Why do navies like the US Navy name its ranks uniquely?
score:4
Tradition
Consider the rank of captain. It comes up both in the Navy and in the Army. It is also used in civilian shipping and aviation, and even figuratively as in "captain of industry." Once upon a time, both a company commander in the ground forces and a ship commander in the naval forces were called captain.
The deputy of a captain was the lieutenant. That designation also comes up in interesting places -- the lieutenant governor, the lieutenants of a gang boss, and so on. In the Royal Navy, the first lieutenant was the seniormost lieutenant on a ship.
As ships got bigger, the navy found it necessary to insert more ranks below the captain, while the army found it necessary to insert more ranks above the captain as armies got bigger and better organized while companies did not grow like ships.
Upvote:-1
History.
Originally, there were only two branches of the US military: the Army, and the Navy. The modern Marines were established in 1798 as a specialist infantry force, with the organization and ranks coming from the Army. More recently, the Air Force evolved in the early 1900s as part of the US Army, so it's not surprising that it retained the Army's ranks when it was split off as its own branch of the military.
I expect you'll find a similar pattern in many countries: starting with an Army and a Navy, each with their own ranks, and other forces splitting off from one or the other and retaining the rank system of the parent force.
Upvote:2
Interservice rivalry. No branch of the military is going to give up its traditions in favor of those of another branch.
But for practical purposes, they do have common designations, as shown on the top line of that image. 2nd lieutenants and ensigns are both O-1, colonels and captains both O-6, and so on.
More post
- 📝 Why does Charles Lindbergh appear to avoid England in 1927?
- 📝 What involvement did Jonathan Edwards have with the Conspiracy of 1741?
- 📝 Why did Hitler not concentrate more on North Africa?
- 📝 (Why) are there two different versions of the photograph of inmates at the Buchenwald concentration camp?
- 📝 Are there any details available on 1954 Afghan proposal for a merger with Pakistan?
- 📝 How effective have Shariah-based Islamic Laws been at keeping the crime rate low in modern Saudi Arabia?
- 📝 When did nonporous ceramic become widespread?
- 📝 Which crown features on the Japanese Order of the Precious Crown?
- 📝 What happened to the princes in Tower of London?
- 📝 Did the Babylonian priesthood flee to Pergamum?
- 📝 Did Edith Wilson influence the passage of the 19th Amendment?
- 📝 What are the counterarguments to calling German nazism a right-wing movement?
- 📝 Is it true that there are more slaves in the world now than ever at one point in history?
- 📝 Help identify this poster of early 1900's movie with a woman sitting on a bench and a man behind holding her arm
- 📝 What is under the Great Sphinx of Giza?
- 📝 Why didn't the Allies attack Germany from the South?
- 📝 Did the "loss" of the American territories in the first third of the 19th century have any impact on Spanish intellectual discourse?
- 📝 Did all writing civilizations eventually produce cryptography?
- 📝 Did a Japanese medieval castle withstand US battleship fire during the Pacific War?
- 📝 How did Poland fare under "personal unions?"
- 📝 Why did cavalry keep becoming a thing if spears were always around?
- 📝 Great Britain's role in Islamic Iran
- 📝 Are there any documented examples of wooden ships which were in active service for 100 years or more? If not, what is the longest?
- 📝 What did the Russian ambassador to Japan do during his trip to London?
- 📝 How many times did the US experiment before dropping the atomic bomb in Japan?
- 📝 When did the United Kingdom become "United" rather than merely united? (I.e., that word became part of its name.)
- 📝 Where can I find demographic information for the Roman Empire?
- 📝 Which Roman emperor destroyed a weaving machine?
- 📝 What was the UK Constitution in 1776, regarding taxation and representation?
- 📝 Epoch of an item marked with anchor symbol with the letters N and D
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Why do navies like the US Navy name its ranks uniquely?
- 📝 Why does the Canadian Air Force name its ranks like its Army, whilst the Australian and New Zealand Air Forces use the Royal Air Force's?
- 📝 Why is the name "Tecumseh" used for US Navy ships?
- 📝 Why didn't Portugal found universities in its colonies like Spain?
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union name their strongest bomb Tsar Bomba?
- 📝 Why did Poland keep Warsaw as its capital instead of returning it to Krakow in the 20th century?
- 📝 Why were the drawings of Colossus burnt after WW2 and why was its very existence "of course" kept secret?
- 📝 Why does the King of Spain still claim defunct titles like the King of Hungary?
- 📝 Why did the Republic of China retract its simplified Chinese characters?
- 📝 Why did Italy abandon its alliance with Germany in WW1 and join the Allied side?
- 📝 Why is it that the maiden name is traditionally dropped when a woman is getting married?
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union close its borders and restrict travel abroad?
- 📝 Why did the Japanese expect the United States navy would attack the Home Islands?
- 📝 Why didn't China assist in the Vietnam War like they did in Korea?
- 📝 Why were Royal Navy ships forbidden to attack the ARA Veinticinco de Mayo in Argentinian waters?
- 📝 Why didn't the British Grand Fleet force an engagement with the German Imperial Navy in WW1?
- 📝 Why did Peter the Great name Saint Petersburg, Russia with a foreign styled name?
- 📝 How did the British Navy pass orders to its fleet before radio?
- 📝 Why did US Navy WW2 torpedoes detonate at the end of their run?
- 📝 Why didn't the US produce stamped weapons like the Germans during WW2?
- 📝 Why did Kabila discard the name and flag of Zaire?
- 📝 Why did this anti-communist pamphlet, from the USA in the 1950s, include UNESCO among its targets?
- 📝 Why did Japan not withdraw from China as its pacific front was crumbling and the threat of US invasion imminent?
- 📝 State changing its name within the United States
- 📝 In World War II, why was the ratio of killed to wounded of the Royal Navy twice that of the US Navy?
- 📝 Why does the Navy’s army need its own air force (U.S. Marine Corps)?
- 📝 Why did Russia give up its claims to the Oregon Country?
- 📝 Why did Britain object to the Ottomans bringing its ships-of-the-line against Russia in the beginning of the Crimean War?
- 📝 Why didn’t Britain use its vast navy to get past trench warfare?
- 📝 Why would the heads of the Manhattan Project have been imprisoned in the event of its failure?
