Weird Harold wrote:
Crewdude's description is very similar to the way promotions were computed in the USAF when I retired. In the USAF system, you got points for seniority (Time-in-grade and Time-in-service,) points for promotion fitness test scores, and points for Fitness Reports filed by your reporting official. Eventually seniority would overwhelm even the lowest reports and test scores. (Except for a maximum time-in-grade limitation for each rank.)
The RMN doesn't seem to follow that r/w example very closely, but the accrual of "seniority points" does seem to be a part of the RMN system.
Not exactly.
You guys should remember that for all the RMN's current formidable reputation, it started out very small and was designed from the ground up by amateurs for a pre-prolong society. This means they didn't necessarily come up with the ideal solution to the nuts-and-bolts problems any military organization encounters.
Essentially, the system is purely seniority based
except that simple seniority can never get an officer onto the list. From midshipman through ensign all the way to Captain (JG), you are promoted on the basis of time in grade and completion of the appropriate training programs and duty slots. That is, there are certain academic and experiential requirements for each specialization and there are also academic and experiential requirements common to
every service specialization. You are promoted when you've spent enough time in grade
if you have completed the appropriate schooling and duty assignments to qualify you within your specialization and/or general service. If you haven't completed the training and duty assignments when seniority is calculated each year, you are passed over for promotion that year. For the most part, there's no pressure for a policy of "up or out." That is, someone like a Mercedes Brigham, who never caught the eye of someone who made a business of pushing her career but who was supremely competent at her current duties and level of responsibility, could stay there almost indefinitely. In fact, such an officer was regarded as extremely valuable, much as any officer in his right mind recognizes the value of a supremely competent senior noncom who could seek an officer's commission if he wanted one but chooses not to.
From the earliest days of the Navy, however, officer evaluations could affect the equation. Negative evaluations couldn't deprive you of seniority, but they definitely
could affect who got which duty assignments or admission to which training slots (or the Crusher) as they became available. And if you were passed over for the duty assignment or training you required for promotion, you were denied promotion. In addition, a negative evaluation — one which concluded that you were not adequately discharging your responsibilities at your current rank — triggered an Officer's Review Panel which could conclude that you needed to be placed on half-pay and kept there. (See below)
Positive evaluations, on the other hand, could legally be taken into consideration when examining an officer's training and experience jacket. If they were glowing enough, BuPers was allowed to grant waivers for items which hadn't been checked off on the understanding that they would be made up as rapidly as possible.
Once an officer makes Captain of the List, there are no more specified classes or duty slots which
must be checked off for promotion. If you live long enough, you
will make flag rank, promoted on the basis of simple seniority over everyone junior to you.
Officers --- both above the list and below it --- can be promoted for reasons
other than simple seniority, however. They can be promoted "out of the zone" at any time based on demonstrated competency and/or "the requirements of the service." Officers so promoted "leapfrog" the seniority system, which is how an officer like Honor Harrington winds up at her current astronomic rank despite the fact that there are hundreds or even thousands of officers who were senior to
Captain Harrington but are now extremely junior to
Fleet Admiral Alexander-Harrington. Historically, it was also how an officer with highly placed friends/patrons got promoted out of the zone whether or not he actually
merited that promotion. (Edward Janacek and Elvis Santino, anyone?)
An officer promoted out of the zone may or may not have completed all of the required training and duty assignments for his new rank, but in those cases a waiver is automatically granted and the Navy (in peacetime) makes certain that the opportunity to rectify the lack is made available to the officer as soon as possible, "consonant to the needs of the service". In wartime, when demonstrated competence is the most precious commodity a navy has and the manpower requirements of its rapid expansion demand it, a lot of peacetime promotion regulations are discarded (legally; there's a specific provision for doing so). Under those circumstances, the "check the boxes" business goes by the board, with the understanding that officers whose wartime duties prevent them from filling all the holes in their formal military education will probably "tidy up" once the shooting stops.
Obviously, there are ample opportunities for abuse in the system, which was one of the problems before Roger Winton began the overhaul of the Navy which — in addition to the R&D programs he established — took on the practice of political patronage in the Navy's promotions head on. This was still a significant problem during Honor's early career; it became steadily less of one between the time she graduated from Saganami Island and the events in
On Basilisk Station.
In addition, the system also means — especially with the advent of Prolong — that the Navy is likely to find itself lumbered with a whole bunch of flag officers who really shouldn't be trusted with a lemonade stand, much less a fleet command. That, however, is where the half-pay system comes in. The mere fact that an officer holds a given rank doesn't mean that he'll be employed. Officers can be put on half-pay for a lot of really bad reasons — as happened to Hamish Alexander and Edward Janacek's other enemies within the officer corps — but they can also be put there as a way to keep them out of mischief and from breaking some of the Queen's ships. So the entire time Thomas Bachfisch was on half-pay, he was continuing to accrue seniority (just as if he'd still been on active duty) and was routinely promoted as that seniority accrued. The half-pay system amounted in some ways to a pension system for incompetents; it also served as a way to maintain a reserve of qualified officers who might be more numerous than the service needed at any given moment. And while keeping a flag officer on half-pay was fairly pricey, keeping a lieutenant there was fairly cheap.
I'm not holding this up as an ideal system for managing a navy's personnel policies. It simply reflects the fashion in which the Royal Manticoran Navy organically grew from its starting point into the RMN of the 1850s with the People's Republic bearing down on it. The truth is, I deliberately designed it to be
less than ideal, for a lot of reasons, only one of which was to produce something which would hinder the promotion of a supremely gifted young officer. A promotion system rife with patronage considerations provided exactly the tool which political enemies could and would use to hamper someone's career. In addition, however, it's often seeing how a military service succeeds
despite its flaws that is most interesting. Of course, the fact that it
does succeed often prevents people from realizing the flaws are there, doesn't it?
