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Ex.: John Kennedy commanded a PT boat (PT-109) during WWII. He was a lieutenant in rank, but he was the "captain" of the boat. If an admiral were aboard, Kennedy would still command the ship, although he would have to take orders as to the mission, targets, etc. from the admiral.

*EDIT* I think Kirk's branch of service was Starfleet. Not sure, though.

Mikey wrote:Ex.: John Kennedy commanded a PT boat (PT-109) during WWII. He was a lieutenant in rank, but he was the "captain" of the boat. If an admiral were aboard, Kennedy would still command the ship, although he would have to take orders as to the mission, targets, etc. from the admiral.

*EDIT* I think Kirk's branch of service was Starfleet. Not sure, though.

I was actually thinking of Red October by John Clancy if I remember right. An Cheif Engineer was complaining to himself about how unfair it would be to hold the rank captain but not be allowed to captain a ship because he was an engineer. But it's been a while and it was just a book.

Mikey wrote:*EDIT* I think Kirk's branch of service was Starfleet. Not sure, though.

Captain Picard's Hair wrote:

Mikey wrote:*EDIT* I think Kirk's branch of service was Starfleet. Not sure, though.

Thought you'd like that.

PR - I believe you're right about it working the opposite way - having a rank of captain doesn't necessarily mean that you have the position of captain; i.e., as the skipper of a boat.

In Obsession, we see that Kirk is haunted about having hesitated to fire on the vampire cloud creature. McCoy says "11 years ago, you were the young officer at the phaser station when something attacked."

So Kirk served at tactical.

But then he also led the survey mission on Tyree's planet, which means he did some work in sciences.

It doesn't seem unusual that young officers transfer around a bit. Sulu was a helmsman, but I seem to recall that he worked in the physics labs at one point?

GrahamKennedy wrote:But then he also led the survey mission on Tyree's planet, which means he did some work in sciences.

Not necessarilly - he may simply have lead that mission on grounds of rank/experience/ability, etc. I'd expect such a mission (indeed any mission) to be lead by someone who had good organisational and leadership skills (and could be relied upon to keep their head if things went pear-shaped), and assign the rest of the party based on their departmental expertise.

GrahamKennedy wrote:Hard to say Spock wasn't on a "command track". He WAS the Enterprise Captain in Star Trek II, a position he reached without doing the KM test.

True, but he was the Captain of a training ship, and surrendered said command when the ship returned to active duty.

Hard to imagine an unqualified person being put in command of cadets. Surely you'd want that guy above all to know what he was doing?

He was also XO of the UFP's flagship for quite some time; his command ability was even thought well enough of to allow him to serve as both XO and chief science officer simultaneously, which can't be a common situation.