TOE is "Table of Organization and Equipment" and is one of the documents stating how a military force is to be organized. How many planes, how many pilots, how many people in the ground crew, and on and on and on. In a bit I'll try and dig up some examples and post a link. Questions like "What does CAG stand for" and "What's the CIC" are what this is for.

Since two such question have come up in rapid succession, I'll answer them here, and then leave off:

The CIC is the combat information center, it is the room in which information about the battle is collected, and it is a principle place from which any battle will be directed; on BG it seems to also include the functions of a ships bridge, which is the location from which a ship is driven. This strikes me as very reasonable for a ship in space.

CAG stands for Commander Air Group. While the Colonial the Colonial Fleet TOE (Table of Orginization and Equipment) remains a deep, dark mystery which we might hope to solve here, in Western navies (which BG more than a little resembles) the CAG commands the embarked air wing, and is a peer of (rather than subordinate too) the skipper of the carrier.

[Edited to add: Strega, is there anyway you, or someone else, can fix that "your"? Sorry. Homonyms are my natural predator]

Done. I made it "BG TOE" so it wouldn't be quite so long. Plus, it's rhyme-y.

On the show, the XO seems to be sort of a mediator in military decisions affecting both the air wing and the carrier -- which it seems like you'd need, but what do I know? Does that correspond to the modern navy? Or am I imagining the whole thing?

There's a great resourse availble on understanding how a USN carrier battle-group is organized at http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/navy/rfs/index.html . It's a little dated but it gets the high points, written for Reserve Officers reporting on-board for their duty-tours. It even has ship-board etiquette and what-to-pack.

GlobalSecurity.Org also has pages and pages of informations for those who might want to poke-about. http://globalsecurity.org/military/agency/navy/intro.htm

Current USN military doctrine has the Carrier's Captain and the CAG as co-equals reporting to the strike-force's commanding Admiral. The Carrier XO (usually of the rank of Captain) runs the ship-side of the day-to-day operations.

We've also met the Landing Signal Officer (LSO). In the miniseries his name was Captain Kelly. He's the guy who was questioning Adama about Tigh's fitness for command.

Like the CAG, this also is a real wet-navy position.

Also, as far as CIC goes, (reasonably minor spoiler follows)in a later episode there's a scene where Adama and company, in the midst of a battle, clearly change rooms between one with tactical displays and another where they give the ship movement commands. This seems to argue that there's either a CIC, or at least a battle briefing room of some type which is somewhat seperate from the bridge.

A less-detailed but still fun description of a USN carrier strike group is on the Navy page.

I'll take a shot at the rank structure.

amitskaw said over in the nitpicking thread:

Could be. The odd mix of army-style and navy-style ranks could be a result of Joint doctrine gone horribly wrong, resulting in a unified rank structure designed to confuse everyone (grin).

What we desparately need from the show's PTB is a table of rank insignia. Well, I deparately need one. I have a thing for rank tables. Ahem.

I had typed a lot more, but I found myself going in circles trying to figure out how a Commander can outrank a Colonel, and gave up. At least one other Marine had those two white bars on his helmet, by the way.

Helo who's stuck on Caprica referred to himself to Boomer as her ECO which I think means Electronic Combat Officer since he ran some controls in the back of the Raptor. Either that or it could be Equipment Control Officer.

Seconded.

I'll buy that. I have a tough enough time trying to keep the Army and Air Force acronyms straight at the Pentagon...

Maybe Galactica is a combination of an aircraft carrier and amphibious assault ship - more analogous to what the USN and USMC are doing with the Expeditionary Strike Group concept:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/navy/esg.htm

The ship certainly looks large enough to carry both her fighter wing and troops, and the hints at unrest on Sagittarion (President 'Stands with Dri-Erase Marker' mentioned President Adar sending in the Marines at the end of "33") certainly indicate a need for some sort of assault capability for the Colonial Navy.

Rhyme-y? I was pronouncing it "big toe"!

Thanks for this extrememly useful thread, though. I couldn't quite figure out the CIC acronym.

A word or acronym I've heard a few times on BG is pronounced something like "draedus". It appears to be referencing thair radar-like system. Anyone know what the word actually is, and what it refers to?

Thanks for this! I'd sort of had CIC figured out, but the whole might-also-just-be-the-bridge thing had me confused. But since it's all still sort of a combat situation anyway, it makes more sense to me now that I look at it. Man, as if I ever needed reason #865 not to join the military, it would be my complete inability to be down with rank, protocol, and acronymns/abbreviations.

