The rank of 'Lieutenant Commander' within the service

It just occurred to me how unusual it is for a Starfleet first officer to be of full commander rank.

Spock was referred to in dialogue as a Lieutenant Commander for the first half of TOS season one, before (apparently) getting a full promotion halfway through the season. Although he always sported two full rank braids (so maybe the promotion was issued in the field -- by Kirk? -- but it took half a year for the 'official' paperwork back at Starfleet Command to finally catch up with it).

Voyager's original first officer when she sets out on the Maquis mission, Cavit, was also a Lieutenant Commander as shown on-screen. And even Chakotay himself wears the rank of a Provisional Lt. Cmdr all the way through the series, two stripes and a half stripe. He's refered to as 'Commander', even credited as such, but doesn't ever have that rank as shown on screen.

And yet, Will Riker arrives on the Enterprise already a full commander. Which might tie in with his backstory as a fast tracker within the service, somebody whose rise up the ranks has apparently been very swift. He was promoted to Lt. Cmdr following exceptional valor at Nervala IV, and his assignment as first officer of the USS Hood was apparently not long after this, inferring that he was a Lt.Cmdr when he was first officer of the Hood (perhaps he was bumped up to full commander for the Enterprise assignment because it's the flagship?). Notably, unlike the others listed here, the first time we saw him on screen wasn't actually the character's first time as second-in-command of a starship.

The prevalence of Lt.Cmdrs in the position of first officer lends me to ask: is this standard practice in Starfleet? For most first officers to be Lt.Cmdrs, before "graduating" to full rank at some point?

 

Personally, I suspect it has more to do with Trek's poor handling of military rank. The writers seemed to keep a buffer between the Captain + XO and everyone else. This is very apparent in DS9 where Sisko starts out as Commander, Kira as Major and everyone else is a Lt. or a non-com.

I also think Lt. Commander leaves them more room for character development ala promotion to Commander.

 

The Enterprise Dee was a big ship with a large crew, the requirement for it's first officer was a full commander.

The other ship's we saw were smaller.

Smaller ships still might only require a senior Lt.

 

I'd agree with T'Girl. Besides we've seen officers with a rank lower than Captain command a ship so why can't the same apply to First Officers that they can have a rank lower than Commander?.

 

Where was that? I mean, I know Sisko was still only a commander when Defiant was assigned to Deep Space Nine, and was her effective captain despite his rank, but I'm struggling to think of any other Trek ships whose commanding officer was not also a captain. Or admiral.

"Redemption" gave us a glimpse of it, with Data as commanding officer etc. But I gathered maybe that was an isolated incident, not the way the structure might work during a full-term posting.

 

What about Dax commanding the Defiant and I think we had another one early in DSN S2 "Second Sight""

 

^ Hm, Dax I'd argue is just one of any number of 'Acting Captains' -- Worf is a Lt Cmdr too and spends a lot of time as captain of the ship -- but I'll definitely pay you the "Second Sight" one, as the USS Prometheus in that episode is clearly under the full, regular command of a Lieutenant Commander. Which certainly support T'Girl's excellent theory.

 

And not only that, but her crewmates at that time called her Captain, which is exactly what they should do. (The commanding officer of any ship is always called Captain - regardless of actual rank.)

 

Dax was the captain in the same sense as Jellico was captain of the Enterprise.

 

I agree that, although Riker's promotion to full Commander may have been accelerated, he was a fast-track officer, due to his exceptional abilities and courage. I think a full Commander--Will Riker or anyone else--should be required for such a flagship as the Enterprise.

However, as some reference sources mention, the rank of Lieutenant Commander seems to be more appropriate to a position of department head (chief) of a smaller section than a ship, such as Operations, Engineering, Security or Science. Or, of course, some other administrative post, such as at a starbase.

 

If the operation of a Galaxy-class ship is comparable to the most elite vessels of contemporary navies--aircraft carriers--it might even be necessary for the executive officer to be of captain rank. Yes, the ship could have two people of captains rank, although only one of them would be the commanding officer.

