What are the Starflleet ranks? How many admirals are there?

[J.T.B.]

Re: What are the Starflleet ranks? How many admirals are the

captcalhoun said:
If you read the A Time To series of novels, particularly AT To Kill and ATT Heal, they do a lot to establish the relationship between the Presidency, the Council and the Admiralty.

The word "Admiralty" crops up in novels, but AFAIK the only time it comes up in on-screen Trek is in the alternate universe in TOS "Mirror Mirror." When the term is used in the Roddenberry TMP novel, it seems like it could refer just to the building(s) that house Starfleet Command in San Francisco.

The C-in-C in ST6 could be the top officer of all Starfleet, or he could be the regional commander for the area. Assuming SF divides the operational and administrative/planning/policy chains of command (which seems to work better for large organizations), the title "commander-in-chief" traditionally refers more to the operational side. "Commander, Starfleet" could be the chief on the other side, the CNO-equivalent, though it is an odd title. The Franz Joseph books gave the professional head of Starfleet the title of Chief of Staff, and this is also mentioned in DS9 and ENT.

How these top level posts fit togehter is anybody's guess.

--Justin

 

[flandry84]

Re: What are the Starflleet ranks? How many admirals are the

Maybe I'm misremembering so I'm open to correction,but when invited to the admirals ball by Adm. Nakamura,didn't Picard baulk at the thought of mixing with "fifty admirals".Somebody will no doubt know the episode and tell me if I'm wrong.Can 50 be a viable number of flag officers?Roughly how many hold such rank in the USN?

 

[Mysterion]

Re: What are the Starflleet ranks? How many admirals are the

flandry84 said:
Maybe I'm misremembering so I'm open to correction,but when invited to the admirals ball by Adm. Nakamura,didn't Picard baulk at the thought of mixing with "fifty admirals".Somebody will no doubt know the episode and tell me if I'm wrong.Can 50 be a viable number of flag officers?Roughly how many hold such rank in the USN?

IIRC, there are somewhere between 100 and 150 flag-rank officers in the USN. (Anyone with more correct/current info, please feel free to correct me, here.)

However, Starfleet would seem to be a much larger organization, presumably with many more flag officers. Also, my thought would be that there would have to be more "adult supervision" of that kind just due to the way Starfleet would be spread-out over such large distances.

 

[mythme]

Re: What are the Starflleet ranks? How many admirals are the

In one of the later DS9 episodes, Jadzia mentions the rank of "Skipper" - the only instance of this. Where would this fit in?

 

[Colonel Midnight]

Re: What are the Starflleet ranks? How many admirals are the

^ Not knowing the context of the line, my first thought would be the slang term for the ship or command's Commanding Officer (CO). It's a position, not a rank.

Cheers,
-CM-

 

[J.T.B.]

Re: What are the Starflleet ranks? How many admirals are the

Mysterion said:

flandry84 said:
Maybe I'm misremembering so I'm open to correction,but when invited to the admirals ball by Adm. Nakamura,didn't Picard baulk at the thought of mixing with "fifty admirals".Somebody will no doubt know the episode and tell me if I'm wrong.Can 50 be a viable number of flag officers?Roughly how many hold such rank in the USN?

IIRC, there are somewhere between 100 and 150 flag-rank officers in the USN. (Anyone with more correct/current info, please feel free to correct me, here.)

According to the latest report I can find, dated Sept. 30 2007, the numbers are:
O-10 ADM: 11
O-9 VADM: 32
O-8 RADM(U): 68
O-7 RADM(L):110
total: 221

Just for a contrast, the USN numbers in 1945 were:
FADM: 3
ADM: 10
VADM: 35
RADM: 178
COMO: 107
total: 333


That's one flag officer for about every 1500 personnel today, compared to around one in 12,500 in WW2!

However, Starfleet would seem to be a much larger organization, presumably with many more flag officers. Also, my thought would be that there would have to be more "adult supervision" of that kind just due to the way Starfleet would be spread-out over such large distances.

Before wireless, when navies were spread out all over the world admirals had great responsibilities and corresponding broad powers. Commanders-in-chief had some legal powers almost like the head of government in their part of the world.

--Justin

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Re: What are the Starflleet ranks? How many admirals are the

mythme said:
In one of the later DS9 episodes, Jadzia mentions the rank of "Skipper" - the only instance of this. Where would this fit in?

Skipper is a slang term for a ship's captain (regardless of actual rank).

 

[Sci]

Re: What are the Starflleet ranks? How many admirals are the

Delta1 said:

Well, we gotta pause here. Because the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a unit, the Chairman of the JCS, and the Chiefs themselves? They are not the heads of the military and are not a part of the chain of command.

The chain of command is divided into an operational branch, which does the warfighting, and an institutional branch, which does the training, research and development, equipping, etc. The operational branch functions as you described, but the institutional branch goes from the President, to the Secretary of Defense, to the service secretary, to the service chief. As senior military leaders of their respective services, the chiefs not only advise their secretaries, but also manage their service's staff and bear responsibility for institutional programs. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is not in either branch of the chain of command.

If Starfleet were the US Navy, Kirk would have worked under the operational branch in TOS, performing missions that originated with the President, and were transmitted and refined through the SecDef and some sort of regional admiral. By the time of TMP, he was apparently part of institutional Starfleet, overseeing the refit of the Enterprise and later training cadets; then he would have been under the C-in-C. None of this really affects his day-to-day missions, it just means he hangs a different photograph in his office and throws darts at it.