I think the thing with the CIC is that it would (as far as I can make out) be used primarily when leading a Battlestar Group into battle. Since the Galactica doesn't have a carrier group anymore (unless, you know, Adama wants to start issuing orders like "Astral Queen, you fly up to the Cylons, go boogedy boogedy boo, and run away real fast") and really just needs to direct itself, the bridge is pretty much all they need.

The closed captioning spells it as dradis. I'm not sure what it is either. Google just gives me a list of BSG sites where people are trying to guess a definition.

It's their sensor/radar type system, right? At first I thought it was the name of a ship, but every ship seems to have a dradis (DRADIS?). It seems like it must be an acronym, but I have no idea what for.

GlobalSecurity.Org has the same problems we do with how things are "organized".

"... Land lubbers accustomed to the admirable clarity of the organization of the United States Air Force, or the slight quirkiness of the organization of the United States Army, will be quickly alarmed and bewildered by what claims to pass for the "organization" of the United States Navy. Indeed, those not of a naval persuasion may be surprised to learn that the Navy is "organized" at all, in that units intermediate between numbered fleets and individual ships so rarely figure in public accounts of naval activities. And the more that one learns of US Navy "organization" the less it is understood, given the bizarre diversity and inconsistency of unit designations. One source of this confusion is the distinction between tactical and administrative chains of command, while additional obscurity derives from individual commanders wearing multiple hats in various chains of command. "

This topic should be fun.....


DRAEDUS might be a deep-space version of the USN's AEGIS radar-aircombat system. (Hint: AEGIS is not an DoD acronym. Aegis was the armored-cloak worn by Zues and Athena, spun of Gold in the form of a goatskin, with the Gorgon's head as it's clasp.)

I always thought that the Aegis was the shield of Zeus, usually lent out to Athena, and briefly lent to Perseus. Medeusa's poor head decorated it after Athena got the shield back from Perseus.

Kind of how this website describes it.

Anyway, with all BG's pseudo-Greek mythology allusions, it wouldn't surprise me had they used "AEGIS" for such a thing, particularly when there's already a real world counterpart. So I'd assumed that "dradis" was something else.

I googled "dradis" as well and found that it is a surname. The country it originates from, I am not sure of.

Found this in IMDB Trivia page for the mini-series:

But the Doctor referred to in the last ep was a Major, so I think such lists are at best incomplete.

There aren't any colonels or majors in the USN. It goes ensign, j.g., lieutenant, lt. commander, commander, captain, then admirals.

I don't believe Bigfire claimed the quote was about the USN.

We can't really put this on Ron Moore and company either. The ranks were very central to the original show, and while they dumped a lot of the baggage of the original, I think they felt it somewhat essential to keep Adama as a "Commander", because it had become somewhat emblematic to call him that. From that I suppose it made sense to keep Tigh as a Colonel and so on, because that use of "Commander" was already nonsense. Glen A. Larson is to blame! Yup!

And actually "Major" does seem to have gotten lost. I mean Glen Larson was already pilfering multiple military services, so I wonder why "Major" got the boot.

If the quote about the rank structure pans out, then the two bars on Starbuck's helmet were indeed the correct rank, if the Colonials use US Navy tactical insignia (a variant of the "brass" insignia they wear on the khaki uniform collar. Which is the same as the other services' regular insignia, but completely different from the stripe-based insignia on the dress blue uniform sleeves, thus requiring each sailor to memorize two different insignia for each officer rank. It's not just a job, it's a giant headache). Or it could have been a coincidence.


There's a military joke there somewhere, but I can't quite think of it. Anyway, could the doctor be a Marine doctor? Maybe the Marines have Majors. The Navy probably got rid of it (assuming for the moment that the list above is complete) to avoid things like "Major Payne" or "Major Major."

Following the logic, Major should be a rank between Captain & Colonel.

My gut feeling is that DRADIS is just RADAR spelled sideways. There are a number of little things about the show that send the message, "They're just like us, only different." Instead of RADAR they have DRADIS. Instead of radio, they have wireless. Instead of "november" and "charlie," they have "nebula" and "constellation." Instead of "mayday" they have "crypter."

(I'm not saying that DRADIS works just like RADAR only with a different name. The inner workings could depend on modulated neutrino emissions or Einstein-Rosen particle pairs or the moral power of virginity for all I know. I'm just saying that our word for "machine that sees far for us" is "RADAR" while their word for the same thing is "DRADIS.")

I have to agree that DRADIS is sideways RADAR - maybe something like Distant Ranging And Detection Information System.

