mentioned, I think that if the TOS system had been maintain through the TNG era, captains of medium-sized ships (like Janeway) would have continued to wear Kirk's insignia (the Intrepid-class is a similar size and relative capability to the Connie) and experienced senior Captains like Picard would have worn three stripes (potentially, this could have been the case for Starship Commodores Decker and Wesley, in comparision to Starbase Commodores Enwright, Mendez, Paris, Stocker and Stone or Outpost Commodore Travers).

 

^ I was confused by the idea that Kirk's grade of captain would be equivalent to USN commander, because it seems like commander would be equivalent to commander.

 

Originally, "Captains" ranked with both Colonel and Lieutenant Colonel and "Master and Commanders" ranked with Majors and "Lieutenants Commanding" were senior lieutenants and still classed as 'junior officers'.

Later, Commanders and Lieutenant Commanders were raised one grade and Captains were brought inline with Colonels only.

Something similar survives in the modern German model:
(Literal translation): Naval Captain, Frigate Captain, Corvette Captain, Staff Captain-Lieutenant, Captain-Lieutenant, Senior Naval Lieutenant, Naval Lieutenant.
(Starfleet/pre-Starfleet Ranks): Captain, Commander, Sub Commander, Lieutenant Commander, Lieutenant, Lieutenant Junior Grade, Ensign.

 

Russia's navy uses Captain 1st Rank, Captain 2nd rank, Captain 3rd rank and Captain lieutenant.

 

For the British Navy, sort of. Here's a summary, note that for a long stretch commanders were "in between," senior to all majors but junior to all lieutenant-colonels:



The US Navy was similar, but made the seniority cutoff for captain=colonel at five years. In 1862 the USN got additional grades so there was a one-to-one rank for every army rank.

Sure, but I'm talking about TOS Starfleet, which always used US-based rank titles. If each has six grades with the same titles, starting with ensign and ending with captain, I still don't get how captain in one would be equal to commander in the other.

 

Or it could have just been a case that the rank stripe system changed in the years between Pike and Kirk. If we go with the idea of Starfleet being blasé about rank insignia during this time, then during the Pike era one stripe represented all commissioned line officers, a kind of patterned stripe was for noncoms, and no stripes were for junior enlisted. By the time Kirk took over, though, the system could have changed to give captains more distinction with two stripes.

 

Or two stripes meant "commanding officer." If you were a Lieutenant and in command of a small ship, you would have two stripes.

 

Given that at least four distinct ranks are available during every other era I think it's probably best to dismiss any suggestion of there only being one or two officer ranks during the 2250s & early 60s as out-of-univese 'Early Installment Weirdness' as the regular show has never given us less than four options. But if we accept that Pike and Kirk should have been wearing the same insignia and assume that the unseen TOS ranks exist during that era (which the scenes on the Kelvin in ST'09 appear to establish) then we could assume that:

Small ships (<100 personnel) rate a Lieutenant Commander (If ENS stays the same, then UESF Captains are SF LCDRs).
Medium ships (100-250 personnel) rate a Commander (based on Kirk's WNMHGB rank).
Larger ships or ships on long missions rate a Captain (based on Kirk's TOS rank). There may (IMO should) be some demarcation for Captains who have completed multiple 'five year missions' or have considerable experience for other reasons. This would be the 'three stripe' rank given to Pike and Garth and probably experienced captains like Picard (who before we met him had conducted the equivalent of four 'five year missions' and then proceeded to do the bulk of two more 'on screen' with the E-D and about the same amount of time in the 'big chair' on the E-E).

 

Obviously, none of the Franz Joseph ships would have made it to the series as they were designed after. I'm also not actually a fan. But, knowing that many are, for fun, I was imagining a reclassification of the Federation Class to, say, a cruiser. Or a frigate even, if you want to throw in other designs like the Defender Class, which, given its size, I'd reimagine as a dreadnaught.

The Hermes never made much sense to me, being without a secondary hull "body." It looks like a nacelle "foot" Frankenstein-stitched to the saucer "head" and neck. I give some credit to the Federation for at least trying to change the saucer, but using a full Constitution saucer on the Hermes to me is like using 747 wings on a Learjet, or using a factory smokestack as a chimney for someone's house... You really wouldn't.

 

You can see the Franz Joseph designs on screen in the background in the movies.

http://www.trekplace.com/article09.html
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/sftm.htm

Also, two scouts with registry numbers from the FJTM are referenced in the Epsilon IX comm traffic heard in TMP, Revere and Columbia.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/USS_Revere
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/USS_Columbia

 

That's cool, but I wonder how much of that was needing filler material for the background that wouldn't make it to the fore. Ships from Wolf 359 would not be seriously featured ina main story like the Nebula or Oberth classes.

Did they pay FJ for their use?

 

I think that the Connie was the 'top of the line' multi-role cruiser of the mid to late 23rd Century, with the Excelsior as it's replacement (50:50 exploration v combat), with the Federation-class being similar (perhaps 40:60 or 30:70 towards combat), the Miranda is probably the light cruiser/destroyer counterpart designed to do similar work, but also with the potential to support commando operations during wartime (maybe 40:30:30 for exploration:space:ground). The size of the Defender class and lack of shuttlebays suggests its perhaps a deep space tactical vessel (similar to the later, smaller Prometheus) designed to act as the 'tip of the spear' striker during conflicts and as command ships during wartime.

 

If you put another nacelle on the Saladin class, you would almost have a Miranda.

 

I have no problem with Pike commanding the Enterprise vested with the powers of one fewer rank stripe than Kirk. After all, Pike commanded just half the number of crew.

Keeping the rank braid scheme unchanged through the aeons and accepting Kirk as Commander and Pike as Lieutenant then hinges solely on the above argument about relative ship size. Perhaps it's quite natural for mere Lieutenants to command these third-rate boats, and it's time to move on to bigger things if you get a second solid braid - unless your boat is on a prestigious assignment of frontier exploration, in which case you might hang on despite sporting two-and-half, or even command a flotilla from aboard one of these midgets while wearing the thick Commodore braid.

Using starships as one-size-fits-all vessels is actually pretty futuristic. It's not the size of the ship that counts, but things like power allocation (done at the push of a colorful button or thirty), onboard equipment (swapped at a starbase in a matter of days) and of course crew (Pike essentially just doing ferry duty to Rigel and running back home with his tail tucked between his nacelles at the first sign of trouble, but Kirk pushing the frontier with four hundred expendable experts and Decker commanding a whole armada with the help of another four hundred and their Captain-ranking CO).

Timo Saloniemi

 

Although, Decker is never seen to act as a taskforce commander but is 'only' a 'senior starship captain' by role (analogus more to the later role of Picard, Keogh, Donald Varley or similar), we could speculate that Decker was 'eligible' to act as task force commander if needed and even that Bob Wesley only became a commodore after Decker was KIA against the Doomsday Machine.