The "Smaller" Departments

The smaller departments may seem unnecessary on a ship some days but large naval ships run so well today because every department works together to get the job done and make everyone as happy as possible. If one of the departments isn't on a ship then the other departments will need to step in or the mission will fail and/or moral will go down drastically. Here's a review of the smaller departments on ship:
Air Department
Deck Department
Administration Department and its rooms

Here's to hoping all of you have an amazing New Year's celebration and the best of luck throughout the new year.

Administration Rooms

As far as rooms needed by the Admin Department, the obvious one is a single office with many computers. Most departments have their own administration offices, often with a member of the Admin Department there to actually do the inputs of smaller awards and general secretary duties for the higher officers. The commanding officer has his or her own yeoman, or person from the Admin Department, to type up ship wide rules they wish to create, to keep the captain up to date on Navy wide rules, and to do things like input all the leave chits into the system that accounts for everyone on ship. A few of the officers may have their own offices, like the training officer who is in charge of helping people go to civilian colleges as well as military training and may want to discuss college planning with people in private.
Another part of the Admin Department is the public affairs people. The most visible part of this division are the photographers. Any official ship business done off ship has a photographer. Often photographers are present at any ship function such as drills, parties, morale boosters, and sometimes just everyday things. Their jobs are to take great pictures and tell the stories of those pictures in the way that will show those in them, the ship, and the Navy as a whole in the best light. They also stay up to date on events in coming ports, news articles that may pertain to the ship or its mission, and any possible stories from the personnel on ship that could be interesting enough to write articles on. As part of their job they also maintain any social media the ship deems wise to use, make sure nothing negative is put out about the ship, and write articles for Navy-wide publications.

Administration on Ship

We’ve looked at Engineering, Operations, Air, and Deck Department spaces, now let’s talk about your Administration Department. Before you can get into placing your rooms for this department you need to decide how paperwork will be handled on your ship. Modern Navy ships still use printed paper for most request forms on a ship. Things like trouble tickets that need to be monitored by more than just a single division are submitted by the local intranet on ship and many big Navy things, like service records, are now computerized. You may wonder what administration is needed on ship and my answer would be everything. Most shops on a ship, or the shops on shore that help maintain ships in a more specialized way than ship’s force should be expected to know, keep manuals on all their systems, many times having duplicate manuals or they forget to throw out the old manuals when their systems get updated. That can take a lot of paper in a time when Hollywood predicts paper will be scarce. Also, almost everything that is done on ship needs written request forms to start. Whenever a system needs to have all power removed, it needs to have the breaker turned off and that requires a request form and maybe permission from other shops if they share a breaker. Doing painting inside the ship you need approval that the space is ventilated correctly as well a request sheet to take paint from the paint locker. Borrowing tools from various shops on ship that keep extra tools or supplies occasionally needed by many shops, such as test equipment or protection gear for high voltages, requires written proof as to when it was checked out and by whom. When an award is given or someone is punished, it needs to be added to the person’s service record so everyone can see it. When someone wants any kind of schooling they need to route a “chit” up their chain of command, to the training officer for approval and back down the chain of command so everyone knows the decision. I believe a few of the Star Trek people mention “putting in for leave.” Have you ever wondered how that’s done? A person fills out a chit saying when they want to go, where they’ll be staying, and how they can be gotten a hold of for the requested period of time. That piece of paper is then handed and approved all the way up the chain of command to the commanding officer who must approve every leave chit. If approved it then goes to Admin Department to be put in the system and the person picks the chit up from the Quarterdeck to sign out on leave. If that person gets in trouble while on leave and doesn’t have a copy of the signed chit on them, they can be considered UA, unexplainably absent, and get in a lot of trouble.

Operations Department

The next department we talked about on a ship that you should consider placing on your fictional space ship was Operations Department.

The Pilote House
The Quarterdeck
Chart Room
Thoughts on Space Weaponry
Weapons Control
Ammunitions Storage
The Armory
Training Area and Plan

Engineering Rooms on a Ship

Now that we're about halfway through the departments on a ship it seems like a good time to review the rooms we've thought about so far. Let's start with the rooms of Engineering Department:

Main Engineering
The Engine Room
The Log Room
Waste Management On Ship
Electrician's Shop
Emergancy Repair Shop
Other Specailty Shops

Deck in Space.

The next department on a ship to talk about is Deck. Deck Department is rather the odd-jobs area of responsibility. In the modern navy Deck Department makes sure the hull of the ship is rust-free, both what’s visible above the waterline and any deck (floor) visible outside the ship as well as directing extra personnel needed from other departments in huge jobs such as mooring the ship or underway replenishments where supplies and fuel is transferred from a cargo ship to a working ship in the middle of the ocean. Deck Department is also responsible for the rails and lifelines that circle the ship to keep personnel on ship and most of the watches outside the hull of the ship underway. Deck members are the ones on rotating shifts watching for people that fall overboard or for ships or planes that are visible. Anything the lookouts see gets radioed up to the bridge and they react accordingly.
In the future Deck Department may disappear but if they don’t than Deck could be responsible for any repairs or upgrades needed on the hull as well as replacing deck plates inside the ship, maybe even doing any maintenance needed on the exits from the ship to space or other ships
(airlocks) and escape pods.

Attack Fighters: A Wing, Just a Few, or None Needed?

Another thing to think about when considering weapons on ship is if you have smaller attack ships onboard. Large ships could work as a modern aircraft carrier which is designed as a staging point for air attacks. Smaller ships that can’t carry as much fuel for long trips can be carried in larger ships and be deployed closer to the target with full fuel tanks so they can still maneuver without worrying about having fuel to get back to the planet or station they left. If you don’t have a huge ship but need a lot of protection, it may be smart to have small defense ships designed to go for short times out in space and deliver a powerful punch before returning to refuel and recharge. Such boats (vessels unable to support themselves long without assistance) would have to be single person cockpits, like an escape pod, or be remotely operated drones, which would save lives and could be expendable if a ramming was needed.
If you have a fighter wing or just a small group of pilots, they would probably fit under a different department. The Air Department, or whatever you want to call them, would be responsible for navigation on any vessel designed to leave the ship, making sure any weapons on the vessels are always ready, and any maintenance needed is always done on time. This department could also work on the escape pods, simply checking each month that they are perfectly useable, but that would likely continue as a Deck Department job, which will be discussed in the next post.