Snerk. Now that would make for some interesting conflict.

A small nitpick but we use the term wireless for radio as well. Though admittedly it's not incredibly common. Also, given how they've been treating the communication equipment on the ships (one way telegram-like communications over long distances, voice coms over short, and no communication after jumping away from the fleet) it looks very much like they're trying to be consistent with using a lightspeed limited electro-magnetic wave for communication.

In "Act of Contrition" Apollo says he's got 40 surviving Vipers (and 21 pilots). Does that fit into the context of this thread (which seems to be about military organization)?

Also in the episode, Starbuck makes references to LSOs (during her story about Cmdr. Adama's 1,000 landing) and meatballs (when trying to help the nugget land). The former presumably stands for Landing Signal Officer (as the one who would guide the Vipers to a safe landing) and meatballs as the signal that Vipers follow to the landing area. Seems pretty conforming to U.S. Navy stuff to me.

It took me awhile to figure it out, but when Apollo says we have only 21 pilots, we don't have enough to fly the CAP, he means Combat Air Patrol right?

Of course, that's 39 surviving Vipers now, isn't it?

All excellent points, I think this is a hang-over from the original Battlestar Gallactica, in that Glen Larsen clearly didn't have a bloody clue about what he was talking about half the time. Hence why the ranks are so screwed up.

As I understand it the rank of Ensign (Sublieutenant if you serve in the Royal Navy or any one of the Commonwealth Navies of countries that keep the Queen as head of state) is a rank that probationers who spend 6 months in on-the-job field training hold. After that 6 months is done you are promoted to J.G. Lieutenant and later First Class Lieutenant. The same principal applies to Air Forces generally, in the R.A.F. and Australian, Kiwi, Canadian, Caribbean etc examples, its called a Pilot Officer and then you become a Flight Officer, going up as Flight Lieutenant, Squadron Leader, Wing Commander, Group Captain, Air Commodore, Air Vice M, Air M and Air Chief Marshall and then Marshall of the Air Force. I presume the ranking goes in a similar system, its just that we haven't met any Ensigns or 2nd Lieutenant (Air) equivalents yet.

As for the Viper situation, they would have to be harvesting parts from broken Vipers or modern Viper-4s and stripping out the more modern components or reprogramming them with a far more simplistic software. If they don't come up with a sytem its gonna be ridiculous because it'll end up a little like Star Trek - Voyager with their never-ending supply of shuttlecraft. The most important issue here though is not the number of Vipers but the qualities of everything, the source for the components used to replace broken parts, the source for the ammunition, the source for their replacement food supply and fuel and how the other ships in the convoy cope with having prolonged journeys when many won't be designed to be carrying entire crews full to the rafters.

The other thing that troubles me a bit is this: the President of the Colonies is a President right? That implies influence at the very least over the military. Remember that bit in the mini-series when Roslin was speaking to the guy and she asked whether or not Adar had considered the possibility of surrender? That scene presumes that President Adar had power of some sort over the military was able to determine whether or not military hostilities could begin or cease. She herself towards the end tells Adama that "the war is over," in an empathic you will do as you are told kinda way and actually ordered him to come help her with survivors. As far as I can see that means that as President she is also Commander-in-Chief and therefore the one direct superior that Adama still has. If that's true then he's not just commited treason, which is a possible reading from 'Kobol Part II' but also mutiny. Certainly there would have been an eminently constitutional method to get rid of her and hand power over to the Vice President, an Article 25 if you will, Nixon used it to resign and hand power to Gerald Ford.

This cliffhanging situation could open potential to explore the system that's used in an interesting way, the source of Roslin's power versus the source of Adama's and how the political power always wins out in a democracy over the military one, if they are to pretend to be a democracy at all. Its a nice twist on the developing a civilisation thread that's been most openly discussed in 'Colonial Day.'

But to nit-pick for a show that's so interested in detail and accuracy as far as nailing down what would really happen if, its strange that they haven't really touched on the above.

Argh, spoiler tags! Please read the BG Ground Rules thread before you post again. I've tagged the whole post because I don't want to know 'future' events.

One of my favorite bits from this latest episode was Starbuck's use of the correct and formal military commands "on your feet" and "seats." Ever since Basic, I've gotten a kick out of the fact that the military has to come up with a different way to say everything, including "stand up" and "sit down." It's the little details that help it feel "real."

I thought the use of "nuggets" was cute too (I don't know if that's actual USN slang, I just liked it). I wonder if the non-aviators on the Galactica call the pilots "airedales."

