Posted on 05/12/2006 7:05:19 PM PDT by SandRat
They must have cool insignias, I'd like to see them.
I can give many good reasons why but you're 100% right.
OK here you go. Scroll to bottom of page. Some new names are halarious in a sad way.
BTTT
Also, the food onboard USNS ships is superb, prime rib, shrimp, lamb, lobster tails on a regular basis.
Did they do away with the SM (signalman) rating? I don't see it listed on there.
Likely MC - Mass Communication Specialist. Then they made Boiler Techs Machinist Mates too. Some of the names are kinda odd. They combined a bunch of ratings from what I can see. IMO not such a great idea. Machinist Mate needed to be split between the Mains & Auxiliaries as the fields covered in the rating were already far too diverse to learn. An AC&R could cross train to Cryogenics {02N2} and learn it fairly easy or even hydraulics such as elevators. These were A-gang Machinist Mate jobs.
BT's are disappearing, probably because the newer ships have the gas turbine engines. The first ones being the Perry class FFG's.
Could be. I remember a GS rating for gas turbines... BT's took care of the 1200PSI plants common to Diesel Fuel Marine Steamers. But even nuke carriers used BT's on the flight deck for catapult operations etc. They were related ratings but not the same. You could use GTE's on smaller ships that had previously been powered by Diesel Engines though or boilers. Some of the old cans 60's era build had boilers. LST's mostly had Diesel engines.
If they had split the MM rating in 1980 to Auxillaryman I would have given more serious thought to sticking around.
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