 

In the real military rank relates to the number of people you command (in general, with exceptions), or are considered capable to command.

In real navies small ships with crews of 40 or 50 would be commanded by Lt. Cmdr or even Lt. ranks, we very rarely see this in Trek, which is a bit daft frankly, why would Picard who commands 1000 people share rank with someone commanding the USS Lantree, who commands 12?

But Voyager's XO being only a two and a half sort of makes sense. The Ent-D is a vastly larger ship, Riker was quite likely to end up commanding 1000 people (in fact as XO he sorta does), he requires three pips.

Department heads on the Ent-D probably typically have 100-150 crew or so reporting to them, so this ties up with the Voyager's XO only being a Lt. Cmdr, just like they are.

Trek gets rank wrong a lot though. Geordi goes from Lt. JG to Lt. Cmdr in two years - even if you assume his first promotion was well overdue, his second seems generous. This is especially true when you consider Worf's more casual ascent. To be fair though Worf breaks the rules a lot more often!

 

Thank you, USS KG5. You have clarified things considerably for me.

 

If the normal billet for chief engineer of a Galaxy-class starship is a lieutenant commander, then it's just a case of LaForge working his way to that during TNG's second season rather than skipping an entire grade altogether.

In the case of Worf, it could be that the billet for chief of security of a Galaxy-class ship only warrants a lieutenant. It probably wasn't necessary for Worf to become a lieutenant commander in Picard's chain of command.

Starfleet seems to differ from today's navy, so it may not be case of being wrong as it is Starfleet being not exactly the same as a service from hundreds of years ago.

 

Inconsistent with the real world military, rather than wrong, of course.

As for his position, its not hard to believe Geordi had a couple of two-and-a-half's working essentially under him in engineering. This is an embarrassing situation for him and maybe Starfleet is flexible enough to ignore time at rank and other such things.

It works out in the real world though. The real-life HMS Conqueror when she sailed for the Falklands had a Lt. Cmdr. as XO and a full Commander as Chief Engineer. According to the book "Sink The Belgrano" the engineer basically told him "look, you are the XO and I'l always back you in the wardroom, but please lend me an ear if I ask for one privately". Seems reasonable.

 

As far as we know, though, there were no lieutenant commanders in engineering during TNG's second season (there definitely weren't any seen or mentioned by then). As such, it wouldn't be an embarrassing situation, especially if he was the sole chief engineer.

 

FWIW in the Spanish-American War era the US Navy had first- and second-rate vessels (battleships, armored cruisers, protected cruisers) commanded by captains with lieutenant commanders as executive officers. There weren't enough commanders to assign them as executive officers under a captain; they generally commanded third-rate vessels (small cruisers, monitors and patrol gunboats) or held various shore assignments.

If Starfleet doesn't use commanders as executive officers in many cases, though, what do they do? It would make sense to me if there were numbers of smaller Starfleet vessesls under commanders, unseen but maybe employed on more "local" duties.

It also seems contrary to what Data says in "Datalore", where he outlines what would appear to be a standard officer progression with 10-12 years in the lieutenant grades.

That stems from the Royal Navy's practice of separating "warfare" officers (what used to be called "executive" or "military" officers, which the USN would call "line" officers) from engineers. The engineers would be promoted in relation to other members of their branch, not to warfare officers, but would never be able to succeed to command of a vessel no matter their rank. The US Navy considers engineering a basic component of the line officer's training, and doesn't use a separate branch. Starfleet seems to follow closer to the US model.

 

As Inderstand it, it's only relatively recently in the British Navy that the Chief Engineering Officer was allowed to eat in the officer's dining room aboard ship.

 

I guess it depends on what you consider recent; I believe the separate engineers' messes were eliminated in the 1880s and those officers allowed to eat in the wardroom.

 

Well, England *does* have a town called Newbridge that is so named because they replaced the old bridge... back in the 1200s. So, yeah. Recently.