User talk:FleetCaptain/StarTrekVSNavy

Your comments and questions
Hi. I want to say that you have done a nice job comparing a few things in star trek and us navy. I must say that the captains chair was a surprise to me. -- Örlogskapten... My channel... 19:21, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The chair in CIC is more like the Star Trek Captain's Chair. I updated the page to explain the difference. -FleetCaptain 18:16, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Ensign Harry Kim
Here's a little anecdote that Garrett Wang told at a convention (I bet he does that on any convention he goes to):

...about a friend of Garrett who sat in another part of the plane. After the flight he came to Garrett together with a man, his seat neighbor, and said "Meet Harry Kim." The guy was actually named Harry Kim, and he had been in the US Navy as Ensign Harry Kim while Voyager was on air. Garrett imagines how often people must have made fun of the true Harry Kim...

Reference:

Bernd 21:04, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Captains in charge of squadrons
Fleet is a term that doesn't correlate exactly between Starfleet and the Navy. In the Navy, I read that a squadron of destroyers might be commanded by a Captain (sometimes referred to as a commodore in that capacity). So might a Starfleet "fleet" be more akin to a squadron? Although a Navy Captain would never command multiple ships of cruiser class and above.

There seem to be no carriers in Starfleet. Admirals tend to be found in Carrier Strike Groups these days (out at sea). I'm not sure what the various Enterprises should be considered. They've been termed "cruisers" in fandom, but they don't really correspond with anything in our Navy. No Enterprise ever needed support ships, of any kind; in Star Trek era a starship seems to carry the man and firepower such that it corresponded to the modern equivalent of a task force. An Admiral might put his flag on a single starship, but he might be sending orders to other starships many light-years away thanks to subspace communications. He'd probably never take over the daily operations of a ship, though.

Remember, though, Starfleet is a strange beast. They have taken civilian control of the military to such a degree that an ambassador can commandeer a starship and issue orders in place of the Captain.

Also, there have only been Admirals in Star Trek, not Rear Admirals or Vice Admirals, etc. That has been added by fandom based on our current Navy. A Captain in Star Trek might be better equated with a modern Rear Admiral. A Starship is an immensely powerful vessel and with only twelve of them spread across Federation space (in the original series), a Captain was responsible for a considerable chunk of territory.