I've got an Army bias, so I apologize if I have overlooked something.

By no means; thanks for the clarifications!

 

[Danoz]

Re: What are the Starflleet ranks? How many admirals are the

Ohhh. Great stuff. Great analysis... I've always though the Starfleet system was a little ambigious-- but I guess they had a system set up and followed it fairly well. Interesting.

 

[Nebusj]

Re: What are the Starflleet ranks? How many admirals are the

On a side issue, are there examples of people actually stated on-screen to be Rear Admirals in Star Fleet? I know it's popularly assumed that, say, Kirk was a Rear Admiral in The Motion Picture, but he's always called Admiral in it, and most of the attempts to explain that someone was a Rear Admiral seem to me to have been based on the very amusing efforts to connect the things decorating a person's neck to their rank, which has been problematic even in the best of times on Trek.

 

[MarianLH]

Re: What are the Starflleet ranks? How many admirals are the

Kirk's rank is identified in TMP backstage materials. For example, the costume designer's notes explicitly state that the rank stripes on his uniform are those of a rear admiral.

That's not the same as saying it in onscreen dialogue, but it's not the same as being "popularly assumed" either.

Memory Alpha lists twelve rear admirals. I don't recall whether any of them had the rank mentioned onscreen, but the episodes featuring these characters would be a good place to start looking, if anyone has the DVDs handy (unfortunately I don't).


Marian

 

[Starbreaker]

Re: What are the Starflleet ranks? How many admirals are the

There are as many as the writers want there to be!

 

[Broccoli]

Re: What are the Starflleet ranks? How many admirals are the

captcalhoun said:
Much of Starfleet's day-to-day business is run by the Admiralty though as it's stuff like sending USS Suresh to P'rog VII to deliver a new fusion generator or the USS Parkman to rendezvous with the USS Petrelli to trasnfer two new ensigns or sending the USS Nakamura to investigate an anomaly in the Ando sector.

Wow...some admiral must have been watching a lot of "Heroes" that week he had to go and name some ships.

 

[captcalhoun]

Re: What are the Starflleet ranks? How many admirals are the

well, i was going to name them Summers, Grey, Drake, McCoy and Worthington but changed my mind.

 

[Korczynski]

Re: What are the Starflleet ranks? How many admirals are the

Nebusj said:
On a side issue, are there examples of people actually stated on-screen to be Rear Admirals in Star Fleet?

I remember one - In "All Good Things..." when Captain Picard arrives on the (past) Enterprise-D and is reading out his orders to the crew to take command, the orders are signed by 'Rear Admiral Norah Satie', whom we saw in "The Drumhead". Granted it's from a recreation of events by the Q Continuum, however it references enough information to make a reasonable assumption that the rank at the time was valid.

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

Re: What are the Starflleet ranks? How many admirals are the

Colonel Worf said:
There are as many as the writers want there to be!

Exactly. As many as are required for a script. And at least 40% of them are corrupt.

On the rank issue, I think the US Navy should replace "upper" and "lower" Rear Admiral with "top" and "bottom" Rear Admiral.

 

[YourStarTrucked]

Re: What are the Starflleet ranks? How many admirals are the

Mysterion said:

JD said:
As for the C-in-C of 24th Century Starfleet, I don't think they ever established one.

I think the closest we ever got was either Admiral Quinn in TNG's "Conspiracy", or Admiral Leyton in DSN's "Paradise Lost". Although I do not recall that either man's exact position was mentioned, IIRC.

If I have a criticism its that Trek uses the Navy too much, at least shows like SAAB and B-5 tried to break away from the constant use of Navy ranks

 

[C.E. Evans]

Re: What are the Starflleet ranks? How many admirals are the

I think the use of naval ranks is appropriate for an organization called Starfleet. Perhaps if it was called Starforce Command, Air Force ranks might have I been used, I dunno...

 

[Commodore]

Re: What are the Starflleet ranks? How many admirals are the

To summarize...


Ranks above Captain are as follows:

Rear Admiral Lower Half (slang/obsolete: "Commodore") -- Decker in TOS, Quinn in TNG

Rear Admiral Upper Half

Vice Admiral

Admiral

Fleet Admiral


The Starfleet Commander is the highest ranking Fleet Admiral, called the "Commander-in-Chief," based at Starfleet HQ in San Francisco.

Above him/her is the civilian president of the Federation, based in the Federation's capital (Paris).

Vulcan ships still exist in the TNG days. But the Vulcan military has been absorbed into Starfleet.

BTW, there was a question aboue generals. Starfleet has no army ranks (like "General"). The MACOs in ENT were shown to have army ranks, but we don't know if they still exist in the 24th century. The Bajoran militia also have army ranks ("Major" Kira).

The one Starfleet officer referred to by an Army term was Colonel West in ST6. We can assume that "colonel" in this case was a title, not a rank.

 

[Timo]

Re: What are the Starflleet ranks? How many admirals are the

...Or even a name. The UFP President was very informal with the people around him, using first names with fellow humans and dropping titles in general. The Vice Admiral accompanying Grand Admiral "Bill" might simply be named "Cornell-West".

Timo Saloniemi