Where does the term 'actual' come from

in a few episodes (and I think the mini) Adama is referred to as "actual" as in "let me speak to actual"

is this some Navy term for CO?

Dude, Nicmar, please watch for spoilers for the American viewers (as per the forum guidelines). As an American viewer, I'd really appreciate not seeing spoilers of future episodes -- no matter how vague.

Anyway, I would believe that CAP does stand for Combat Air Patrol and with only 21 flight-ready pilots they probably don't have enough to patrol around-the-clock and to have a stand-by "alert" patrol (which they launched when Starbuck and her nuggets detected the Cylon patrol). And yes, I guess they are down to 39 Vipers with the apparent destruction of Starbuck's plane.

I rewatched much of the miniseries last night and much of the terminology used in the mini seems consistent with the series (DRADIS, LSO, meatballs, etc.). I forgot the DRADIS console is in the center of CIC. Kudos for their consistency. Speaking of CIC, the BSG crew in there during the mini was huge, I wonder how the CIC is organized.

It seems Tyrol oversees a large portion of the crew. During the mini, he and his staff oversaw flight ops, damage control, repairs and cargo recovery. For an enlisted man, he's got a lot of clout.

Along the lines of the mini, President Rosslin is in a unique situation in that she is the commander-in-chief, but Adama is now the Supreme Commander of the Colonial Guard. Adama does have enough clout over his own men to withdraw his forces and leave the refugees high and dry regardless of any order from the president (so she has to use logic and persuasive arguments to get her way).

I believe that "actual" is a way to distinguish a radioman from a commander, if there's a common designation. If some craft, or a unit, was call-signed as let's say... Delta Six, than Delta Six Actual would be the commander of the craft.

At least that's what years of watching "JAG" taught me!

That's correct; they use this in both the navy and the army. Typically the tank commander is referred to as the 'actual' but is also referred to as whatever unit he's on.

Another reason I like this show, as pointed out elsewhere; the show assumes I know this stuff and doesn't bother explaining it.

He's a Chief, right? Chief Petty Officers pretty much run the Navy, much like their senior NCO counterparts in the other services. There is a theory that they are outranked by junior commissioned officers, but I've never met a senior NCO who believed it.

This is combination question/ comment about what is allowed. Based on what Tigh said last week, Boomer & Tyrol being together is against regulations and he wants them to stop. But apparently it was OK for a flight instruction (Kara) and her student(Zak) to be involved? Because neither Adama nor Lee seemed to bat an eye about their involvement, and I'd think it would be a big no-no, in part because of what we saw happen: the instructor passing the student based on their relationship, rather than the skills of the student.

It appears to me that he's the Command Master Chief, iow the highest ranking NCO. In the USN today a ship's website sometimes has pictures of three important persons: the CO, the XO, and the CMC.
I can't imagine that this situation was ok or would have been tolerated, even if it was a pre-existing relationship. Perhaps it was similar to the Boomer/Tyrol thing, i.e. winked at since the fleet was basically standing down.

It seemed like she and Zack were keeping it a secret--or at least subtle--until graduation or whatever, based on that letter Zack wrote that Adama asked Starbuck about, when she tried to avoid telling Adama that they'd been engaged.

All the military terms are giving me flashbacks to my Navy days.

One thing I was watching for, but didn't see, was when Stands with a Dry Erase came on board the Galactica, I was looking to see if they were going to ring bells and announce "12 Colonies of Kobol, arriving".

(On Navy ships, captains of vessels and above are announced on a shipwide PA, called the 1MC, by the name of thier ship/command/whatever. So the captain of the USS Dipstick coming aboard would be announced as "USS Dipstick, arriving" or departing or whatever.)

The difference between the Boomer/Tyrol thing and the Kara/Zack thing is this - Zack and Kara were both officers. While its still inappropriate - for exactly the reason that led to Zack's death, in theory the gap is not as big. In one of the cut scenes for the miniseries, Cally sums up the problem of Boomer/Tyrol very well. Boomer is an officer, Tyrol is enlisted. Boomer writes their reviews. Outside of a classroom situation, Zack and Kara's relationship would be fine, whereas Boomer and Tyrol would always be in trouble.

Enlisted/Officer is always frowned upon while HigherOfficer/LowerOfficer and HigherEnlisted/LowerEnlisted is generally winked at. In our own military, its very common place for enlisted folks to marry each other and the same with officers.

We know from Tigh's dialogue with Boomer that it's not just that she's an officer and Tyrol is an enlisted man, it's that she's his direct superior in the chain of command. They were able to wink at it because the ship was being decommissioned (and presumably they would have been reassigned, quite probably to different units), but in this situation they're stuck with her as his superior officer.

The same situation existed with Kara and Zack while Kara was his instructor, but was not existant once Zack graduated.

So both the rank difference and the superior/subordinate situation are of significance.

As far as terminology goes, I'm having problems with the strange (to me) verbal shortcuts (or something) that they use especially when flying. "Call the ball" and "Don't chase the mice" are examples from "Act of Contrition"

I figure "don't chase the mice" means "slow down" or something similar, and "call the ball" is something along the lines of "do you understand?" or "got that?" but I've been hearing things like this since the mini. Are they actual military or are they just being cute?

Calling the newbies "nuggets" struck me as one of these too. Maybe it's my total lack of military knowledge but these lines are a bit jarring to me when viewing because I have no clue what they're talking about.

"Call the ball" refers to the "meatball," a landing light system that uses Fresnel lenses to let the pilot know when he's properly lined up on the glideslope. I believe the early version was red, thus "meatball." The current system uses lights of various colors -- you'll see green when you're on glideslope. Here's some more I Googled:

I thought she was saying "don't chase the lights," and figured she was talking about the flashing lights that lined the deck, i.e. don't get distracted by them.

This properly belongs in the nitpick thread, but my problem with that whole scene is that it makes no sense in an outer space context. You wouldn't land on a battlestar by rocketing in under main thrust. You'd match velocity and carefully land using the control jets. Unless you were in a hurry, hence the "combat landings" we've seen previously.

It was "Don't chase the lights." The lights on the landing strip. Don't get road hypnosis and start following the blinking lights instead of landing. "Calling the ball" wasn't as clear, but given how it was used it seemed pretty much like, "I'm coming in for landing now."

I dunno, I think context was sufficient to get the idea. When I watch a medical show, I don't know what they mean when someone shouts that they've got a punctured floom and need 20 ccs of zigiwortz stat, but I don't need to understand that in order to get the general idea and follow the story.

[D'oh; Tanker was faster.]

Yes well lights does make more sense. I swear I heard mice and I just thought it was more wacky jargon.

But, that's all somewhat clear now. Thanks for the input. I guess the reason I find this dialogue more standout than the medical jargon is because it sounds like actual phrases. In med shows, the 20 CCs of whatever to stop the bleeding or some such doesn't strike me at all because I'm not necessarily meant to understand it. And I can figure it out if need be by watching what's going on. "Call the ball" on the other hand sounds strange and out of place, and I can't generally pick up contextual clues because I wouldn't think to refer to a light as a ball. Plus, having watched med shows in the past, I've picked up some of the lingo. Military shows are a whole new genre for me.

Anyway, I guess it's just another set of things I need to learn. Thanks for the help is this regard

This was my impression too, in addition to the thought that Starbuck's instruction (based on what she said next) was not to get caught up in the visuals of the lights ("road hypnosis") but to focus on the ship's readings. Essentially, not to land visually, but to come in using instruments. I thought that was interesting. For any pilots out there: is that the preferred method here on Earth?

""
I don't know for sure, but you _are_ still looking at lights -- just the ones from the meatball array and not the landing strip itself. Pilots know that they're on the right landing angle by making sure their plane is pointed at the right meatball light. Although the original meatballs were arrays of lights, the new systems might be electonic -- I would have to double-check.

The whole reason why the meatball system was developed in the first place was to develop a reliable way for pilots to know the trajectory and angle to land on an aircraft carrier (which is a postage stamp landing area for most aircraft and their pilots). Galactica is essentially a space-borne carrier.

IIRC, if you're "on the ball" that means that you're at the right angle to make a safe landing. If one focuses on the landing area and not the meatball, the chances of the pilot flubbing the landing increase.

As an analogy, it would like re-entering the Earth's atmosphere from space -- you have to re-enter at the right angle or something will go wrong. Too shallow, you'll bounce off the atmosphere. Too deep and you'll burn up.

I'm not a pilot so I might be totally wrong, but that's how I understood the concept of meatballs in carrier operations.

dcow--

Oh, don't worry about it; I've had that happen, where you hear something wrong and everyone else thinks it's obvious. To me it was clear, but I can totally understand mishearing it and getting very confused as a result.

But now I am going to picture mice on the landing deck. Aw! Heh.

RTOlson -- You don't need to put "" to indicate a reply; it's pretty much assumed, although you can quote if you feel like context is needed. Just a formatting tip.